"Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" Episodes 3-4 recap

It's surprisingly difficult to emphathize with Jin-jin. Yes, granted, a sex tape is threatening her career. This is an unsourced sex tape, that will (and is) immediately proven to be fraudulent upon being properly sourced. So in the meantime, Jin-jin suffers bad public relations mostly because her manager Gi-bong (played by Kim Kwang-sik) is indisposed. Not that it's his fault. A late flashback shows how Gi-bong has long worked tirelessly to personally promote Jin-jin's career.
That's the odd contradiction of "Boy and Girl From the 20th Century"- the narrative is subpar. There's almost no dramatic tension. But anytime the drama gets close to a genuine emotional moment, it manages to be reasonably touching. The scene with Gi-bong putting up the posters is so good it made me wish I was instead watching a drama about Jin-jin and her team struggling to make their way to the top.
But as presented here, Jin-jin just comes off as incompetent at best. In all fairness it's more that the paparazzi are disproportionately powerful. How they found the gynecologist is not explained, and the idea of their locating Jin-jin's family home is just as dubious. Although once again, the paparazzi storyline exists for the sole purpose of putting Jin-jin through the ringer. The threat's just too hollow for that to mean anything, especially since Jin-jin is still objectively successful and probably rich no matter what the paparazzi do.
Yeong-sim is a much more interesting character simply because she's starting from the bottom. This is a woman who is kept emotionally afloat entirely thanks to the support of friends and family. It's sad watching her struggle to break into the legal profession, and the prospect of her failing once again feels very real, if only from her perspective. Obviously the plot wouldn't go anywhere if she actually failed, especially since handsome lawyer Kyeong-seok (played by Oh Sang-jin) is her obvious love interest.
Then there's Ah-reum, about whom I still don't know much more than just how she spends a lot of time at the gyencologist's office. There's always her love interest, Woo-seong (played by Ahn Se-ha), but he has the same problem as all the other characters in this drama. Woo-seong has a few defining characteristics, an obvious romantic plotline, yet no apparent character arc whatsoever. While lacking in truly awful flaws "Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" remains quite bland, and offers little of interest.

Review by William Schwartz
"Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" is directed by Lee Dong-yoon, written by Lee Seon-hye and features Han Ye-seul, Kim Ji-suk, Lee Sang-woo, Lee Sang-hee-II, and Ryu Hyun-kyung.

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"Witch's Court" episode 1 recap

On the first episode of the new KBS 2TV drama "Witch's Court", Ma Yi-deum (Jung Ryeo-won) took care of Jo Gap-soo's (Jun Kwang-ryul) business.
Department Head Oh (Jeon Bae-soo) sexually harassed a reporter and told Ma Yi-deum to meet with reporter Han and get her to cancel the charges against him. He asked her to appeal to the reporter as a fellow woman. Ma Yi-deum talked to Reporter Han who asked if Ma Yi-deum felt upset as a woman to which she replied, "I would have pressed charges on him in a more likely situation. In the end it was indicted and I would advise you to think wisely".
Reporter Han slapped Ma Yi-deum who told her, "Think of me as Oh and hit me as you please". Han marveled at her desire to get an advancement and Ma Yi-deum said, "Just hit me. It's the same, being dropped now or later".
Department Head Oh made a statement saying he apologizes as he he was too drunk to remember a thing, but insists he never kissed Reporter Han. Yeo Jin-wook (Yoon Hyun-min) told him there was proof that he forced himself on Han, but Oh didn't admit it. Just then, Ma Yi-deum appeared and stated exactly what happened that night. "Hey Oh Soo-cheol. Stop touching me. Do you know why I keep singing during work parties? It's because you keep touching me. You said in the beginning that you touched me because I'm like your daughter".
Yeo Jin-wook told Ma Yi-deum, "You seem like a good person. I hope we meet again for a good cause". She replied, "I don't think so. Let's not get involved". She headed for Min Ji-sook's (Kim Yeo-jin's) home.

Source : www.xportsnews.com/?a...
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"Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" Episodes 1-2 recap

The opening montage of "Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" features the three protagonists growing up in the nineties with that ever present babysitter- television. The montage stops before we get to any twentieth century dramas that any of us might have heard of, but the moral lesson learned by minor celebrity Jin-jin (played by Han Ye-seul), common employee Ah-reum (played by Ryu Hyun-kyung) and aspiring lawyer Yeong-sim (played by Lee Sang-hee-II) is pretty clear. They definitely don't want to live a life of horrid married life clichés like what they saw in the dramas.
Bear in mind that, this opening notwithstanding, "Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" has surprisingly little interest in cultural commentary on how life in South Korea has changed for women in the last twenty years. Life for the three central characters is a lot more egalitarian than I was expecting. Jin-jin's main antagonist is obnoxious, younger celebrity Ha-ram (played by Shin Se-hwi), rather than any form of patriarchy, and Ah-reum's desire for a ribald sex life passes without commentary.
Yeong-sim does face some workplace friction- although this has less to do with her being a woman and more just a matter of her being a little old. The subtler dramatic elements are largely unexplored. And that, ultimately, is my main source of discomfort with "Boy and Girl From the 20th Century"- there's all these obvious workable dramatic conflicts, yet surprisingly little to keep these moments interesting in any obvious way.
The closest we get to a real fight is the way Ha-ram snaps at Yeong-sim while pretending like her slights are unintentional. Then Yeong-sim chooses to be the bigger person, and refuses to let Ha-ram get to her emotionally. While this is naturally the best way to get around such vocational problems in real life, from the perspective of a viewer, we're only watching half of a generally passive-aggressive fight. That's not exactly exciting.
It does admittedly make sense from the standpoint of characters trying their best to avoid living soap opera style lives even while their lives have soap opera style elements, but that just leaves me feeling like the whole concept here is mismatched. The storylines aren't dramatic enough to be serious, and they're not funny enough to feel like a situation comedy so...what are we looking at here? Just incredibly basic slice of life? Because that's all I'm seeing.
Review by William Schwartz
"Boy and Girl From the 20th Century" is directed by Lee Dong-yoon , written by Lee Seon-hye and features Han Ye-seul, Kim Ji-suk, Lee Sang-woo, Lee Sang-hee-II, and Ryu Hyun-kyung.

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"This Life Is Our First Life" Episode 1 recap

Ji-ho (played by Jung So-min) always hated feeling like she wasn't the priority back during childhood. While it's easy to blame her family, they're just not...malicious enough to really warrant hating. After all, her dad Jong-soo (played by Kim Byung-ok) is just a sloppy idiot. But when unexpected circumstances make Ji-ho realize that she's going to be even less appreciated than usual, that's when the woman pushing thirty realizes it's time to finally ditch the family home.
The main immediate standout quality of Ji-ho is just how well-adjusted she is. Ji-ho is ridiculously mature, and refuses to fight or get mad with anyone for any reason. Ji-ho never indulges in self-pity, fully recognizing that all the people in her life are behaving in a generally sensible way befitting their self-interests, and does not hold grudges. Ji-ho even makes the extra effort to be super nice to a complete stranger- albeit Ji-ho does indeed have her own self-interest to think about there.

So what's Ji-ho's big flaw? Mostly that she's kind of a romantic. Ji-ho is a drama writer, after all, and we quickly see that Ji-ho's main coping method to avoid dipping into overly negative thinking is to just get philosophical. Like, all right, so she's pushing thirty. But that doesn't mean life is over or anything. Because "This Life Is Our First Life", that just means there are always exciting novelties around the corner. So focus on the novelties, and save the worries for the next one.
The contrast with Tae-soo (played by Lee Min-ki) is quite pointed. Tae-soo works in software, cares entirely about functionality, and expresses minimal curiousity in the world around him. That on its own is not unusual- what's weird about "This Life Is Our First Life" is that it makes Tae-soo's lack of expressiveness seem completely normal and applicable to a happy life style. I can't quite recall the last time I saw an antisocial character being portrayed as something aside from a total psycho.
That much alone gives "This Life Is Our First Life" some impressive potential as a romantic comedy. Well, granted there aren't really any jokes but the whole production is just so gosh darned cute that's this is the vibe we end up getting. The big climactic moment, where Ji-ho impulsively decides to live life like it were a drama just this once while Tae-soo is simply baffled by the aftermath...it's just so easy to take from that a clear picture of who these people are, you know?
Review by William Schwartz
"This Life Is Our First Life" is directed by  Park Joon-hwa, written by Yoon Nan-joong and features Lee Min-ki, Jung So-min, Esom, Park Byung-eun, Kim Ga-eun-I, and Kim Min-seok.

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"Magic School" Episodes 13-16 Final recap

The final episode of "Magic School" is mostly just an extended epilogue. This would not normally be so remarkable, save for the lack of a climax to any of the storylines in the three episodes preceding it. The closest we get is when Na-ra finally puts on the big romantic magic show for Yoo-ri, the conclusion to which is not in doubt since by that point Yoo-ri had given us an exasperated "what do I have to do to get this guy to make a pass at me?" look.
No joke, Jay resolves the whole issue with performance contracts and his brother's disappearance by...not showing up for the big magic trick at all and just disappearing himself. Granted, that whole plotline had already gotten pretty silly, what with the sinister evidence being used to inaccurately paint Jay as a big meanie. That the camera footage stops right before dialog that makes Jay look more sympathetic pops up is a naturally convenient scripting coincidence.
But in this case there's not even any purpose to the contrivance because Jay does not have a character arc that needs contrivances. None of the characters do, which is why it's so glaring that so many conflicts of imminent separation for ambitious career reasons are cut off because they didn't feel like going anyway. This just makes those characters look flippant. Even Joon's dramatic moment lacks weight, simply because he never had that many hospital scenes in the first place.
The main big picture issue I have trouble with is just how weak the magic is. I mean, no, we can hardly expect Na-ra to put on an expert show when he had (I presume) only been taking magic classes for a few weeks. But the tricks we see are so amateurish it's a little insulting that director Kim Do-won-I filmed them in the first place. There's not even any tension about whether Na-ra will do them correctly, because we've never seem him struggle with magic.
That's overall the main problem with "Magic School"- it's just too easy. No one has to put any serious effort in to get the stuff that they want, so the payoffs are inherently unrewarding. There's more backstory than there is legitimate conflict, let alone resolution, so the whole production just feels so badly limited by its own lack of proper development. The occassional funny joke is the only thing that redeems "Magic School", and there just aren't enough of them.
Review by William Schwartz
"Magic School" is directed by Kim Do-won-I, written by Kim Do-hyeon, and features Jinyoung, Yoon Park, Nichkhun and Ryu Seung-soo.

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"Hospital Ship" ratings: 5.6% and 6.6%

"Hospital Ship" sailed on top despite lowered numbers due to the Chuseok holiday. All of the free-to-air or ground wave dramas in the time slot suffered from ratings dips, which is normal during the family-centered holiday.
Numbers for "Hospital Ship" came in at 5.6% and 6.6% repsectively in comparison to last week's 9.3% and 11.3%, while SBS's "While You Were Sleeping - 2017" hit 5.1% and 6.1% versus the previous week's 8.3% and 9.2% vieweingship numbers.
Ra Mi-ran's and Shin Rin-ah's "Drama Special - Madame Jung's Last Week" brought up the rear with 3.7% ratings.

Source : news.nate.com/view/20...

"Magic School" Episodes 9-12 recap

By this point I had been expecting "Magic School" to build up to some sort of climax. Instead, we just get more exposition. There's not even any conflict, just exposition of potential conflicts. At least, that's how I'm inclined to interpret Na-ra's tension with Yoo-ri, a woman who is not his girlfriend, and with whom he has not shared any real romantic scenes. Even the fat bespectacled guy Na-ra knows has a more clearly defined relationship than Na-ra himself does.
Or, to use a more obviously relevant example, Seong and Yi-seul. Every scene they have at this point, even the ones involving other characters and magic classes, is legitimately cute romantic comedy material. The best part is when the other students catch on and begin commenting on it. Grotesque immaturity of the situation notwithstanding, it's all legitimately funny, and works to give Seong a wide enough variety of situations to react to that he's a surprisingly well-rounded character. Especially given his backstory.
We also find out a lot more about Joon's backstory, and personality in general. The former is just typical sad overseas Korean adoption stuff. The latter is a lot funnier, because it becomes obvious the more we see of Joon that the guy really is every bit as dumb as he looks. It amazes me that a man intelligent enough to learn near-fluent Korean and graduate from an accredited Korean medical school in just six years is somehow this stupid with money.
The way Joon takes every debilitating humiliation in stride is the best part though. No wonder the guy loves magic so much. He fully buys into it as an instrinsic concept that solves all problems in an unseen way. This is literally how most people see doctors, which only makes Joon's medical expertise all the more comically ironic. Meanwhile, actual professional magician Jay is very down-to-earth and practical-minded. What an odd couple!
...At least, that would be by impression if that particular relationship (or any of the drama's relationships, really) had been set-up in the first portion of the story rather than the third part of four. It's genuinely impossible to see how any of the established storylines can be satisfactorily resolved, when so much time has been spent on simple characterization there's barely any room for narrative. Well, at least my expectations aren't set too high. "Magic School" does tend to succeed when it aims low at least.
Review by William Schwartz
"Magic School" is directed by Kim Do-won-I, written by Kim Do-hyeon, and features Jinyoung, Yoon Park, Nichkhun and Ryu Seung-soo.

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