I'm extremely surprised that this is getting so much praise, nearly as surprised that I did not drop this early on around EP 4-5. I think my biggest gripe is that up till episode 7-ish there was nothing but pain & suffering. I realize that this is a melodrama, but in order for me to feel the value of this genre, in order to feel a sense of loss the characters' lives need to be introduced before everything went to oblivion for them. I'm giving this a 5 instead of a 1, because the main leads had great chemistry and the acting on their part was outstanding and their romance was well written too I guess. The cinematography was decent & the OST is quite memorable too. Usually I like the 16 episode format, because the writers don't have a chance to overdo fillers & they can just freely use their best ideas to full effect, there is no need to hold back for further seasons, but here I felt that 16 episodes were too condensed for all this borderline sadistic writing. That's not all, there were so many characters I felt apathetic about. Mr Shifty-eyes Architect, or that CEO? that always shouts, why did I have to see his pointless attempts at romance, just why? I like Kang HanNa, but her character made little sense to me, so I guess her acting talent might've been wasted here.
I've been reading the comments under the final episode & everyone was like "Thank God it's a happy ending, like this it's 10/10" etc, but I'm just not that forgiving. Literally 5 minutes of moderate happiness before the ending credits isn't enough to forget all the bad things, feels like the writer was pressured into changing her originally planned ending too.. Naturally there is no way that I would ever rewatch this drama. On the upside watching good melos mess me up for quite a while, but since I did not become emotionally invested in this one I'm already over it :-)

edit: For reasons unknown I kept missing the show, so after rewatching it I liked it a lot more than for the first time, so changing my rating to 6.5 stars. :-)

edit2 (a year later): I'm looking at this review that I've written and it feels surreal that I gave this 5/10 the first time around. Changing the score once more! .-)

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The cutest slipper commercial in the universe!

The biggest problem with this drama is that the part I wanted to watch starts only at episode 8~. Until then there were quite a few uncomfortable moments, due to some really weird casting and cinematographic choices. The young FL is supposed to be a 14 year old, but the actress playing her is like a second grader in elementary school, her interactions with ML were nothing bad in terms of plot and script, but the suggestive lighting & framing is really really weird at times. (I had a hard time getting past this part tbh)

Every romance drama has some flair & flavor to give a little contrast to all the sugar. This one has very few scenes outside of the leads' personal world, but what little there is, tends to be rather boring, or just plain bad. (concerns of ML's parents, ML's family things, ML's stalker, stalker's boss friend, workplace things)

Another minor gripe I have with the drama is how much FL is treated like a teenage princess in her relationship. This seems to be a recurring theme in cdrama roms these days, but I'm just not a fan.

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So why is it still 8/10?

Well, we watch romantic comedies for the actual romance and that is really absolutely out of this world good in this one. The chemistry, the visuals, the mood, the acting, the red ears, well really everything pertaining to romance (well other than the princess thing) is 10/10 awesome. I always understood why Lusi is touted by many as THE romcom queen, but personally I did not like a single one of her dramas due to various reasons. I feel she is far better in this one than in anything else before & there is some real acting chops here, beyond just being a top of the line comedienne. (and ML of course is the perfect partner)

I too found the brother-sister relationship very amusing & wholesome, but I don't think it's possible to have such a brother in real life. :-) (I'm talking about FL's real blood related brother here of course.)

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Avoid!

Imagine the worst plot you possibly can & then spend a month to find more ways to make it even worse. That is the plot of Lie to Love. Romance could have still saved the drama, but unlike in Love is Sweet even the romance is pretty weak in this one. Cheng Xiao should just stick to singing, I wouldn't dare to assume that she has no acting talent, but she does not even seem to make an effort, her boredom on set is almost palpable. I'm sure it surprised no one that she has no chemistry with Luo Yun Xi.

I've read people saying that the first 20? episodes were quite good, it only become bad after, but I cannot disagree more. I'm honestly surprised I have not dropped this, sure things get even worse later, but it was never good.

Originally I was prepared to talk about love triangles, badminton, the randomly found hedgehog, or all the "barging in" that's happened in the drama, but I've decided to just end it here, this drama is not worth a more elaborate review. 3/10 :poopy emote:

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The writer did not bother to write a well thought out ending, why should I give this a high rating?

Okay, so the ending is just horribly bad. It's not just that I did not get the happy ending that I have wanted, but none of it makes any sense. BYJ leaves the sports department to be with her love NHD, joining the New York office is the bestest idea -also BYJ. I hugely dislike watching shows that are about first loves failing amicably, but I don't think this show ever wanted to be that. (otherwise they would've set things up differently) What I think happened is that the writer had no idea how to finish the story, so she kept procrastinating until the last two episodes & then just went with this knowing that no matter what she does, the commercial success of the show is not in danger anymore. Behavior like this is fairly common in Kdramaland, but this ending is truly one of the worst ones I've seen, in my opinion it's far worse than How I Met Your Mother's, there should be a blowback, right? Unfortunately I cannot do anything else other than writing this review & giving the show a low rating, so here we are!

If I want to be entirely honest, the ending is not the only problem with this drama. Yes, up until episode 10ish, up until HD made up with Go Yurim this was a 10/10 drama for me(Episode 9 was probably the best kdrama episode I've seen since IOTNBO's episode 3.), however after that, much of what made the drama so great has been toned down several notches. For example it would have been possible for me to partly ignore what happened with the OTP, if we would have gotten more fencing. Like I don't know, HD at the Olympics, HD at the Olympics for a second time. Could have even gone with some fairly standard plot with Evil Foreigner injuring GYR & HD having vengeance with her saber, there were endless possibilities to end this sports drama respectfully as a sports drama. Fencing was more than just cool up until episode 7-8.

So if you have have yet to watch this drama, should you watch it? Well, if you are not obsessed with getting closure, then yes you can watch the first 9 (perhaps even 10) episodes & then stop. Treat it like it's the American TV show Wonderfalls and just enjoy the ride. (Speaking of Wonderfalls, I should watch that again sometime soon)

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I'm a cat person, I absolutely adore those little murder machines, so because of that I managed to finish watching all episodes, but I was close to dropping it quite a few times. I like Shin Ye Eun, but she wasn't a good fit for this drama, or maybe just her character was too ridiculous? I don't know. As for L he is still a weak actor, but ultimately the main problem here is not acting, but rather the script. The story is on the boring side of terrible. I mean honestly what qualifications does one need to become a kdrama writer? I'm typically not the type to look at a painting & say "this is nothing I could do better", but in Meow the Secret Boy's case I think I could come up with a better kdrama plot in like 20 minutes. I mean sure plot is not all that important in a cute fantasy romance drama, but even the basic romance is just not done very well here, also "cat life span melo" is like the worst idea ever in a show like this.. As for the ending, it's basically a noneding. The last 2 episodes were especially boring & there is no satisfying conclusion, I don't think. We see a deus ex machina thing with the webtoon & then he is human again! Great, what's next? Is this the cliffhanger for Sabrina the Teenage Witch season 4? The whole point of the kdrama format is to give viewers a proper closure.

Honestly who is the target audience for this? The whole thing feels incredibly juvenile..
I'm okay with silly romance shows, last year I loved watching "The Secret Life of my Secretary", but that show has much better romance, it's much funnier & also it has more charm.

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It's not great.

The Good:
⌲ The cute second couple
⌲ The lack of love triangles
⌲ There are very few annoying things. (unfortunately the same is also true for excitement)
⌲ The beautiful people, everywhere
⌲ It's not very long & as such the pace is rather good until e12.

The Average:
⌲ The mediocre acting
⌲ The mediocre chemistry
⌲ The super shallow romance
⌲ The villains were meh.

The Bad:
⌲ The time travel plot is far below average, it's just really on the boring side & there is even less logic than usual in this genre.
⌲ The lack of comedy is a big problem, since there is no other hook for the romance to remain interesting.
⌲ Even for a low intensity cdrama this one is just lifeless
⌲ The ending follows a basic time travel drama cliche & I don't like this type of happy ending at all.
⌲ There is very little thrilling for a supposed thriller.

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It's entertaining garbage.

The Good:
⌲ The acting*
⌲ The chemistry
⌲ The comedy in the first 2/3rds of the show
⌲ The whole double Scooby-Doo crew thing
⌲ Ultimately I was entertained enough.
⌲ There were an endless number of cute/fluffy romantic scenes

The Average:
⌲ The romantic story itself could be better.
⌲ The second ML (It's a weak triangle, but still..)
⌲ The special ability (the drama does not follow its own established fantasy rules regarding how the eyes are supposed to work and it's just a really dumb concept.)
⌲ The corporate stuff is quite digestible until nearing the final episodes. (usually this is far far worse)

The Bad:
⌲ The plot goes from silly nonsense to complete -still very silly- chaos near the finale.
⌲ Typically Chinese fantasy shows get an "it's a novel" ending these days, here the plot is completely packaged in that, so it's the first 10 & last 10 minutes-ish.
⌲ The main villain (I mean what is the end goal here, really?)
⌲ The Police in the final episode (I guess the censors needed a little extra push?)
⌲ The mom wakes up after 15 years of coma & she is like your regular cdrama mom from 1 second onward. (my daughter aged 15 years, but everything is FIIINE)


* I've read many posts about people bashing Zhang Yu Xi for her bad acting. I think you all are just lacking context. Had you ever seen a Chinese romcom comic, you would probably immediately recognize all the "silly overacting" postures & various other things. The goal was clearly doing that on screen & the cast did it as well as I could possibly imagine anyone doing.

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It's good, but overrated!

I started this show about a week ago, but long after the show has ended, so I have seen & read many glowing reviews & saw how folks proclaimed this drama being the best one they have ever seen.
I not for one moment have felt that way, but it took me quite a bit of introspection to -I think- figure out why.
I mean at the very least we’ve seen amazingly well acted emotional scenes, that are up there with the best of the best in Kdramaland. There is a lot of good music, romances & one amazing bromance thing, so at the very least I can understand why someone would rate this at 10/10 amazing..

Let me explain, why to me this is far worse than 10/10 & why I felt something is really wrong with this drama throughout most of the episodes. Disclaimer, I’m a rather nitpicky person. I can find logical flaws in almost anything, but that has not prevented me to give 10/10 ratings to flawed shows before.
Let’s start with a TLDR to not waste anyone’s time with my long rambling: Many and perhaps most of the minor details in this drama are either wrong or off. This pile of immersion breaking lack of attention to detail is just too tall for me.

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So here I go:

I could go on and on about -tiny or large- time travel related plotholes, but I have begrudgingly accepted them, because time travel shows always have a ton of these. (Though the level of disregard for consistency is on another level in this drama.)

Music is an important part of this drama, but the sound is completely unrealistic in most scenes. Not only does everything sound like an overly perfect studio recording, but also every guitar in the show sounds like $20000. These kids are not millionaires, yo! Sure the guitar point is very nitpicky, but I have never at any point felt like I’m listening to music made by a very talented up and coming band, or anything remotely live-like. (as in live music sounding like a live performance)

Sol Ina is just too old for this role. Yes, she acted amazingly well here & I’m happy for her success. I’m sure no one could’ve done better in her place, but I would love to see a big budget kdrama where the teens are played by at most 22 year olds. Just to reiterate again, yes she is stunningly beautiful and everything, but she's not a teen & can never pass as one. If this only happened in a couple of flashbacks it would’ve been fine, but she is a teen the entire time.
This point applies to Ryeoun as well. He is not a believable Korean teenager at any point in time. He is 25, what could he have possibly done, right?

The portrayal of disabilities in Korean media always have been very annoying to me. Here it’s probably the best I’ve seen so far from them, but there were still quite a few weird moments. Being deaf is very difficult to portray well to begin with, I don’t know. Largely because you want to keep the audience entertained, but if you as an actor do over the top emotional faces in every single scene, then the end result cannot possibly be something believable. Though of course the actors followed well what was asked of them. I can somewhat understand why they choose to do it like this. Imagine if the story was almost the same in every way, but Cheong Ah had not been deaf just an introvert, if Eun Gyeol's parents were able to hear, but lived a very hard, tumultuous life. To me it seems like most of the plot would have worked just the same. I strongly suspect that the writer added decided to go with the CODA thing, because there were a couple really big hit shows that featured disabilities. Deafness is not completely an important, integral part of the show.

Romance is only so so, I did not really feel the chemistry, nor are the romantic plots very engaging. Then again this is probably the most realistic part of the drama, because teenagers falling in love is the easiest thing in the world, no elaborate plots are needed.

The main villain is very sterotypical and boring, her actions were very silly & her end is anticlimactic. The family situation at that house makes no sense. They could have made Cheong Ah's backstroy much more interesting without opting for this whole "her father ignores her suffering" plot.

The late nineties Korea in the show is -you guessed it- highly unrealistic.

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My fellow MDL user, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now how most of my criticisms are about realism. It would be a logical conclusion that this is a me problem, since kdrama as a genre tends to be very lacking in realism & anyone who wants realism should not watch kdramas.
I agree with this of course, but if a show’s end goal is not just to entertain with comedy & sugar, but maybe to educate about disabilities, to present gut wrenching moments and to make the audience empathize with the characters, then realism becomes rather important, or at the very least a fantasy setting should respect its own established rules & just in general the writer should not insult our intelligence.
Just look at the various Reply dramas, every single one of them has a similar blend of teen romance, bromance and to a lesser extent family tragedies to Twinkling Watermelon, but they are far more reasonable in every way, the emotional scenes in those are really really great, while the comedy and romance still get to shine.

The overall presentation is a bit childish. So perhaps we should just judge this as a teen programme. That’s fair, I’ve given it some thought & perhaps watching this at the age of 14 my mind could have been completely blown, I don’t know. Most of us on MDL are adults though & with that in mind I decided to settle for a rating of 7.5, because despite everything I've said, here and there there were moments of real brilliance in the show.

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12 year old me would've loved this!

This is a family drama mostly catering to children's tastes. I think 10-14 old children would absolutely love this, but for adults it's not that great. Not only does the drama have giant plotholes, but also the story has very little to offer. I mean sure the FL did a phenomenal job portraying a mystical cathuman, but that's not enough to carry the entire show. The leads may have had okay chemistry, but their relationship had very little substance and the whole thing with ML rejecting FL's advances, despite dating and even living together has been quite frustrating.
Also the whole "rollback" thing is a horrible waste of time, they should've just cut the show short, or come up with something else, like filling 3-4 episodes with fluff instead..


Still at least the show is not trying to be anything more than silly & juvenile. I had some good laughs here and there. Compared with Meow the Secret Boy this one is HUGELY better.

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This show was great. This is probably at the limit of what a cdrama romcom can be today. The leads had great chemistry & they looked adorable together and it's great that focus has been so much on them, there is not much side tracking during the 32 episodes. The production quality is extremely high, the audiovisuals are up there with the best Asian dramas that I've seen. I may have enjoyed watching the GoGo Squids, but this is my first cdrama, where the gaming aspect truly works and they made a great job at making that exciting. The aerospace parts were also relatively interesting and kind of novel too I guess. Ultimately the story is not all that revolutionary or anything, but it's just so wholesome and the drama kind of made me relive the feeling of watching Asian dramas for the first time. My need for fluff & sugar has been also completely satisfied. It's so refreshing that the main couple is not opposed by anyone, there are only supporting voices and yet the drama is still funny & interesting enough. The complete lack of a love triangle is always a giant plus as well.

It's great that the FL is an artiste, but none of the usual annoying tropes are used. In this drama even the paparazzi are kind of cute. Supportive netizens appear the be becoming a trend in modern cramas, that's always something I'm happy to see. Personally I love it, when in a drama a normal person is dating a celebrity and we get scenes describing situations where people meet their friend's significant celebrity other for the first time. Trope-ish or not, that just never gets old for me and in You Are My Glory we had a lot of that..

I already mentioned how I found the production quality to be excellent. The OST deserves further elaboration. Individually the songs are not that great, I've heard way better in a cdrama (hello there Perfect and Casual), but the mixing is really outstanding, music is used perfectly to help set various moods, I never felt it being detrimental.

Sexuality in cdramas & especially in kdramas is often portrayed very strangely. Like 35 year old FLs are almost never ready to have premarital sex. I understand that many people like it how sex is not a major plot point in these shows, unlike in Hollywood productions, but in my opinion the opposite can be even more annoying. Not in this drama though, this is how I think all drama couples should approach this matter. (implying sex in a realistic time frame, without bringing it into major focus)

Obviously nothing is perfect. The single biggest problem I found with this drama is the main driving force of conflict, what little conflict we've had, namely ML's low wages as an aerospace engineer. This is extremely unrealistic, in China a state employed aerospace engineer will never have problems affording medicare for his parents. So the entire plot about ML wanting to switch carriers due to low compensation feels wrong. Frankly it surprised me that the censors let this go, though perhaps having hundreds of Chinese flags everywhere made them happy enough to ignore this not so minor detail.

I'm sure a rewatch will happen eventually, 10/10!

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I'm a little surprised about all the 10/10 reviews. Some folks wrote overwhelmingly positive reviews to the point that I've expected that this drama would be even better than Reply 88. For the first 10~ episodes it's pretty close to that level, but at the same time unique and perhaps even more endearing. The problem is that this is a 40 episode long drama and episodes 11 to 18~ are straight up boring. There is nothing much there, none of that wholesome family vibe, or much character or plot progression. After wasting 5 hours on filler like that it cannot possibly be a 10/10.

Around episode 20 the drama slowly becomes interesting again, but it never reaches the initial heights.
I for one am okay with the sister dating the stepbrother thing, I can even begrudgingly accept the blackmail with mental illness issue. What is difficult to gloss over though is that they had very few sweet scenes together after they've properly gotten together. I mean there was so much time for that in 40 episodes..

I could go on and on how much I hated mom A and biological dad B, but It's not necessarily a bad thing for a drama to have hated characters. Human garbage can be portrayed on television too, right? But the redemption arc for mom A in the final episode felt completely unnatural and unnecessary. I would have preferred either a more gradual process involving some mutual healing over the course of like 5 episodes, or they could have just had a clean break. So yeah, the plot had some problems here and there, like how every tragic thing happened simultaneously at ep10ish and how not only did He Mei go to P, but her friend also did 16? years later. Those could've been handled much more naturally.

The ending is not that great either. It's way too open ended for my liking. The potential side couple's story is unfinished and as I said earlier, there was just such a long time available to wrap things up.

I love how they resolved the triangle fast and relatively peacefully.

Overall the drama is worth watching, there are some incredibly touching scenes, really unique family dynamics and it's unlike any other cdrama that I've seen so far, but it's not even close to a 10, lets be real people!

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This drama is just awesome. There are so many great things about it:
-Many memorable scenes
-The retro feeling
-The 90s kpop
-The amazing cast
-Everyone had great chemistry with almost everyone.
-Amazing parents (this is a first for me after 30+ kdramas)
-Gay storyline in a kdrama that feels almost natural
-Good cinematography, especially outstanding for a slightly aged show
-Amazing ending

The biggest negatives for me were the mandatory love triangle and the older brother, despite the older brother's amazing flashback romance I just couldn't accept his predatory behavior as a teacher. Normally I don't care about age gaps at all, but this just irked me. Also they dragged on this semi dating bullshit for way too long.

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No Watch, Not too much Loss (2024)

Whenever I see a bad ending I tend to bitch and moan about it, so let's get that out of the way. I feel that that the writer has not even tried to prepare to write a 12 episode long miniseries. She just went through the motions almost exactly the same way as if it were a 16 epi long drama & then in e12 just quickly tried to wrap it all up, but -3 minute long happy ending aside- the finale is the worst episode of the show. It's just really messy & quite a bit stupid.


The Good
⌲ Most characters on the show are rather entertaining on their own.
⌲ The Kim Young Dae + Shin Min Ah pairing worked better than I thought possible! (not amazing, but good)
⌲ Frenemies to lovers done very well in the first 9? episodes. (lots of fun bickering)
⌲ The show is very entertaining until the messy stuff in the final episodes. (until secret identities are found out)
⌲ The cat
⌲ The sismance
⌲ The comedy early on


The Average:
⌲ FL's seconary love interest (cartoon tier plot with a divorce offer, but he had so little impact that this does not qualify to trigger my hate for love triangles)
⌲ This is probably Min Ah's worst acting performance I have seen thus far & I'm a fan btw.. (still good, but disappointing compared to her usual self)
⌲ The murderer
⌲ The sex toys


The Bad:
⌲ I'm fairly open minded about consenting adults doing whatever, but this polyamorous plot was increasingly bad all the way to the end. (what bothered me has very little to do with the free hippy love part, more with marriage etc etc)
⌲ For a kdrama romcom there is barely any fluff in the show, sorry but this is not enough sugar for me!
⌲ The stupid 6 month separation in the final episode
⌲ The ridiculous career choices in the final episode (Jeez!)
⌲ The chaebol dad (though the time pressure on the writer made some very predictable plot developments disappear, so this could have been worse)
⌲ Tobacco
⌲ Why just WHY did FL's mom have to die just one second before the finale?

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It's very momerable, but at the same time there are many significant negative points.

In my review I'll mostly focus on the negatives, since I'm late to the party & the drama's abundant positive reviewers covered everything else. Though let me just say the main couple's chemistry & their acting performances are unprecedented in a cdrama, I don't think I have ever seen another cdrama that had such lively leads, with so much raw emotion etc..
(It's not a criticism really, but I chuckled a little when I saw Lao Gao driving a Maybach, this is the real authentic Cwebnovel experience right here!)

Okay so the negatives in no particular order:
⌲ The drama is very long & there are some repetitive plots, it feels like I rewatched an extraordinarily good drama 4 times in a row, this shouldn't have been 36 episodes. (though I'm sure many people that watched it as the eps were released barely noticed this)
⌲ Zhu Yun should have explained many things to her mom, but that never happened. (+horrible mom with little plot relevance & screen time)
⌲ Lao Gao's character development makes no sense to me. (and the transition to crazed cartoon villain is especially jarring)
⌲ Why would Li Xun trust Gao with L&P? (Their friendship? is very poorly explained in the drama)
⌲ Why, just why would Li Xun a so called genius use brawn over brain to deal with Fang Zhi Jing?
⌲ I found Fang Zhi Jing's plot against LX's sister over the top silly.
⌲ Zhu Yun kept a so called childhood friend on the hook for years. (you are a bad girl ZY, though at least this is bearable for a triangle)
⌲ The misunderstanding about a certain marriage happening has never gotten resolved, despite there being a lot of tension about this for a while.
⌲ The English in the drama is just embarrassing . ("Lucky & Power", "Thank!")
⌲ Ren Di is such an underutilized character. (Her band was really cool for those 3 minutes)
⌲ Ren Di's briefly shown romance is rather horrible.
⌲ Zhu Yun pretending not to care for so long, even in her internal monologues makes no sense.
⌲ The storytelling and even the main romantic plot is quite jittery at times, there are also frequent twists of logic, though the latter could be attributed to the questionable subbing quality, I just don't know.
⌲ This drama features the ugliest breakup I've ever witnessed. Noble reasons or not, no self respecting woman would ever forgive this much. (and yes LX is rather toxic in the early episodes too)
⌲ There is an enormous shift in the drama's tonality where we go from a very serious twenteen startup attempt to a ridiculously silly situation at the Flying Network? whatever company.
⌲ Xu Li Na (Her plot is all over the place & then she suddenly cares about Gao in the final episodes following their super silly divorce)
⌲ The programming related segments are ridiculous at times.
⌲ I can accept LX being a wunderkind knowitall, but based on what I've seen of ZY's progress as a newbie, she is the (un)real genius here..

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This drama indeed has some amazing characters, but the story feels aimless and unfinished. I loved the two noona romances, although Tami's in the last 1/3rd of the drama was quite annoying. The interactions of the 3 main women were also quite entertaining, it's quality bromance. Having binged this in 3 days I feel that writers did some pretty obvious character personality adjustments in between episodes, which seemed to have made the flow of the story inconsistent. Also there is quite a bit of repetition, some scenes and issues are brought up & discussed in a way that reminded me of time travel dramas. This show is first and foremost a procedural drama, but the happenings in the Search Engine industry were not all that interesting, especially in the second half.

Had they've given me a proper happy ending, or at least an open ended ending that shows some hope I would have rated this a point higher. To reiterate on the ending, none of the 3 women have a real hope to keep their current partner. Tami reconciles with Morgan in the last episode, but realistically nothing is resolved and they are doomed to fall apart again. Song Gagyeong's happy ending is a successful divorce with a husband she clearly had a strong bond with..
As for Scarlett, what are the odds that after one month of being together her relationship can survive another 18 or so months of being apart. I guess the Melodrama tag on Wiki is completely justified. :)

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