pox
My Roommate Is a Disappointment*
Whoever wrote this show has an amazing talent to take something and turn it into nothing. I pity absolutely everyone involved starting from directors, actors, characters and down to the very audience. You might think this is a romantic tragedy, but I'd argue it's a cinematic tragedy.
They took a very particular and very interesting lore and made it as bland as possible. The whole story feels like a pilot episode on repeat. Continuous irrelevant nonsense with no romantic progression. It starts out alright but the quality drops heavily after episode 7 or so. Literally the only reason this show is watchable is because the actor is eye candy and even that has a time limit before you stop caring and get exhausted. This gumiho, Shin Woo-Yeo, is a confused, ice cold, poorly written character who doesn't know what he wants in life let alone love and the only thing saving him from falling apart is his pretty face. My guy has lived for 999 years but is more confused than your average teenager.
Furthermore, Shin has been done a giant disservice because everyone else in this whole story has been presented better. Everything mysterious about him that could have been kept a secret is thrown in your face in the pilot episode. All we were left with was his confusion and struggle with normal everyday things. This poor guy had so much potential that went down the drain immediately because of poor directing. A story with this kind of writing makes Twilight look like a bloody masterpiece. If you ever want to ruin a mysterious supernatural character then do exactly what this drama did. Just dish it all out immediately and leave no suspense or surprise left. Then he can suck along with the rest of the humans in the story and suck even more because he was never human so he can't blend in.
Then there is the opposing romantic interest that keeps being treated like utter garbage throughout the story. This guy has far superior character development than the gumiho himself. He actually respects boundries and has common sense unlike the weird gumiho who stalks, invades privacy and a whole list of other alarming behavior. His existence is there just to make you feel bad for no reason whatsoever. I literally felt bad whenever his scenes came up because I knew it was pointless torture of a great character and torture of the audience. The actor of this guy did such an amazing job that it made me sick to my stomach to watch him go through everything he does. If the opposing romantic interest is more interesting and entertaining than the main one then you have failed as a writer. You made Shin lose by making him pretend to be a human, suck at it and then put him up against an actual human who's existence is there just to suffer.
What's worse is that this thing continuously doesn't even reward you for watching it. It tortures you. The cliffhangers deceive you into thinking it's going to be all good but then it turns sour anyway. It's like a prank gone bad. Instead of going from point A to point B, they shut down B and bring you back to A instead of progressing to C. None of the breaks I took mattered. It took me days to finish one episode. This repetitive nonsense is an attack and insult to your intelligence and your enjoyment depends entirely on the fact whether you can look past his face and see the character and the story for what it really is. Even the good parts became bad because a soon as it was remotely good I knew it was time for b-b-b-b-bullsh*t.
General writing and production has gone wrong and bad as well. Unbalanced and unorganized disaster. Things that matter are put on hold for fillers all the time. New things and plot points are a mess as well. They absolutely suck at presenting new characters and then it appears as if they don't know what to do with them so it looks as if those characters went on vacation and gave their middle finger to the plot. By the time they appear again you've forgotten they existed. One of them is presented as important and then literally never appears again nor do you hear from them again. They sacrificed plot points for CGI that didn't have to be there to begin with. They even wasted all their SFX talent and budget on the most boring things. The CGI was so forced for no reason and then it never happened again because of the wasted budget. Even though that was the main fantasy aspect which is now gone. The amount of flashbacks made me feel like I was experiencing commercials.
Speaking of commercials. The karaoke scenes felt more like a shameless plugin of kpop idols to promote their music rather than something characters did to enjoy. I didn't even care for OST how forgettable it all was but I wasn't necessarily annoyed by it. There's a bunch of sponsorship ads within the show and they didn't even hide it. The amount of focus that went onto something as dumb as coffee was ridiculous. They really made sure to zoom in on the brand so you can read it 20 times before moving onto the plot itself and then they even made Shin comment how great it is. Really? A gumiho is drinking coffee and advertising it? What is this, Tokyo Ghoul?
Morality of this thing is questionable as well because it's toxic to the core. Every situation in this show is a great example of today's relationships and issues. It presents bad and toxic friendships along with toxic romance as something good or worthy of your time. The girl is getting arguably the worst advice possible throughout the entire show. The communication is broken and flawed for the sake of being "funny". There's a sprinkle of wisdom here and there but it doesn't make up for all the damage. Toxic mind games and bullsh*t all the time. One of her friends in particular is the most annoying apathetic human being possible. She can't see past her own nose and doesn't even realize the damage she is causing. Once it's all over and done with she doesn't even apologize or acknowledge her behavior or mistakes. There's no character progression for her and everyone around her just accepts it as something normal. What she does near the end is despicable. If I had a friend like her I would've cut her out of my life. This kind of character or person doesn't deserve screen time in positive light.
Romance of side couples feels so forced. You can just tell the actors themselves aren't buying it either because even they can't make it believable. But for whatever reason everyone that exists in this show had to hook up with someone at some point regardless of how little sense it made. Regardless of whether it was needed or not. It's like they hate the existence of single people. That's a foreign concept that's impossible for this writer. Being single is a no no. Yet another toxic mindset.
I suffered so much to finish this. It has its cute and funny moments but the overall message is wrong. There is nothing in this show worth your time. None of the good it has makes up for the mountain of bad. None.
Please do yourself a favor and never watch this.
They took a very particular and very interesting lore and made it as bland as possible. The whole story feels like a pilot episode on repeat. Continuous irrelevant nonsense with no romantic progression. It starts out alright but the quality drops heavily after episode 7 or so. Literally the only reason this show is watchable is because the actor is eye candy and even that has a time limit before you stop caring and get exhausted. This gumiho, Shin Woo-Yeo, is a confused, ice cold, poorly written character who doesn't know what he wants in life let alone love and the only thing saving him from falling apart is his pretty face. My guy has lived for 999 years but is more confused than your average teenager.
Furthermore, Shin has been done a giant disservice because everyone else in this whole story has been presented better. Everything mysterious about him that could have been kept a secret is thrown in your face in the pilot episode. All we were left with was his confusion and struggle with normal everyday things. This poor guy had so much potential that went down the drain immediately because of poor directing. A story with this kind of writing makes Twilight look like a bloody masterpiece. If you ever want to ruin a mysterious supernatural character then do exactly what this drama did. Just dish it all out immediately and leave no suspense or surprise left. Then he can suck along with the rest of the humans in the story and suck even more because he was never human so he can't blend in.
Then there is the opposing romantic interest that keeps being treated like utter garbage throughout the story. This guy has far superior character development than the gumiho himself. He actually respects boundries and has common sense unlike the weird gumiho who stalks, invades privacy and a whole list of other alarming behavior. His existence is there just to make you feel bad for no reason whatsoever. I literally felt bad whenever his scenes came up because I knew it was pointless torture of a great character and torture of the audience. The actor of this guy did such an amazing job that it made me sick to my stomach to watch him go through everything he does. If the opposing romantic interest is more interesting and entertaining than the main one then you have failed as a writer. You made Shin lose by making him pretend to be a human, suck at it and then put him up against an actual human who's existence is there just to suffer.
What's worse is that this thing continuously doesn't even reward you for watching it. It tortures you. The cliffhangers deceive you into thinking it's going to be all good but then it turns sour anyway. It's like a prank gone bad. Instead of going from point A to point B, they shut down B and bring you back to A instead of progressing to C. None of the breaks I took mattered. It took me days to finish one episode. This repetitive nonsense is an attack and insult to your intelligence and your enjoyment depends entirely on the fact whether you can look past his face and see the character and the story for what it really is. Even the good parts became bad because a soon as it was remotely good I knew it was time for b-b-b-b-bullsh*t.
General writing and production has gone wrong and bad as well. Unbalanced and unorganized disaster. Things that matter are put on hold for fillers all the time. New things and plot points are a mess as well. They absolutely suck at presenting new characters and then it appears as if they don't know what to do with them so it looks as if those characters went on vacation and gave their middle finger to the plot. By the time they appear again you've forgotten they existed. One of them is presented as important and then literally never appears again nor do you hear from them again. They sacrificed plot points for CGI that didn't have to be there to begin with. They even wasted all their SFX talent and budget on the most boring things. The CGI was so forced for no reason and then it never happened again because of the wasted budget. Even though that was the main fantasy aspect which is now gone. The amount of flashbacks made me feel like I was experiencing commercials.
Speaking of commercials. The karaoke scenes felt more like a shameless plugin of kpop idols to promote their music rather than something characters did to enjoy. I didn't even care for OST how forgettable it all was but I wasn't necessarily annoyed by it. There's a bunch of sponsorship ads within the show and they didn't even hide it. The amount of focus that went onto something as dumb as coffee was ridiculous. They really made sure to zoom in on the brand so you can read it 20 times before moving onto the plot itself and then they even made Shin comment how great it is. Really? A gumiho is drinking coffee and advertising it? What is this, Tokyo Ghoul?
Morality of this thing is questionable as well because it's toxic to the core. Every situation in this show is a great example of today's relationships and issues. It presents bad and toxic friendships along with toxic romance as something good or worthy of your time. The girl is getting arguably the worst advice possible throughout the entire show. The communication is broken and flawed for the sake of being "funny". There's a sprinkle of wisdom here and there but it doesn't make up for all the damage. Toxic mind games and bullsh*t all the time. One of her friends in particular is the most annoying apathetic human being possible. She can't see past her own nose and doesn't even realize the damage she is causing. Once it's all over and done with she doesn't even apologize or acknowledge her behavior or mistakes. There's no character progression for her and everyone around her just accepts it as something normal. What she does near the end is despicable. If I had a friend like her I would've cut her out of my life. This kind of character or person doesn't deserve screen time in positive light.
Romance of side couples feels so forced. You can just tell the actors themselves aren't buying it either because even they can't make it believable. But for whatever reason everyone that exists in this show had to hook up with someone at some point regardless of how little sense it made. Regardless of whether it was needed or not. It's like they hate the existence of single people. That's a foreign concept that's impossible for this writer. Being single is a no no. Yet another toxic mindset.
I suffered so much to finish this. It has its cute and funny moments but the overall message is wrong. There is nothing in this show worth your time. None of the good it has makes up for the mountain of bad. None.
Please do yourself a favor and never watch this.
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