In 2017, I escaped through kdramas.
But maybe it wasn't purely just needing to get shot of my day-to-day worries. This year's overarching thematic trend of 'screw the man' slotted nicely into the aftershocks of horror I (and the world) were experiencing after the American elections devolved into a nightmare (not to mention the rest of the chaos in the international political scene...). Maybe stories in which the corrupt powerful were repeatedly brought down by the desperate underdog helped me a heal a little. If these are the stories we're still telling, then there's hope for us, right?
Watched
Voice
OCN, Jan 14-Mar 12
Aagh, this one sounded so good on paper. Wild card detective partners with a 911 operative who has super hearing to form a special task force. They deal with the most emergenciest of emergencies and chased a twisted serial killer who killed their loved ones. I mean. The serial killer was terrifying and mesmerizing, and the first couple of cases at least left me seriously nervous. It had Jang Hyuk playing our vengeance-driven cop! And yet. And yet. The elements never really gelled. Characters never totally developed. For all the high-intensity, it lacked a strong sub-structure to really make me care. But still, it was my first new drama of the year, and it basically laid the pattern for the dramas I'd find myself watching throughout--a low romance, high action story focused on bringing down the corrupt 1%. And there was a sick adorable kid in mortal peril at least once. This pops up a surprising number of times.
Defendant
SBS, Jan 13-Mar 21
Now this is the way you kick off a year in style--Defendant ripped my heart up and down a thousand different ways, and had me glued to my screen, constantly desperate to find out what happened next. Ji Sung is the best. The man can act. He brought a high octane energy to his role a righteous prosecutor who wakes up in prison with no memory of the past three months, convicted for the murder of his wife and daughter. You were never sure if he was guilty...innocent...or completely crazy. And as he chased the murderer down the halls of his memory, he took us with him, dragging us through incredible highs and lows. You never knew what was coming, be it good or bad, and the brilliant unpredictability had me wondering why I'd spent so much time sticking to rom-coms when shows like this were out there. (Spoiler: The rich people did it. Quelle surprise)
Chief Kim
KBS2, Jan 25-Mar 30
But you can't spend the whole year chasing rich serial killing bastards! You can also chase rich embezzling bastards! Look, I warned you, there's a theme to this year. And this charming little gem of a comedy fits right in, even while being completely unique. I challenge you to find a more delightfully anarchic hero, or a more endearing band than his crew of basement-dwelling, put-upon accountants. In a series of side-splitting, surprising moves, they basically take over a company and reform it from the bottom up. If you want a show to just soothe you after a long day working for a nasty boss, this is the one for you. Just. Trust me. A bar fight fueled by helium never felt so good.
Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People
MBC, Jan 30-May 16
Hey, look, it's a sageuk! But hold on to your hats--there are no wronged princes or beautiful noblewomen here. This is the story of a scrappy band of former slaves/outlaws who dare to face down the evil/insane king, Yeonsangun. He was probably the worst king Joseon ever had, and we'll see him again this year, because he makes the perfect villain to shred when you just want vent some rage about a screwed up government. The good guy in this story is the legendary Hong Gil Dong, here a super strong promised 'Mighty Child' (whatever that means. We never really find out). In true Robin Hood style, he and his band of merry men steal from the rich to feed the poor, and there's a little romance, and some action, and it can be a lot of fun. But it also never hits the epic stride it was aiming for, except in the very beginning and the very end which is a shame, because those bits were very epic indeed.
The Kiss
The Kiss
Father is Strange
KBS2, Mar 4-Aug 27
OK, sometimes you do just need a break from bringing down the bad guys, and this wonderful family drama provided just that (even if the corrupt powerful are still at the root of all the ills!). Lovable dad, gruff mom, layabout slacker son, bossy-but-brilliant oldest daughter, plain-but-sweet middle daughter, sexy youngest daughter...and the semi-famous actor who dad suddenly introduces as his son from a previous marriage. What? As this disparate clan comes together to sort out new relationships and old, romances blossom every which way and the swoon just can't be contained. I squealed, I cried, I hugged my pillow, and in the end heaved a beatific sigh as I waved farewell to my new favorite family. They're a warm cup of cocoa on a cold day, a hug when you're feeling down, a happy dance when you feel so good you just can't contain it. I would watch another fifty-two episodes without blinking.
The Kiss
The Kiss
Strong Woman Do Bong Soon
jTBC, Feb 24-Apr 15
Damn, I knew I was going to have to get around to this one eventually. OK, where to start? It's a good premise--Do Bong Soon is the tiny bearer of incredible super-strength, and yet she yearns to live a normal life, one where she has a chance with her long time crush, a stern cop. But then she meets a handsome quirky chaebol and a bunch of girls get kidnapped and she needs to become a superhero to save her neighborhood. Which sounds kind of great, yeah? Lots of room for feminism and heroism and other favorite -isms of mine. Well, the main romance is mostly cracktasically adorable, I give it that. But the rest of the show veers weird, sexist, homophobic and gross. So I'm glad I watched, if it was only for the flirting and the kisses. But oh God could I have done without the poop jokes, or the mythology that didn't make sense, or the domestic abuse jokes, or, or....
Tunnel
OCN, Mar 25-May 21
This joined my list of favorite 2017 dramas pretty much from the get-go, and aside from a slightly anticlimactic ending, it deserved it. A cop from 1986 chases a serial killer (so many serial killers this year, have you noticed?) through a tunnel and into 2016, where he has to fit in, make friends, and solve his now very cold case to get back home. It had all the good things--a twisty mystery, plenty of scares, a reluctant bromance, a relentless force driving the plot, and so many heart-tugging family reveals. Not to mention some fun time travel hijinks. It was the first of the time travel dramas I saw this year, and I enjoyed the gritty present-changes-the-past take. Choi Jin Hyuk needs to be in more things, stat, because this was not enough.
Chicago Typewriter
tvN, Apr 7-Jun 3
Now this one became a permanent member on not just the 'best of the year' list, but on the 'best of all time' one. A jaded bestselling author struggling with writer's block is propelled into exploring his last life as a 1930s freedom fighter? Oh yes please. There are ghosts and guns, books and betrayals, love and heartbreak and reincarnation. There's an actual ghost writer. And cute dogs. Did I mention the cute dogs? This one took a good half of it's run to get to the story it wanted to tell, but once it got there, it was like a runaway train of plot and impact. The modern day stuff was never more than passable, but serving as context for the immense and wonderful past story...Well, I couldn't conjure up a story that I wanted more.
The Kiss
The Kiss
Individualist Ji Young
KBS, May 8-9
A two episode shortie that almost, but not quite, did it for me. A determinedly longer young woman is dismayed to find that her new neighbor is an overly clingy young man. They clash at first, but ultimately come together to explore their mental health problems and seek help. Pros: The show didn't waste time with needless angst, instead layering on tons of wonderful cute, and definitely cared about exploring mental health issues. Cons: The hero's overly invasive behavior is painted as...good? Bewildering. Still. Not bad!
Circle
tvN, May 22-Jun 27
Here's a revelation. Apparently, when kdramas decide to do sci-fi, they really deliver. Circle was a wild ride from start to finish, fusing three different timelines in an impossibly deft juggling act of aliens, memories, missing twins, and murders. Yeo Jin Gu is a force to be reckoned with, and while I already had my eye on his career, I can't wait to see what further stunning characters he delivers in the future. It's another low-romance, high-bring-down-the-corrupt-elite show, but hell, if they're all like this, then I'll never watch another rom-com in my life. Well. Maybe not never. But you get what I mean.
Fight My Way
KBS2, May 22-Jul 11
Dramaland also spent its time this year on more generally slice of life pieces, like this one. Four best friends clock the near-arrival of their thirtieth birthdays and start reevaluating their functional but unfulfilling lives. For two of them, it's trying to find a way into their dream careers, and along the way realizing that their long-time status as best friends might mask some much deeper feelings. For the other two it's a reexamination of their own long-standing romantic relationship and the fact that it might not be working anymore. It gets a little weird towards the end--there's a random birth secret, and then all the conflict gets tidily wrapped up in a bow, mostly offscreen, so we can just jump straight to a happy ending. Which. OK. I will never look a happy ending in the mouth. But. Come on, you don't just set up conflict like that, then wave your hands and say 'oh, we didn't mean it!' Still, when it was on the ball, it had a nice kick of chemistry.
The Kiss
The Kiss
Lookout
MBC, May 22-Jul 11
I liked this one mostly for the great inversion of gender tropes--a police detective's daughter is murdered, and the parent seeks vigilante vengeance. But this time, the cop is an ahjumma. She's in her late thirties and is so very, very badass. With a little team of wronged avengers, headed by a prosecutor who is anything but what he seems, they aim to expose the corruption riddling South Korea's justice system. It had some really fun action sequences, I loved Kim Seul Gi and her sweet little romance with Key, I totally dug Kim Young Kwang as our too-slick-to-be-good good guy, I loved the kickass ahjumma, the ost was absolutely amazing. But the plot was a little thin in a lot of places, and sometimes you just had to shrug and say alright then.
Seven Day Queen
KBS2, May 31-Aug 3
This drama was probably the one that affected me the most on an emotional level this year. I was so wrung out by the characters, their dynamic, and the choices they had to make for the good of a country. A young woman finds herself stuck between two royal brothers locked in a war in which possession of the throne means survival. Remember Yeonsangun? I told you he'd be popping up again. As an evil king riddled with insecurities centering around his younger and more favored half-brother, he's a fabulous villain. The younger brother is a loyal young man driven to his breaking point. The heroine is spirited and intelligent, loyal to a fault and torn between two people she cares deeply about. It sounds familiar, but it's so deftly told that its standard nature never makes itself apparent. In the end, the conclusion the story reaches about the nature of love and sacrifice had me clutching my pillow and choking back sobs, because it was so true, and so tragic.
Duel
OCN, Jun 3-Jul 23
Once more, a detective's child is in mortal peril! It's just that this time the kid isn't being threatened by serial killers. Instead, she's been kidnapped by a clone. It's a whole big thing. There's a massive conspiracy, and a pharmaceutical company, and a good and bad clone, and a ton of amnesia. And it could be a lot of fun! Yang Se Jong did a great job acting with his two roles--most of the time you forgot it was one person he was so good. But there were these massive plotholes dotting the landscape, especially as we got towards the end, and ultimately I just threw my hands in the air and was like, 'ok, if that's what you've decided, fine then. Magical heal-all vaccine it is.'
Forest of Secrets
tvN, Jun 10-Jul 30
Best drama of the year, hands down. I never knew dramas could do twisty mystery so well. A prosecutor unable to feel emotions is the only one brave enough (and incorruptible enough) to dare to look into the corruption that haunts his department. One murder leads to another, and the only ally he may be able to trust unconditionally is the warm-hearted detective who has decided this is her case too. It's so, so good, guys. Intelligent, intricately crafted, and even though it shows the grimness of life, it doesn't hesitate to show the bright flip side of that. Everyone's hoping for a second season, myself included, but if there won't be, I'm still keeping an eye on this (just debuted!) writer. Her stuff is clearly incredibly good quality.
Woman of Dignity
jTBC, Jun 16-Aug 19
Why did I watch this one? I don't know. It was basically Housewives of Gangnam, and sure, it was good in spots, but why I felt the urge to complete sixteen episodes of it, I don't know. It just wasn't that compelling to me. Or wait, maybe I do know why I stuck around. That fledgling romance between our divorcee main character and her poetic lawyer, which we only ever saw delightful glimpses of. Otherwise this show belonged wholeheartedly to its two main female stars, who delivered as a frequently conflicting, sometimes allied, positive goody-two-shoes and gold-digger-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks.
Rescue Me
OCN, Aug 5-Sep 24
If you wanted a thriller with nightmarish overtones this year, this was it. A beautiful girl is held hostage in a creepy cult as the potential bride of the slimy leader. Her only hope lies in four country bumpkins who failed to save her twin brother from the deathly results of bullying three years before. There were thrills and chills aplenty, though the ending was oddly a little anticlimactic. Even though Taecyeon was the technical first lead, no one ever really cared, because it was his erstwhile best friend Dong Chul that really stole the role of hero and our hearts.
Live Up to Your Name
tvN, Aug 12-Oct 1
The second time travel drama of the year for me, and I always enjoy seeing how this type of story can be done so very differently. Here, it's an avenue for two well-intentioned, though flawed, doctors from two very different times to fully realize the depths of their calling. It also brings them together for some great time-hopping shenanigans as they each learn to maneuver in the other's world...and fall in love. The ultimate purpose of this drama, like so many this year, was to serve as an indictment for a thoroughly screwed up system in which the wealthy have more than they could ever need and the poor struggle to survive. But the romantic pairing was wonderful, and gave me what I honestly think was the hottest kiss of the year.
Age of Youth 2
jTBC, Aug 25-Oct 7
The world sometimes gives us unexpected gifts, unlooked and unhoped for. Age of Youth 2 was that gift this year. In a genre where sequels are incredibly rare, this was a return to the share house of Belle Epoque, with its endearing cast of female college students struggling with the ups and downs of life. Jin Myung has a fancy new job at an entertainment company and an unwilling feeling of responsibility for a failing idol there. Ye Eun's still mentally and emotionally frail after her traumatic kidnapping. Eun Jae's got post break-up blues she just can't shake. New roommate Eun has family troubles, a clingy best friend, and a new crush. But the best storyline goes to beloved Ji Won, who has to face a painful suppressed memory to right a terrible wrong. This show could just keep delivering season after season and I don't think I'd ever get sick of it.
Argon
tvN, Sep 4-Sep 26
A rookie journalist, despised as a strikebreaking contract worker, gets assigned to the once-revered investigate news show Argon, now relegated to both a ratings and physical basement thanks to their die-hard integrity. Headed by a charismatic and demanding anchor, Argon becomes the place where our young reporter undergoes baptism-by-fire and learns what it takes to report the truth. Denuded of the most of the things that make kdramas tick--love triangles and chaebols, birth secrets and money woes--Argon instead delivers a hard-hitting story about life as a journalist, the bonds it forges and breaks, and the demands it makes on our conflicting loyalties to truth, self, and those we love.
While You Were Sleeping
SBS, Sep 27-Nov 16
An unmotivated prosecutor. A young woman who dreams of future catastrophes. An unlikely alliance to save people. Sounds great, right? You wouldn't be entirely wrong. But you wouldn't be entirely right either. This writer basically keeps writing the same thing, which is a romance situated around a rather simplistic exploration of right and wrong, with some supernatural element thrown in for good measure. And Lee Jong Seok. So that right there tells you how pretty this drama was, all lovely lighting and atmospheric dreams and charming sets and extremely attractive people. This one veered heavily into the procedural side of things (unsurprising, considering this year), with the romance taking a low-key, if sweet, role in the overarching story. I wasn't dissatisfied. But I wasn't engrossed either.
Because This Life is Our First
tvN, Oct 9-Nov 28
God, this show. This show. It's got a classic zany kdrama plot--a stiff but kindly guy and a sweet but lost young woman agree to a contract marriage in order to make their landlord/tenant cohabitation more palatable to family and friends. But it's actually an incredibly lovely, soft and introspective take on society--what is marriage really? What is love? What does it mean to pursue our dreams? What does it mean to be part of a family? As our main couple and their friends explore these themes, they discover love and all its attendant various heartbreaks...and all the courage it takes to make a relationship really work. Almost undoubtedly the best romance drama of the year.
Buam-dong Revenge Social Club
tvN, Oct 11-Nov 16
Sweet and spunky, this is the story of an unlikely alliance between three very disparate women, and one teenage boy. Abusive and cheating husbands, lecherous principles, the prideful rich, and neglectful parents are all set to be on the receiving end of petty vengeance for these downtrodden four. But it quickly becomes more about the family they discover in each other, and the self-respect they finally acquire to free themselves from these painful social ties. It's fun, with a good heart and great side characters, and the lessons about loving and living for yourself are spot on.
Go Back Spouses
KBS2, Oct 13-Nov 18
A recently divorced middle aged couple find themselves magically transported back into their twenty-year old bodies in 1999. They start off determined to avoid their painful future together by never falling in love. But as they navigate their old/new lives and rediscover themselves, they also rediscover each other. It's...not bad. As a solid story about the love of family, it's even good. And even though the second lead syndrome is strong with this one, the main romance eventually convinced me that our troubled pair really were right for each other. So that was some solid writing. But a lot of the humor was all over the place, and some plots never got fully explored. There are better rom-coms out there. But I got more than I expected really, so it was a pleasant surprise.
Long Time No See
Naver TV Cast, Nov 23
Two hitmen for rival gangs fall in love, and have to find their way out of the maze of blood, betrayal and self-loathing they've become lost in to find a happy ending. This might be classed as a web drama, but it's more indie film, with a gritty, low-budget feel and a wonderful gay couple, who engage in tender, passionate kisses and sex at every opportunity. And then go out to kick bad guy ass. They straightforwardly engage with the prejudices of their society, and it is the film's final gift to these endearing two that they free themselves from society's narrow minded belief that it owns their lives to move joyfully forward. There's a lot of great acting here, with some laughing nods to reality amidst the intense conceits about mobsters and hitmen. Where else will first time sex be so realistically awkward, or assassins write web novels?
Smart Prison Living
tvN, Nov 22-
Episodes Watched: 10
It's the Answer Me team, doing what they do best, but with a twist: a rich, sprawling story with plenty of well-developed characters, heartache, romance, bromance and humor...all set behind prison bars. Our hero is a sweet but dim superstar baseball player who kills a man sexually assaulting his sister, and gets a year-long jail term in consequence. There's a lot he has to learn to survive in his new world, and the challenges become deeply personal when he comes face to face with a career-threatening injury and an unpleasant deputy warden. But his kindly nature wins him unlikely allies (a reformed gangster, a quick witted jailbird, a recovering druggie, and an upright army officer framed for murder to name just a few...), and reignites his long lost friendship with a former teammate-turned-prison guard. I was worried it was starting to get a little slow as threats to our beloved cell mates seemed to neutralize and prison started to feel like an extended stay at a strict summer camp, but the arrival of an old enemy from the past suddenly has my pulse jumping. Will Je Hyeok survive everything and make his baseball comeback? Will he and his beloved ex-girlfriend find a way back to each other in spite of themselves? Will Looney stay clean and win his boyfriend back? Will Captain Yoo get his retrial? Will Min Chul get his richly deserved parole? Will everyone in Seobu discover how deep and far Je Hyeok's and Jung Hoon's connection really runs? I just can't wait to find out.
I'm Not a Robot
MBC, Dec 6-
Episodes Watched: 16
A withdrawn chaebol with a life-threatening, psychosomatic allergy to humans tests out an advanced humanoid robot as a companion. The robot, however, is secretly a real woman filling in while the machine undergoes repairs. An unlikely friendship forms between master and 'robot', and it starts to look like their bond might be the cure he's been looking for. But when they start falling in love, the incredible cute turns to incredible angst as he struggles to reconcile the reality of his feelings for what he believes to be an unreal person. It's gulp-down-as-fast-as-you-can candy, with so much pretty it's painful. Yoo Seung Ho and Chae Soo Bin do such an amazing job with their characters, the incredible thinness of the plot (which, let's be real, isn't even necessary when you've got this much adorable in one show) hardly matters. Well. It matters when they take time off from this amazing burgeoning relationship to try and make us be interested in boring office politics. Then it matters, because it's stupid. Luckily, they don't do that to us too often.
Just Between Lovers
jTBC, Dec 11-
Episodes Watched: 6
This is...wow. This is slow, and gritty, lovely, and sorrowful. I savor each episode, treasuring what seems poised to be a genuinely moving melodrama, with a romance that hits all the right notes. Lee Kang Doo and Ha Moon So were trapped in a building collapse together as children ten years ago. In the present, chance brings them together again, to work on erecting a memorial for those killed in the accident...including their own lost loved ones. They're both deeply scarred by the past--Kang Doo has become a directionless young man with a penchant for picking fights. Moon So struggles to carry the burden of her mother's alcoholism and her survivor's guilt all on her own. But now they're forming a connection with each other that runs so strong and deep and true, it might just help pull them out of the darkness they've been living in for so long. Not only is the show just beautifully shot, it's given me a whole series of characters to be engaged with and feel for, and a haunted romance so full of genuine feeling I can barely stand it.
Summary
Dramas finished: 25
Dramas in progress: 3
Dramas in progress: 3
You believe me about a lot of dramas yet? And yet, there's not one I'd take back. They've all taken on me on wild journeys that have soothed and distracted, made me laugh and made me cry, and taught me little bit more about what it takes to be human in this huge, messed up, impossibly beautiful world of ours.
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