I began penning this weblog nearly 5 years in the past (Five years!!! Quick, somebody give me superior concepts on the way to have a good time when our blogiversary hits!), and I've to say that 2017 was an off yr in Okay-dramas.
Maybe it was simply me being busy with actual life and getting jaded with dramas, however based mostly on the responses to my two Okay-drama droop posts, I are inclined to assume this was an off Okay-drama yr for fairly a couple of folks.
Like 2016, which I dubbed "The Year of the Dropped K-drama," I dropped a complete bunch of reveals with out making it remotely near the tip. Even worse, I did not even begin a complete bunch of reveals for a number of Okay-drama cycles.
Unlike 2016, although, I additionally discovered myself on the reverse finish of the spectrum this yr, pleasantly shocked by a couple of gems I did not count on to love almost as a lot as I did.
To cowl the yr of combined luggage, I'm reviewing the perfect and worst issues about each drama I watched (or tried to look at) in 2017 as I rank them from greatest to worst (in response to my very own very subjective enjoyment, after all).
Note: I'm counting something that largely aired in 2017, even when it began in 2016 or will finish in 2018.
The Best and Worst of Every 2017 Okay-drama
1. Because This Life Is Our First
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Everything. Every. Single. Thing. This is a kind of uncommon dramas the place each time you brace your self for disappointment, you find yourself pleasantly shocked by considerate writing and pleasant characterization. This ranks as one of many prime dramas of 2017 for certain. It wins for greatest writing, greatest feminism, greatest friendships, greatest cat, greatest the whole lot.
Disappointments: Okay, so possibly not the whole lot. Those final two episodes let me down with a separation and time soar for no obvious motive. And then she has the nerve to snicker? No.
2. Radiant Office
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: I'm getting a bit of depressed seeing different year-end posts and realizing that apparently nobody else beloved this drama almost as a lot as I did. LISTEN UP, HUMANS OF THE INTERNET: RADIANT OFFICE IS A MAGNIFICENT GEM, AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE.
Disappointments: Yes, some small nitpicks exist. I don't care.
3. Age of Youth 2
Episodes watched: All (ish. I watched the final two uncooked whereas ready for subs and by no means got here again round to them later.)
Highlights: The ladies are again in prime kind! Everything I beloved about season 1—camaraderie, romance, slice-of-life situations—all returned in season 2. I may watch a zillion episodes of my Belle Epoque lovelies.
Disappointments: Much of Eun Jae's arc irritated me this season. Couldn't have cared much less about Heimdal. Couldn't have cared extra about squeezing in a couple of further scenes with Ji Won and Sung Min. Don't get me began on that epilogue.
4. Buamdong Revenge Club
Episodes watched: 7 (I'm lastly ending over Christmas, although, so this would possibly not be a dropped drama!)
Highlights: Lee Yo Won. Ra Mi Ran. Myung Se Bin. 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
Disappointments: Some of the episodes really feel repetitive from a plot perspective, which is why it is taken me a bit to complete. But except everybody dies within the final episode and the husbands win, I really feel fairly assured on this rating.
5. Fight My Way
Episodes watched: All
Highights: Talented leads enjoying distinctive, attention-grabbing characters. Friendship turning into romance. Kim Sung Oh! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM A SHOW?
Disappointments: Oh, yeah. We wish to not be distracted by a bunch of pointless aspect characters and beginning secrets and techniques.
6. School 2017
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: I nearly did not watch this, however who knew my favourite couple of the yr can be this pair of excessive schoolers?
Disappointments: Sure, the X thriller dragged on too lengthy, however we're all on this for Tae Swoon anyway.
7. Suspicious Partner
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Oh Ji Chang Wook, how I do love thee.
Disappointments: A sludgy second half not almost as sturdy as the primary.
8. Go Back Couple
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: As somebody whose mother died at a younger age, I ugly cried over Jin Joo discovering herself and reuniting along with her mother each single week. This was the 2017 drama that hit me within the feels and acquired me emotionally invested far more than the drama in all probability deserved.
Disappointments: If you will have solely 12 episodes to inform this story, how about you do not spend greater than half of them with the male lead being a complete dirtbag? Also, actually nobody cares in regards to the cheerleading couple. NO ONE.
9. twentieth Century Boy and Girl
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Female friendship abounding. The greatest cameo of the yr within the type of Kim So Yeon. Also, Kim Ji Suk because the sweetest, most supportive male lead in a very long time. It's very uncommon that I say this with all of the emotionally damaged, extraordinarily rich man-children working amok in Okay-dramas, however he's somebody I'd encourage my buddies to this point if he existed in actual life.
Disappointments: Pretty light-weight on the drama aspect of Okay-drama, if that is what you are into.
10. Chief Kim
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Namgoong Min having a grand previous time. This present additionally launched me to the delights which can be Junho and Dong Ha.
Disappointments: I imply, I do not really care about workplace politics in mainly any present, so there's that.
11. Strong Woman Do Bong Soon
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: And IIIIIIIIIIIIIeeeeeIIIIIIIIIIII will all the time love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
Disappointments: How they managed to make the whole lot aside from the central romance so extremely unhealthy is spectacular.
12. Goblin
Episodes watched: 5
Highlights: Easily probably the most sweeping, fascinating premiere of any present all yr.
Disappointments: This present is a paradox. How can it concurrently be so magnificent and so boring?
13. Chicago Typewriter
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: That kiss, which encapsulated so most of the greatest elements of this collection (minus scorching ghost Go Kyung Pyo, after all).
Disappointments: Is there a reduce of this present that is simply the Nineteen Thirties elements minus all of the whiny modern-day elements? I would like that, please.
14. The Best Hit
Episodes watched: 10
Highlights: Harabeoji and Mal Sook making me ugly cry. The OST, together with this Yoon Mi Rae music that acquired caught in my head for like a month.
Disappointments: They ought to have skipped the romance and caught to the father-son relationship.
15. Strongest Deliveryman
Episodes watched: 8
Highlights: Our clueless chaebol couple.
Disappointments: After Chicago Typewriter, I believed for certain Go Kyung Pyo's first function as main man can be wonderful. Instead, I discovered his character self-righteous and boring.
16. Tunnel
Episodes watched: 4
Highlights: Emotional punch from the start, and a great steadiness of humor towards the darker material.
Disappointments: No disappointments—I simply forgot to maintain watching.
17. Voice
Episodes watched: 6
Highlights: Kim Jae Wook being creepier than I ever imagined potential.
Disappointments: See Tunnel. Maybe nobody ought to ever belief my judgment on crime reveals as a result of apparently I'm horrible at ending them.
18. Live Up to Your Name
Episodes watched: 6
Highlights: Solid actors
Disappointments: Meh, I could not get into it. I believe I lastly have to surrender on pretending I like Kim Nam Gil's slapstick appearing.
19. Tomorrow with You
Episodes watched: 6
Highlights and disappointments: I've to break down these classes as a result of I genuinely cannot bear in mind a single scene from the collection, other than possibly Shin Min Ah sporting some horrifying socks with heels. It ranks so excessive within the record solely as a result of there weren't issues I actively hated about it.
This is the place the actually unhealthy ones begin! Ranking #20 shouldn't be an accomplishment on this record!
20. Bride of the Water God
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Shin Se Kyung's wardrobe. Nam Joo Hyuk's sky palace costume.
Disappointments: Pacing. Plot holes. The ending. Nam Joo Hyuk's human mullet.
21. Missing 9
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: This can be dead-last on the record if not for a fantastic romance constructed on mutual respect and friendship.
Disappointments: A beautiful romance the place they by no means really get collectively and as an alternative you need to watch a assassin wandering round for no discernible motive for a zillion episodes. What the hell, present?
22. Revolutionary Love
Episodes watched: 6
Highlights: Siwon and Kang Sora are so, so beautiful.
Disappointments: This collection as a complete was written so, so poorly.
23. Lingerie Girls' Generation
Episodes watched: 4
Highlights: An attention-grabbing view right into a interval of Korean historical past I do know little or no about.
Disappointments: A extra boring and fewer good model of Answer Me 1988.
24. My Secret Romance
Episodes watched: All
Highlights: Sung Hoon in a go well with. Sung Hoon enjoying with youngsters.
Disappointments: Pretty a lot the whole lot else.
25. My Only Love Song
Episodes watched: I do not bear in mind. It's a blur.
Highlights: I get weirdly enthusiastic about Okay-dramas on Netflix.
Disappointments: I did not really like all of the characters. Bad signal?
26. My Sassy Girl
Episodes watched: 4
Highlights: Pretty costumes?
Disappointments: Just as a result of Oh Yeon Seo can do over-the-top doesn't suggest she ought to.
27. Judge vs. Judge (aka Nothing to Lose)
Episodes watched: 8
Highlights: A really spectacular solid
Disappointments: Nothing about something on this present is sensible.
28. Temperature of Love
Episodes watched: 4
Highlights: Seo Hyun Jin
Disappointments: Me watching this present.
29. The Liar and His Lover
Episodes watched: 1.5
Highlights: ...Other folks appear to get pleasure from it?
Disappointments: Every now and again, you watch a present and assume you are on loopy drugs as a result of your emotions don't line up AT ALL with how everybody else within the universe appears to really feel about it. That's this present for me. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
30. Manhole
Episodes watched: 4
Highlights: The premise was attention-grabbing
Disappointments: Whyyyyyy are we speculated to be rooting for this couple within the first place?
31. Introverted Boss
Episodes watched: 2
Highlights: .......
Disappointments: Sigh.
Dramas I Wish I Had Watched in 2017
With bizarre licensing, ready for subtitles, and having to scrounge up unlawful streams in some instances, listed below are the dramas I nonetheless have on my watchlist from the yr:
- Forest of Secrets (Update: I kicked off my Christmas break final evening by binge-watching the primary 4 episodes now that it is on Netflix. I get it, y'all. I lastly get it.)
- Seven-Day Queen
- Smart Prison Living
- Argon
So I'm sorry if I left them off the record! I've been shamed for my lazy drama-watching methods and will sometime catch up!
What Were Your Favorite Dramas of 2017?
How did you rank your favourite dramas this yr? Where did I get it proper? Where did I get it horribly fallacious? What dramas did I completely miss out on? Let me know!
