274. Panda and the Hedgehog 판다양과 고슴도치 (2012) Korean

Lee Dong Hae, Yoon Seung Ah, Choi Jin Hyuk, Yoo So Young

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A+

We started this one because we were in the mood for cheesy and we wanted to look at lots of pretty Dong Hae.  I didn't expect Dong Hae to actually be pretty decent at acting.  Better than some other idols I've watched dramas for.  This was a ridiculous show nevertheless.  The villain was over-the-top bad and I ended up calling him "Rat Saekki" because his was just the worst, and stupid.  I have no idea how he managed to hide from the law for so long, because they were doing so many illegal things, both he and his wife.  They were both the worst.  Really, this show would have sucked completely if it hadn't have been for the bromances.  The girl was annoying enough, with her spacey full of herself ridiculousness, that I didn't really care about the couple.  I just loved Dong Hae with Choi Jin Hyuk and Dong Hae with Halbae.  They were all so adorable.  I know they call him a hedgehog because he's supposed to be spiky on the outside to protect his gooey core, but he was just gooey the whole time.  He was a marshmallow cinnamon bun the whole time.  He barely had any bristly moments at all, and he was an adorable drunk.



In some ways this show was ahead of it's time because it was about a nice guy, who was nice the whole time.  He was also misunderstood and labelled "bad" because he was an ex-convict.  There was definitely a bunch of stereotyping around tattoos and convicts, that they contradicted themselves on all the time.  "I should have known with that tattoo what kind of person he was..." "I thought you were a gangster because of the tattoo..." etc.  That was annoying.  Everyone was automatically "ah! judge!" as soon as they saw a tattoo, it was hilariously bad.  But it was right there with the "if I suffer long enough, good things will happen" type of drama.  While our spazzy space cadet candy girl was pretty typical, I did love how forward she was at the same time.  She was the one chasing him, which is also ahead of its time.  She was thirsty too.  She was always like "remember that thing we just did?  Yeah, the kissing thing.  Can we just do that some more?"  Haha, can't say I blame her at all.

By the end of the show I just wanted it to be wrapped up.  The bad guy wasn't being caught, and he wasn't really doing anything but being annoying either, and it kept dragging things out with weird sentimental things.  Everyone figured everything out, big reveal, birth secrets, etc. and then it became weirdly mopey, like we're all going to be sad because we didn't realize it was you, and we feel even more bad that you had to go through all of that and we didn't know it was you, and let's all be awkward and penitent and sad, and it went on forever, and let's let the bad guy know everything by repeating everything said to me on the phone really loudly when the lackey is there, ugh, it was so frustrating.  Then they had the classic 2012 not enough cuteness at the end, because they are wasting time on everyone else being thoughtful or whatever.  Yeah, classic 2012 cheese ending.  It's fine.  Dong Hae is fine.  Choi Jin Hyuk is fine and wore some fine clothes with his fine red hair.  Mmmm.