A SERIES WITH A GREAT START & PROMISE BUT SEEMS TO RUN OUT ON STEAM

I can't tell you how delightful the start of the series is. It's like a 'Vantage Point' treatment which onion skins the story. Everything which you saw in the last episode seems to take on a completely new context and hue in the next episode on the basis of what is revealed. Given that it shows no great thrill or disaster or violence or any of the trope high drama, the almost soft grip the story gets on you as the viewer is hard to describe. Well that is at least till the 8th-9th episode. Each week I'd be immersed in the characters hoping, wanting to know more about what happens to them. All this goes on until the 11th episode. When suddenly, the story, which seemed like some smooth champagne till now, loses ALL fizz and then almost becomes long forgotten soda water. I am left wondering, did they change script writers midstream? Or did the script writer suddenly feel lost? But there seems to be a qualitative gulf between how the story started and how it ends. It could have been brilliant, but it isn't. The actors though put up a commendable performance. One leaves the series with. lament of all the potential lost.

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A Promising Premise with a very weak ending (very light spoilers)

A rider. This series COULD be aimed primarily at female audiences. Thus, showing a weak hero within the premise might be satisfactory to some. Thus, IF you are a woman audience, you might find this drama interesting. This review might not be for you. However I did find the ending most disappointing. In fact it becomes disappointing much before midway. How and why so? Is it cos I am a male? I wouldn't like to think so, cos the philandering male is justly punished and that was satisfactory.

Irrespective of however 'realistic' some might find the drama to be, in real terms any narrative has to fulfil the dramatic needs of drama mechanics. By which one makes a purchase into the drama. The premise is possibly the best part of this drama. A man discovers a message which seems to indicate a ticking time bomb in his otherwise perfect domestic life. It could be true. It could be a misinterpretation. This sets up a novel engrossing story engine which readily propels the narrative forward for at least the first four episodes. However, even in this, the male protagonist, essentially on whom the show is based, comes out as a whimpering pansy. Now, there's nothing to suggest a person CAN'T be a whimpering pansy and will NOT deserve the audience's sympathy. ONLY, such a person is rarely a protagonist. WHY? Cos for the audience to purchase into a tale, the protagonist, whether male or female, HAS to be proactive and willing to take on the curveball life or circumstance throws in his/her way and through that grow from it. This gives the person a character arc. We see this same arc being enacted in VIP, in The World of the Married, etc. You might not like the curveball sent your way, BUT you accept it for what it is and instead of pining for the past, grow, evolve into a better perspective, understanding, change of personal pattern and leaving the past behind, grow from it. None of this happens in this drama. It is essentially a tale of the person slinking back to a past in the future glossing over what happened. One might argue that he evolves to becoming more compassionate and attentive. BUT, an abrasive person becoming attentive and compassionate is a growth curve. A self indulgent wimp becoming 'attentive and compassionate' is degrading from one delusional self aggrandisement to another, without addressing the core factor of wimpiness/indecisiveness. Of being reactive to life instead of embracing change for all its pain and becoming proactive. in THIS factor the drama, despite its very promising set up, gloriously fails.

Most of the Korean Script writers are women. The characters tend to be nuanced and deep, the premise interesting and novel, the story non-linear, the drama involved and intense. The issue is, when the adulter is man, he's invariably cast away or lives to repent AFTER being divorced. In this same drama, the lead story, the guy finally ends up not being able to leave his cheating wife. BUT, if the adulterous one is woman, then the man either can't live without her or goes on to commit a greater crime. In one of the dramas, in the B story, when the guy is the adulter he ends up being discarded, divorced, penniless, repentant...you name it. Take MISTY as an example. I am left wondering, is this some nascent sexism which is evolving?

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It could have been so much more but is so confused and so dispersed

Have you watched GoT? And despaired at how the absolutely brilliant storytelling sank in the final season delivering a PPT of events rather than a story? Well Black Knight is something like that. For me the loss is greater cos I had read the manhwa and was really looking forward to seeing the story brought to life. But, unfortunately, the story wasn't brought to life. Rather it was gutted, quartered and then parts of it was stitched together to provide a semblance of a silhouette of a story. In any way all that was there was a shadow of a story and it fell dispersed. And in absence of a story all you are left with is a lot of meaningless action which takes place cos it is meant to take place but you never connect with it.

The one person I feel sorry for is Lee yungyun, the creator of Delivery Knight manhwa, on which the series is based. He was supposed to originally write the script but I see his name has been dropped from the credits. I guess he couldn't bear to be associated with the feeble attempt to stitch a few body parts of its original body and try and pass it off as a being. The complexity of the original, deeper story wasn't something which could be compressed to 6 episodes. I guess Netflix must have run out on money to produce this? In which case Netflix should have just optioned the story out.

Yet, in all this, Karma is at play too. Lee yungyun, who had been cruising along with his Manhwa suddenly stopped the manhwa back in 2019/20. I guess he was negotiating with Netflix then. And then he returned, to abruptly complete the story by telescoping the story arcs and bring the story to a close in just a few episodes. I wonder if he did that so as to not expose the story and leave room for doing a grand job with the Netflix series? Well Karma the bitch must have come to bite back then. I guess any author should respect the original muse and the original tryst with the story. I hope GRRM reads this.

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