Time travel done right

This is not your ordinary K-drama.

I'll tell you what it's also not. The Atypical Family is not a tiresome rom-com that shambles zombie-like into a melodrama morass by episode 8. Instead it rather delicately shifts through various shades of crime caper and dark comedy with clever little twists before it hits the romance that it promises to be. Considering some of the dull, meandering garbage that we've been served lately I was almost surprised to find romance where it was promised. It's self-aware and addresses obvious tropes with almost fourth-wall, existential humour. It manages to use time travel coherently and does not insult the viewer with unnecessary time gaps and pointless makjang.

The casting was very good at all levels and the actors delivered. I thought that the marriage fraud gang were the best of the bunch. I did not find the leads truly exceptional but they were good and played off each other well. All of them were helped by the fact that the writers respected all characters and allowed them to develop their own stories so nobody was acting in a void.

The Atypical Family does many things very, very well. Above all, it does not outstay its welcome and doesn't try to scrape four more episodes off the cutting room floor.

This is what it feels like when a show's producers and writers respect their work and their audience. For that, this tough audience will rate it a solid 9/10 and will recommend it to pretty much anyone with time on their hands.

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A little less than I hoped for

The production and the acting get full marks. The leads are at the top of their game but they don't have to carry the whole show since the rest of the cast are also pulling their weight. It's very competently directed and obviously not cheaply made. The music fits well and provides an excellent background for the emotionally intense scenes.

I don't expect every afterlife drama to be a "May I Help You?" but I was hoping for at least a "Mystic Pop-Up Bar." I did not get it here. I feel like the script was not ambitious enough and the plot got stretched too thinly towards the end. I feel that the makjang missed the spot as often as it hit it. And it suffers from one of my pet peeves, which is the leads constantly running off into danger alone *after* they find out that they're stronger together.

Midnight Studio is well made and bingeworthy but it's not exceptional. It's missing that certain je ne sais quoi of originality that would set it apart from the crowd. Still, you would not be wasting your time watching it.

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Fluffy and thoughtful

Fluffy and thoughtful... and that is exactly how I like my J-dramas. It strays outside the romantic comedy box quite often but does not suffer for it.

I liked the casting and thought that the characters were well designed and very believable. Each was credibly played by their actor. There are no extras. Every character is permitted to have their independent story and say their personal piece.

I had not seen Hirose Alice in anything before and was a bit surprised to see that her background was in modelling and not the stage. She's much more than just a pretty face with a big grin and the directing made her look very good. Her performance was confident and her expressions were right on. Her motion and personality could fill the screen. As a lead she impressed me and I'll certainly watch her again.

If you like underdog stories, noona romances, or college ensembles I highly recommend this series.

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Meandering and light but not awful

It's a chameleon of a show. It begins with fart jokes and shocking truths. It morphs into a low-key romance. Eventually the light comedy dissipates in favour of a standard healing drama. The character interactions are good and the backstories are robust, but the situations are not terribly credible and the main relationship looks like more of a background story than a stand-out plotline.

On the cast and acting side I though that it was generally good but both leads were the weakest link. In a show that should have been filled with both laughter and vexation you'd look to the actors' eyes for the key expressions. These two looked like they'd just come off a botox treatment so neither joy nor mortification successfully crossed their faces. Apart from Joo Jong-hyuk, who did very well as the SML, I though that the best performances came from the people who were not seasoned drama actors, those characters being Director Yeon, I-na, and the kid.

Also on the upside, nobody gets stabbed. I find it weird that I have to mention it but that's the K-drama world for you.

Waste of time? No, not really even if I did not rate it highly myself. It's more in the line of "Love is for Suckers" than "My Lovely Liar" so you'll get some mileage out of it if you're looking for light viewing and light romance and are content with a 7/10 show.

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Good enough but not as hot as the original

It's a show about honest realtors without qualifying who exactly they're talking about. Despite the fact that Nagase is now more honest than he was on the first season and remains the nominal "Honest Realtor," in reality he has been surpassed by his sidekick. I feel like Tsukishita is the real star of season 2. The character with the most heart and the caring personality is not only skilfully acted but has now been endowed with the grit and knowledge that she lacked in the original series.

I like that there is still zero romance surrounding Tsukishita. That lets her character grow without diversions and distractions. Nagase isn't so lucky. The weird relationship sideplot with Emamoto only got weirder. And the rest of the cast didn't improve. The whole Minerva cast was shallow and vindictive for reasons that still make no sense. I had hopes for Hanasawa-san but her progress was mixed. And Kamiki must have been rescued from the villain reject dumpster behind Disney studios. All of them are too easily let off the hook as far as I'm concerned.

I think that this show survives and thrives on the guest characters more than it does on the main ones. Until episode 9, that is. Episode 10 is a hot mess that pulls a multi-year project out of thin air for the real estate drama but mostly sets up annoying cliff hangers for a third season. Maybe in season 3 the Tokage character will find his place. So far he seems to exist for the sole purpose of making Millennials sound like boomers when they talk about Gen Z.

Season 2 is a step down from the original series but still stands up alright by itself. If you liked the original you should watch it.

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The Com runs out long before the Rom

I thought I'd found something entertaining and amusing. Something that might actually be a rom com. I made it as far as episode 8 before I figured out that this script was going nowhere interesting and that I was not invested in any of the characters. Halfway through I thought I could make it work if I treated it as a farce so I tried to enjoy it as such. It devolved into a pointless, ordinary drama. This was not what I was promised. It was less about hijinks and more of a joke at the expense of my time.

Maybe I could have made it until the end but I really hated what they did to the FL. I liked Jeon Jong Seo a lot in the beginning. I love that she has that touch of RBF to make her look like a woman you'd regret messing with. But then her character went from hustling underdog to being hated by everyone as she was tossed around by a pair of rich kids. It doesn't matter whether their intentions are romantic or not. She comes out of it looking like some chaebol plaything from a past that we'd like to forget.

Dropped and pass.

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I should have stayed home and watched Chicago Med

I'll acknowledge that seasons 1 and 2 were a very hard act to follow and that expectations may have been unduly high. For a short time. My expectations were brutally squashed in the episode 1 reality check. Episode 1 was a huge red flag when half the doctors of a rural hospital in the woods ended up playing geopolitics on a coastguard vessel in the East Sea as though there were no such thing as a Korean Navy or a hospital with a helipad on the Gangwon coast. It slightly improved in the next few episodes but 7 and 8 were unbearably loaded with a perfect storm of cliche catastrophes... and that was it for me.

You may argue with me about this but I feel that this series unwisely went from character driven to plot driven. The plots are indistinguishable from the high-octane junk that American television serves in the slot that follows CSI: Fort Wayne or whatever. And the worst part was that half the plot was driven by nosy characters lurking behind every corner and door. The walls in that place might as well have been painted with ears. The first two series were bad for that but this show used up half the world's annual supply of eavesdropping. This is when they were not tripping over each other as all departmental boundaries and organizational discipline were thrown into the wind like it was Chicago Frickin' Med on a full moon.

And yet it may have been the smarter choice to let it be plot driven. Apart from Nurse Park the characters have failed to evolve in our absence. Kim Sabu was the Anti-House Zen Master in 1 and 2. Here he's a toothless, ageing tiger pacing in his cage and swatting at things he doesn't like. Dr Jung and Dr Yang and the other characters who didn't really want to be there last time have let themselves be trapped in BFE for the last three years... why? Dr Cha Sr. has no valid reason to even be there. ("Chief") Manager Jang still doesn't manage to cross the line from village idiot to credible comic relief. The nursing staff is still one All-Knowing Matron, one Tall Dark and Handsome, and a chorus of undeveloped chittering halfwits. The romantically involved couples are in some kind of middle class rut.

It's not good. DR3 veered past my lowest expectations and crashed into my worst fears.

Dropped, unfortunately.

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Queen of Tropes

Let's start by saying that I'm not a sworn enemy of tropes. Euripides and Shakespeare used them all the time to good effect in similarly dramatic works. QoT *almost* uses a million of them to good effect. The problem is that they wore out by episode 12. After that you have to get to the bottom of the barrel to keep the bad guys getting badder and the good guys, um, gooder. By the end, in which all just deserts are served and loose ends are tied up, the tropes are about as appetizing as a bar rag at 3 am.

As others have said this show is carried by the acting. The leads' performance is nothing short of spectacular. I can find no fault in the acting, production, or directing, all of which maximized the middling potential of the overambitious script that they were given. I've spent enough time on sets to recognize the brilliant work of the crew in scenery, lighting, outdoor settings, everything. And I couldn't get enough of Berlin.

This is not my usual style of show. I didn't even like CLOY. But it caught my attention. The only thing that held back QoT's binge potential for me was that it was emotionally INTENSE. I rarely watch anything twice but understand why others would want to do so. For all these reasons I rate it highly.

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Largely pointless

Is this a political drama dressed as a rom com? A farce about adultery? A romantic drama about pachinko and politics? Maybe I could accept any of those answers but the truth is that this series has no identity or purpose.

I don't know if it went wrong with the casting or with the script first. In the end my problem was that a third of the way through the series I had found not one likable character. Every single character was too self-absorbed and irresponsible to root for or even take interest in. I felt like I was looking at people aimlessly lying, cheating, or bullying their way through life. Was the funny part supposed to be the revelation that people can't keep it in their pants?

Perhaps the show is a great ode to the lack of self control but as a comedy it leaves me cold.

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