I know that there are many people who thought that Love Next Door was going to be another hit romantic comedy from tvN - blame the marketers for advertising this show as Jung Hae-in's "first romcom".

However, Love Next Door is NOT a romcom. It is a family drama with romantic and comedic elements. And if you go into it looking for a romcom, you'll be disappointed (as many people watching the show as it aired were).

And so I'll be reviewing this show as it is and as what it tries to achieve, many of which did not hit the mark, at least for me. From the synopsis, what I expected from this show was the story of two life-long friends who find love and comfort in each other as they navigate the ups and downs of life. Unfortunately, what I got was a show trying to balance a million storylines and ending up doing none of them any justice.

(Possible spoilers from here on out so beware)

Love Next Door tries to follow an episodic, slice-of-life format. Each episode is somewhat self-contained with a particular theme it seeks to explore. However, what the drama doesn't do as well is linking these different mini-plots together so that there's a main plotline that takes us through the whole sixteen episodes. So these plot points and themes feel like they really serve no purpose other than filler rather than furthering the plot in a meaningful way.

We also don't see a lot of the characters grow in any organic way; their characterization is as the plot demands. This is not to say that characters need to be perfect; in fact, I loved how all the characters were flawed in many ways. But it's expected that they should develop as the story progresses. What we get instead is some growth at the end of an episode, and by the next episode, they're back to square one, and this pattern continues until the last two episodes where all the growth is seemingly jam-packed. As a result, none of their realizations seem natural or earned, especially because of the writers' obsession with using illness and/or catastrophe (combined with illogical fake-outs) and miscommunication tropes to force character development.

The romance aspect was also poorly developed. The biggest error they made was centering the romance on Seung-hyo's POV and not giving us any gradual build-up in their romantic tension. Even until the end, it felt like Seung-hyo was carrying Seok-ryu along in their relationship. And no, flashbacks to their high school days aren't enough to establish Seok-ryu's feelings, especially when she was literally engaged after the fact and would have married her fiancé if not for her cancer. For me, this resulted in a distinct lack of chemistry in their romantic scenes.

The second couple aren't any better to me, even though it seems they're popular with a lot of people. Mo-eum is one of my favorite characters from the show, but I'm still a bit weirded out by her obsession with that little girl? It feels like she was all their relationship was built on. And did the writers forget that Mo-eum's dream was to go to Antarctica before trying to shove her into this family that already has death/abandonment related trauma?

Even the dialogue was so overwritten. There were often these clever or touching moments, and then the characters would keep talking and beating you on the head with the themes instead of said themes being shown to us organically through the story and their actions.

My favorite part of this show, and basically all I stayed for, was Seok-ryu following her dream of becoming a chef, and I really liked how they tied that into the cancer plot. I also like the Lavender crew, even though I could have done with less of their scenes. And there were some truly standout emotional and comedic scenes.

I'm sad to give a review like this to a show I anticipated highly, because I really love So-min and while I've not watched any of his stuff, I know Hae-in is an amazing actor. To be honest, the cast did well with what they were given, but I don't think the writing wasn't as great as it could have been.