I started this show without having much expectation, but since I liked Nam Goong Min from "Can you Hear my heart?", I looked for another show with him in it. I didn't hear anything about this show prior so I don't know the expectations local viewers had when it first started to broadcast. I started to watch this show out of curiosity, but around 5 episodes in I got curious again. I was watching on Viki, and looked at the episode thumbnails to see at which point the adults came in. When I saw that 12 episodes of 26 were devoted to the young actors, my feelings started to sink. I have my B.A. in TV and Film Production and worked on a few minor projects to date, so you will understand that I started to watch with a more critical mind at this point. I watched and knew by episode 20 that this show was cancelled. There was too much introduced in the yester-years not to even mention what was added in the current timeline to be fully addressed in the final 6 episodes. Even knowing this, I still watched this show entirely. So it goes without saying that I LOVED this show up to the magic wand ending.
Even watching with a critical mind, I could not help but love this story and was very pained at the way the show ended. I know things like this is beyond production control but I wonder what was on tv that competed with this story line so solidly that this show had poor ratings. Despite the cultural differences, I felt the story and I was genuinely interested in everyone's story. I binge watch a lot of shows when I have mini vacations and I have gotten very good at skipping parts of shows that hold no interest for me, like entire side family drama and sub plots. So for this show to have me interested in what happened to everyone shows the solid writing and how amazing the acting was for both the young and adult cast.
I have read the comments on the adult actors' chemistry and I have to disagree. The adults were not playing two young people that are meeting for the first time without any baggage. This was a woman meeting the man she loved and was disillusioned by later in life; and a man meeting a woman that interests him for the first time since his first love disappeared on him during tragic circumstances. Maybe the viewers wanted more pettiness and fighting. I thought Guk running down several flights of stairs just to stomp on Jun-su foot then to rush on to the elevator was very cute and endearing. I know sometimes viewers want a lot more eye candy than the writer of the story intends and they lose interest when the writer stays true to their story. The writer wrote a saga that needed time to be unraveled. I only wish the viewers would have seen this gem for what it is.
Words can't express my disappointment at not seeing how the story was going to play out for all the characters. I know there were comments about adult ham-cho being so plain and hun being annoying. Well that's who the writer wrote them as. Ham-cho was supposed to be plain, shy and somber, but I still felt her warmth. Saw her light up around hun, felt her love of cooking. Hun was an immature skirt chasing rich boy (that's a bit close to the male archetype in a lot of k drama), yet you clearly saw his dependence on Ham-Cho.
Even watching with a critical mind, I could not help but love this story and was very pained at the way the show ended. I know things like this is beyond production control but I wonder what was on tv that competed with this story line so solidly that this show had poor ratings. Despite the cultural differences, I felt the story and I was genuinely interested in everyone's story. I binge watch a lot of shows when I have mini vacations and I have gotten very good at skipping parts of shows that hold no interest for me, like entire side family drama and sub plots. So for this show to have me interested in what happened to everyone shows the solid writing and how amazing the acting was for both the young and adult cast.
I have read the comments on the adult actors' chemistry and I have to disagree. The adults were not playing two young people that are meeting for the first time without any baggage. This was a woman meeting the man she loved and was disillusioned by later in life; and a man meeting a woman that interests him for the first time since his first love disappeared on him during tragic circumstances. Maybe the viewers wanted more pettiness and fighting. I thought Guk running down several flights of stairs just to stomp on Jun-su foot then to rush on to the elevator was very cute and endearing. I know sometimes viewers want a lot more eye candy than the writer of the story intends and they lose interest when the writer stays true to their story. The writer wrote a saga that needed time to be unraveled. I only wish the viewers would have seen this gem for what it is.
Words can't express my disappointment at not seeing how the story was going to play out for all the characters. I know there were comments about adult ham-cho being so plain and hun being annoying. Well that's who the writer wrote them as. Ham-cho was supposed to be plain, shy and somber, but I still felt her warmth. Saw her light up around hun, felt her love of cooking. Hun was an immature skirt chasing rich boy (that's a bit close to the male archetype in a lot of k drama), yet you clearly saw his dependence on Ham-Cho.
There was much I wanted to see play out. I wanted to see devastatingly gorgeous Young-hee forgive her husband (I really can't believe how gorgeous this actress is). I am a forgiving woman, but I know that forgiving a person does not mean that you have to be with that person. I wanted to see how the writer was going to give Young-hee the closure she needed. If the writer wanted them to get back together, I wanted see how the writer was going to make me understand that reconciliation. How was the writer going to make horrible, hateful Da-hae forgive her horrible, spineless and shameless father. I could see the possibility of her half brother getting hurt and she helps him, healing the hurt.
I wanted to see Da-hae's comeuppance. I wanted to see the revelation of her role in Guk's accident and the epic falling out between Jun-su. I loved seeing Jun-su being forth coming about his feelings for Dal-Lae and I wanted to see him try to reconcile his friendship with Da-Hae as he pursued Dal-lae. I wanted the epic throw down between Da-hae and Guk. I wanted to see the younger brother grow up and stop liking her, though I doubt the writer would give that to me, but I was ok with him softening Da-hae and making her fall for him.
I wanted see what happened when Su-han is revealed as Jung-han's son. That juicy tidbit was just too good that it really needed to play out. I suspect that Su-han already knows about the real relation between him and his "brother," but I wanted to see jung-han's prideful wife to find out and have to deal with it. I wanted to see her really fall into reality and acceptance.
I wanted to see how Ham-cho was going to make Hun want her, not take her for granted and become her whipping boy. I wanted to see Go-sun, Da-lae's mom, continue to refuse ham-cho for not being good enough for her son. Then get slapped in the face by being told, preferably by Dal-lae, how could she look down on someone's precious daughter when she knows how it felt to have her daughter looked down on. I wanted to see her part in Guk and Jun-su's separation come out. I wanted to see how all this helped to make the mothers reconcile their differences.
I wanted to see sexy Su-han begin to look for love if not find it on the show. I wanted to see how Su-han was going to inspire Mu-hui to get serious about school and her future. I wanted to see Go-Sun, meet Se-min the con artist again. I wanted to see how they became friends or lovers. I wanted to see Jolie's husband show up from the states to bring his wife back home after all was said and done.
I wanted to see how the writer wanted the revelation about Dal-lae to really unfold. I liked how it happened in this one as well, which shows how good a writer this show had, but I don't think the writer had this intention. I enjoyed trying to figure out how the writer was going to do the big reveal. I wanted to see how Dal-Lae and Jun-su made up. I enjoyed the sexy jang woo, who I suspected was supposed to play a role in revealing Da-hae's hand in the accident. We deserved some gratuitous shirtless scenes of him and jun-su to soften the blow of the magic wand ending. I am not surprised this show got cancelled, it was too good and too much a reflection of real life. Sometime the world is just not ready. I would love if the writer wrote this as a book so I can know how this story really was supposed to go. Then hopefully the story can get a second chance and the viewers can as well.
