It's Okay, I didn't love it

This show tries to reconcile two ideas: Being a lighthearted romcom while dealing with the topic of mental illness. It ends up being mediocre at both.

Starting with the romcom aspect: The actors are doing a good job and the story flows well, although there are a lot of story points that go nowhere. Some of the subplots I found uninteresting and the characters sometimes annoying. The soundtrack is good, untypically for kdramas there is actually western pop mixed in. The main story relies heavily on the before mentioned mental illness theme.

And this brings me to the second aspect: the mental illness. And this has multiple issues.
First, it is ubiquitous taking away from the impact: almost all characters either suffer from mental illness or are psychiatrists or both.
Second, a lot of those afflictions go nowhere and feel like a gimmick.
And the third and most problematic point: the show is staying incredibly lighthearted. People will talk about the issues and will cry a lot. But only once in the show I actually felt an impact from them. And that was from a short episode of a side character couple.

So in the end the drama fails at what it wants to do, but overall I still enjoyed watching it.

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How to ruin a great show

The first episodes I really loved this show. The main couple is absolutely adorable and especially the lead Yoon Jin Ah is evolving throughout the story. The supporting characters well defined. Subplots are interesting and relatable: whether it is the dealings with sexual harrasment at work, the problems with the ex-boyfriend or the fear of how friends and family react to the slightly unusual couple. Overall the show is slow but well paced at this point in time.
Until there I would rate this show with a 10, so much did I enjoy it.

But then, the writing goes downhill fast: Suddenly the until that point likable lead character becomes absolutely determined to make borderline-crazy decisions seemingly only to make life hell for the male lead. I have seen this happening in shows before - creating artificial drama where non should be, because some more episodes are needed - but never to this extent. The same happens to some of the supporting characters as well.

The actors seem as confused by this as the viewer, as the acting becomes noticable worse. To stretch the overall slow pace even further, we are presented with minute long scenes of people walking or driving - at this point I was thankful for the "+10 seconds"-button and the newly introduced "x1.5"-speed option of Netflix. And to make things the most annoying song of the very limited soundtrack is played multiple times per episode, often louder than the spoken word.

So, how does the show still rate 8 for me? The beginning is just so very good that I would recommend others to watch it, even if you will be frustrated by the horrible second half.

And now to the spoiler part:
I need to point out how horrible a person the mother is. It is one thing to want a good match for your daughter but the fanatic crusade she wages against the main couple is ridiculous. At some point I was suspecting, that she once had an affair with Seo Joon Hee's father and the main couple are actual siblings by blood.
So as the show itself, I will end on a bad note and say: the only thing that can redeem the mother character is actual incest.

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Entertaining show, not fulfilling modern standards

When I tried watching Secret Garden the first time I dropped it after half an episode. Like many pre-2015 dramas it is really
Horrible production value both in video and audio - think of an older daily soap,
bad acting or rather alternative acting skills - painting a caricature of the characters rather than being believable and
cringe-worthy moments - have you ever heard a Korean woman demonstrating her English skills with a high pitched "excuse me"? That sends shivers down my spine.

When I picked the show up again, I steeled myself to at least watch 2 episodes. And the good news is: you get used to those points and the show actually is entertaining enough to let you finish it.

But even then there are multiple issues with the show: It is weirdly paced, with the supernatural elements only kicking in 6 episodes in and a lot of comedy resulting from them were a miss for me. You have the whole "Korean super-rich - we do not behave like humans - everybody around us is forced in a servitile position"-trope going on which isn't my favourite. And at the beginning the male lead is stalking and harassing to a point slightly outside my comfort zone.

Don't get me wrong: there are good sides as well, like properly dealing with its more serious themes like injury and social pressure.

If the production value was up to today's standard I would give it a 7 or 8. But as it is, it is mediocre at best and I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it.

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