429. Princess Weiyoung 锦绣未央 (2016) Chinese

Tiffany Tang, Luo Jin, Vanness Wu, Mao Xiaotong, Li Xinai 

Drama Rating: 6/10     Neck Score: A

Princess Weiyoung is just a hot mess of drama. It was a delightful hot mess, but also happened when I had my drama anxiety explosion that made me literally pause everything I was watching in favor of binge watching We Bare Bears. Sometimes the ridiculous drama where everyone is evil except the leads is fun and sometimes people's mothers are dying and I can't deal with that in the middle of a pandemic. However, after taking some time, I still came back and finished it, because it was ridiculous and I had to see the train wreck at the ending. It actually had a better ending that I expected. More... realistic, if you can believe that when everything was so over dramatic that it wasn't ridiculous. I just like that they didn't force a completely happy ending and were able to give us some tragedy that also wasn't forced. I had a whole thread on Twitter about this, because it was so 😲😲😅😅😂😂 that I had to shout out my feelings to the Twitterverse. You can probably get more details and spoilers from that thread then here. But at least you can know that it was crazy, dramatic, and I generally loved it, even then rolling my eyes and laughing every two seconds.

223. Just One Smile is Very Alluring (Love 020) 微微一笑很倾城 (2016) Chinese

Yang Yang, Zheng Shuang, Mao Xiaotong, Bai Yu, Ma Chunrui, Zhang He

Drama Rating: 7/10     Neck Score: A

I was pleasantly surprised with this show.  I didn't have any expectations, I was just bored when I started it, but it had me smiling the whole way through.  It was a ridiculous story about a pair of seemingly perfect people who are just the best having to overcome all of the crap that the lesser humans throw at them because they are petty and not as cool.  That being said, it was nice to see a couple so stalwart that they would not falter at any of the bitca or jerk's slimy tactics.  They were never tricked and there was no noble idiocy.  That was pretty refreshing.  I also liked that even the jerks and bitcas were not 100% losers, but that they all had learning curves.  I especially liked how awkward Wei Wei (Zheng Shuang) was all the time and expressed her inner thoughts, like checking out and feeling hot and bothered about how sexy he was.  I did get too invested in Er Xi's relationship with Cao Guang.  It was like a huge part of the plot, but then they resolved it by only hinting that they were going to get together and not letting them get together.  I liked the main couple, but I wanted more balance with the other peeps in the show too, so that was a little boring to me in spots.  I guess I'm too used to the main couple getting mopey that them being cute the whole time got a little boring.  It still made me smile, I just wanted more resolution for the other characters, so spending so much time at the end for them to plan their wedding when there was no other conflict got boring for me, but it was a really good solid show.  Plus the nerd F4.  All of them so good looking, and all of them so nerdy.  I also really loved how they acted out the game sequences and portrayed the moments when someone would step away from the computer.  As a gamer, I thought those aspects were really well done.  It also gave a good excuse for those sequences to be really cheesy, since they were a blend of real life and video game.