It wasn't bad but that doesn't mean it was good

Let me start this off with the two actual good things about this show: the casting and the cinematography . The cast was great and they did so well with they had to work. The cinematography was sooo nice, the scenes were shot really well, which usually is a big pet peeve of mine. These two factors made the show seem waaaay better than it actually was and on the surface it really seems like a good show. However, looking behind the pretty surface shows lack of care in character and plot development.

I went into watching this with little to no expectations, so at first glance it seemed like a good drama. I watched it in a day (4 episodes in the morning and 4 at night) and it was a smooth watch, something easy and kind of simple. Which is exactly where the problem lies in my opinion. I loooove a good easy show, something not too taxing to watch and that gives me a chance to enjoy a silly little watch. And Jazz for two could've done just that but they didn't and that was unsettling. I am no fan of big conflicts in shows but I do appreciate that when it happens there's room to solve the conflict and work it out. In the case of this show nothing like that ever happens. Be it the absolute toxicity of the side-couple's relationship or the SA that just gets sweeped under the rug. I get that with the running time being this short there's not enough room for big conflicts to get solved extensively, however, as a director there should be a certain awareness around what you can and can't do with your resources. If there's not enough time to properly discuss heavy themes then for the love of god do not introduce them?

Taeyis reaction to the kiss was absolutely vile and not justified no matter how internalized his homophobia is. For someone that had such a violent reaction to a kiss from another guy he got over it pretty fast, which is just poor character planning on the showrunners side. The inconsistency in the character development is baffling to me. Let's not get into how Seheon didn't even get a real apology, he just suddenly got kissed and a little "sorry" and all was well.

Doyoon and Jooha are problematic on a similar level but even having less screentime than the maincouple they somehow managed to make that relationship seem more controlled and plausible. The intense homophobia coming from every single couple, even the brothers (what even was that, introduced solely to serve as a poor reason for the maincouple to break up for like? 2 minutes?), is just too much to solve with that kind of running time when you're already trying to get two strangers to establish some sort of bond, then to fall in love and then to overcome a heavy topic like suicide within their relationship. All the while they're dealing with school work, a controlling dad that just suddenly disappears (seriously where did he go?) after he served as a plot drive to get the main couple to become closer and writing a song/winning at a festival. There's so much going on that you don't even have time to process everything that's going wrong cause they keep piling up new plot points for the watcher to digest.

So, as the title suggests, overall it wasn't that bad, it's just that it wasn't good either.

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????

At this point I don't even know where to begin picking this apart and explaining all the ways they messed up every step of the production in this show. Starting with the fact that someone actually decided to give actual real money financial support to this project for it to be made. It definitely wasn't alot or I sure hope it would've turned out somewhat watchable. As a writer you need to be embarassed if your show makes so little sense and is so devastatingly incoherent that I as a viewer have no problem skipping through 70% of it and still grasping the idea that might have kickstarted this. As a director you should rethink your entire career if this is what you produce with a decent cast. It is giving 13-year old finds out what Wattpad is and writes their first story. Trying to save the show with very explicit sex scenes that could pass as actual porn is also not really doing anything for your reputation as a director/writer/producer.

I think the main reason I feel so strongly about this is because it could've easily been such an adorable show. A cute little watch with a storyline that's not even original enough for the crew to use as an excuse for whatever went wrong down the line. The "falls first falls harder" plot is such a banger trope it is very hard to be unskilled enough to mess it up but I guess there has to be someone managing even that.

POSITIVES: The cast! Very nice and the only ones that were apparently qualified to work on that set. Very sad for them that it ended up as nothing more but sth people watch when they literally cannot find anything else.

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Literally the best Korean BL

This is such a good show, it's been over 2 months and I am still not able to move on. The entire story is well thought out and makes perfect use of all the tools the setting allows. Using all the tricks it can but still keeping it tangible for the viewer, the characters choices are always relatable to a certain degree. The concept is just really well thought-out and they worked so well with the running time as well. It's easy for alot of plots to become really surface level when there's not much time to develope certain plot drives but that's really not the case here.

The casting is amazing as well, they have great chemistry and they work really well as a friendgroup too, not just within the couple. The cinematography is chef's kiss, i loved it from beginning to end.

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