I didn't watch Fashion King or Dr Jin
so I can't comment on those supposed atrocities but there are quite a
few dramas that disappointed me this year.
Big: If any drama deserves an award for being
disappointing it's Big. It seemed like it would be an amazing
drama-it starred Gong Yoo, the Hong Sisters were writing it, it had a
interesting premise, and did I mention it starred Gong Yoo? It was
great at first-it was funny and Gong Yoo was shirtless quite a lot.
But the Hong Sisters seemed at a loss for what to do with the plot
and the story went in circles never seeming to get anywhere new. I
could forgive a lot of the sloppy writing because Gong Yoo was
amazing but then the last episode aired and I felt like flying to
South Korea to physically assault the Hong Sisters. Seriously, what
were they thinking? We only wanted a few things from the ending-Kyung
Joon in his original body and awake, that's not too much to ask for
right? I guess it was since we were denied the image we waited all 16
episodes for and instead were treated to Gong Yoo obscuring his face
under an umbrella, causing me to feel cheated and a bit angry.
Panda and Hedgehog:Out of all the 2012 dramas that I was able to watch this year, P & H was the worst. There are a lot of good things in this drama but the bad writing and terrible female lead condemn it. Panda was a normal female lead-cute, naïve, ditzy, stubborn. Around episode 5 the writers decide to give her a personality change and make her completely annonying and selfish. I found myself wishing Hedgehog would turn out to be gay because I disliked Panda so much.
Rooftop Prince: Again, a drama that starts off great but soon loses momentum. My biggest gripe with this drama is female lead Park Ha. She's a good lead for the first half of the show, she's funny and independent. But as the plot gets more cliched, Park Ha suffers some sort of brain damage and becomes a complete idiot.
King2Hearts: This wasn't a bad drama by any stretch of the imagination but I did find myself somewhat disappointed. Firstly, the villain. The drama has quite a few comedic moments but an overall serious tone, having such a comical villain really throws off the entire story. He's a magician-does that really make any sense? Secondly, Ha Ji Won as . After watching her in a few dramas and several movies I have come to the realization that Ji Won isn't a terribly good actress. She's beautiful, does great action work and looks good while crying. This is the second time she has been cast as a supposedly strong female character(Secret Garden) who spends the majority of the drama acting anything but. Thirdly, the death of my favorite character. I won't go into details for those who haven't watched but this character's death was completely unnecessary and did nothing to really advance the storyline.
K-POP: The Ultimate Audition: I enjoyed this
drama and if the ending had been better it would not have ended up on
this list (maybe it would have for the kissing scenes). One of the
worst endings I have ever seen mostly stemming from the fact that the
drama had it's episode count cut down from 16 to 14. Although it lost
2 episodes that doesn't mean that the writers couldn't have wrote a
decent final episode. Instead of trying to focus on the outcomes of a
few important romances and the showcase the Juniors were practicing
for we got an episode that created more questions and some flashbacks
of previous performances. It was extremely lazy writing and ruined
what could have been a perfectly decent drama.
The Moon Embracing the Sun: Surprisingly, this is one of my favorite dramas of the year and it might have been my favorite if not for the female lead (lot of dramas with bad female characters this year). The first 5 episodes are great, the child actors are amazing. Starting in episode 6 the main characters grow up and all is well except Yeon Woo/Wol. Yeon Woo was smart and interesting at 13 but as an adult she became boring and lost any personality she once had. I loved the rest of the cast and the story but having a piece of cardboard as a female lead took a lot of romance and interest out of an otherwise great drama.
Faith: Lee Min Ho could read a phone book for
16 hours and girls would go crazy naming it their new favorite show.
Faith isn't that bad but it could have been a lot better. I was not a
huge Min Ho fan until I watched this drama-something about long hair
and period clothing really does it for me. He was really good in
Faith and the drama would not have been as good without him. The
biggest flaw of Faith is the lazy writing-the writers never seemed to
know what they wanted from the show. Faith changed from episode to
episode and wasn't able to juggle it's multiple themes, sometimes
completely ignoring whatever element didn't fit that week's episode.
The superpowers are a prime example of bad writing, they are used
frequently by some of the characters in the first couple of episodes
and then are rarely ever be used again without much explanation.
