179. Reply 1988 응답하라 1988 (2015) Korean

Lee Hyeri, Ryu Jun Yeol, Go Kyung Po, Park Bo Gum, Lee Dong Hwi

Drama Rating: 8/10     Neck Score: A

Well that was a perfectly wonderful drama that fell flat on its face in the end.  Everything was wonderful until they finally did a time jump.  Then all the sudden they tried too hard to wraps things up too suddenly.  You know, the things they'd been neglecting while they spent more time on the gloriously awesome other things.  I mean neglecting all the romance in favor of family and community matters.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the family and community matters.  This show was one big neighborhood romance as opposed to a romance or love triangle.  Well that's what I thought it was until they forced it back into a love triangle husband hunt in the last few episodes.  Narratively, the romance didn't make sense.  I have no idea why they wrote it that way.  Why would they make us care about one person so much that they completely neglected building up the person who was actually going to end up married to her?  Mmmm, no.  Not okay with it.  I cared about every single character in this drama.  I was absolutely in love with Jung Bong, and Samcheonpo (Kim Sung Kyun), and Cheetah Ahjumma, and Jin Joo.  All five of the kids.  Literally everyone was compelling.  Their stories together, the little mundane things.  All of it was so good.  The only thing that wasn't good was the way they handled the romance.  It was like the battle of the 2nd male leads.  They made us care about Jung Hwan by showing us his feelings from episode 1, and then they made both him and Taek do nothing... for the rest of the series.  We never knew what Deok Sun was thinking.  She ended up being an impressionable girl who married the only guy who ever actually did something, after 6 years of doing nothing because the writers are lame, and we never knew what she was feeling the whole time.  I might have given this show a 9 or a 10 if the ending hadn't been so lame, but that really leaves the last impression, doesn't it?  I was actually so angry at the way they played so mercilessly with my emotions that I didn't even want to finish episode 19, and if it wasn't for Jung Bong's scenes being next I probably wouldn't have.  They literally spent so much time making me hurt for Jung Hwan that I literally didn't care about anything else.  That's just messed up.  Literally the only good thing that happened after the time jump to 94 was Sseuregi Oppa.  The end.  They needed to balance the romance with the neighborhood love so we actually have time to care about the couple.  We needed to see the couple grow, not have their love force fed to us in the last two episodes.  Like, they literally rammed it down our throats in such a way that even if I was team Taek I wouldn't have been satisfied.  Like seriously no.  Very badly done.  Narratively, it was a huge slap to the face to all characters involved.  I mean, Cheetah Ahjumma going through menopause was more compelling than the love story, and that is a fact.  So the ending gets a 1 or a 2.  The rest of the series gets a 9 or a 10 (because they made me love them) so that evens out to a 7 or 8.  Since I want to be generous and try to not let the bad aftertaste taint how fun the rest of the show was, I will make it an 8, but that is being very generous on my part.  (She's not even sitting next to him in this poster!)

136. Hyde, Jekyll, and I 하이드 지킬, 나 (2015) Korean

Hyun Bin, Han Ji Min, Sung Joon, Lee Hyeri, Lee Won Keun

Drama Rating: 2/10     Neck Score: A

For a drama about Seo Jin, they really focused on everyone except Seo Jin.  They had a huge long series of episodes that were completely about Dr. Derp Face (aka Sung Joon) and a hugely drawn out, lame, mopey, crappy bunch of episodes about how stupid bitca Robin didn't want to disappear.  It was absolutely lame and dumb.  I never loved this show to begin with.  It never had gripped me like Kill Me Heal Me did, where I wanted the next episodes to be out from the first week.  I watched it because I love Hyun Bin.  Hyun Bin did a very good job, but I am worried that he will never make another drama again because this was so awful.  I've also decided once and for all that I do not love Han Ji Min as an actress.  She's just not that good.  She lost out to Hwang Jung Eum (who I think is guilty of over acting during comedy and is only good at melodrama) with her underacting.  She was just not very good and having an annoying character at the same time made it worse.  So pretty much everything about this show was bad except Hyun Bin.  And only Hyun Bin as Seo Jin, because Robin's character was so lame, annoying, and unnecessary (and played so well by Hyun Bin) that I just hated him the whole time too.  So really this show deserves the 2/10 I gave it.  I had so much potential (with Hyun Bin being cast in it) and it lived up to none of it ever.  Not even once.  It was pretty lame from the beginning and became absolutely horrible by the end.  What were they even thinking?  At least Hyun Bin is hot... as Seo Jin.  That hair and those glasses were the only things helping me through, but they weren't in it enough to save anything.  Boo!