The first season is better than the second season by miles. And I think it's because there was a severe lack of adults (AKA a reasonable and responsible human being) in the second season that could keep things humble. Instead, the whole second season is just one hyper-melodramatic pool party with no real consequence to the crisis at the summer house this summer.
The announcement also revealed that season 3 was officially greenlit ahead of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes and production will not begin until “after labor negotiations with those unions have been resolved.”
Per above, I hope this means the writers will actually take their time thinking through a more realistic and less melodramatic storyline for all the characters. I'd like to see Shayla (Minnie Mills) make a reappearance too; she was fantastic in season one.
Yessss, this is the love triangle I've been waiting for! Finally!
Jonathan Bailey's Anthony Bridgerton gets better and better each episode. I can't wait for season two. He's utterly ferocious.
Didn't like the fact that they revealed Whistledon ahead of time either. Unless that was a throwaway to lure us audience members to speculate in a completely direction...
In terms of chemistry between Daphne and Simon, I feel like the actress gives a lot to it, but the actor gives too little. The episodes are getting better though, after the awkwardly paced first two episodes.
The writing and the directing are so much better in this episode. Even the acting is better.
Some thoughts:
Don't feel the chemistry just yet; there's some pacing issues; and there's some backstory missing between some characters, but it's a good start. Hope to see more of Eloise! She's so charming.
The kiss between Mary Ann and Logan is adorable.
The romance between Mary-Ann's dad and Dawn's mom is soooo cute, omg. But if the writers for this entire series don't stay on for the second season or the seasons after, I'm gonna throw my own damn tantrum.
The ending doesn't seem believable to me. Zhi He doesn't deserve Da Shu, and the story between Fen Ni and Qin Hao feels way more fleshed out than the main couple.
I really wanted to like this drama. It has two of my favourite Taiwanese drama people: Winnie Chu (director) and Ray Chang (actor). However, no matter how much I enjoy watching the works of these people, this show falls a bit flat.
The script tries to stuff a lot of plot points into a 20-episode TV drama. Considering it tries to cover two main couples and a couple of other side couples, there just isn't enough space for all of these characters and their respective side plots to fully develop for the audience to enjoy. Instead, story arcs that should run naturally two episodes or more are stuffed into one episode only. For example, did we really need the entire arc of Zhi He's parents and their relationship with her and Da Shu? Not really. Her father didn't need to die either. And even if he did, they should've at least extended this show to a couple more episodes so other characters have breathing room for their own stories. Instead, they crammed his death into two episodes. It made his death insignificant, especially considering how much time they put into fleshing out the parents' relationship with Zhi He and Da Shu.
Acting from all the actors are fine, but Sonia Sui knocks it out of the park in several episodes. Her acting is incredibly nuanced. It doesn't require much for her to display her character's internal emotions. The music and cinematography in this show also help lift this show a lot too; they help distract you from the alcohol product placement that happens in some scenes. Another standout feature is some of the outfits these characters wear. There were so many times where I was distracted by what Sonia Sui or Gillian Chung were wearing. (Those earrings! That top! That hair!)
All in all, this show garners a solid 70% rating for me. It's the plot-heavy script that drags this down.
100% here for Tony Yang wearing a dress and trying to climb over a steel gate. Absolutely adorable.
I hate it when Asian dramas insert excursions to see family in the countryside. These sort of episodes are always so tacky. I'm excited to see the House & Fenni subplot progress though!
Sonia Sui is easily out-acting everyone on this show right now.
I feel like Zhihe's decision to announce a divorce was a bit impulsive. I mean, sure, we heard from her perspective a lot, but she also didn't do a great job at communicating either. Idk, at the beginning of this show, she was such a charming character, but she's become so dislikable in the past few episodes, it's hard to be on her side.
On the technical aspect, I really don't understand why the mainland Chinese broadcasters felt the need to completely replace Gillian Chung's vocals – including the breathing noises she does when they're leaving the government office. That's a bit overdone imho.
Zhihe's mother is a atypical manipulative mother, what the fuck. I can't believe she poked holes into their condoms, and the show presented it as a "comedic scene". If it wasn't for the fact that they had the divorce countdown graphic up the following scene, I would be way angrier about this and I would have instantly stopped watching. That sort of move is utterly despicable.
Damn, Dashu must really suck in bed if Zhihe is taking sleeping pills after sex because she can't sleep afterwards.
You can notice some of the actors trying hard not to break character in some scenes, but good lord, Ray Chang is just so goddamn good-looking, I don't mind looking past that minor detail. (But his suit pants are a bit short for him, eh.)
The vocal acting replacement they have for Gillian Chung's character is going to drive me nuts throughout this drama series. Surely her Mandarin couldn't have been that bad that Sohu felt it needed to be replaced for mainland audiences...
Got my hopes when I saw on Netflix that they released a six-episode Taiwanese romantic comedy just four hours long because Asian dramas have a tendency to drag out their stories, but whomp whomp, the first season is just build-up for the second season. It's still a cute four-hour binge watch, and it's probably higher quality and more succinct than most Asian dramas of this genre, but man, some of the pacing and tonal switches during the show could still use some work.
All the side plots are more interesting than the main plot with Angie and Yi-hang. I'm more interested in the story about Sophia and her ex-husband, as well as the development between Ding Ding and Ling Gui.
Really was not expecting that LGBTQ+ plot twist! So cute.
I fast forwarded all the bonding scenes between Angie and Yi-hang. They could have been edited shorter and they would still have the same effect.
I can't tell if it's the writing or the acting, but Asian romantic comedy dramas always feel very clunky to me. They're always super over-the-top, where multiple characters in the show will ignore the actions of an obnoxious Mary Sue character while the rest of them act realistic. It's like watching two characters' completely different cinematic worlds try to merge together to form the TV show's story in the most cohesive way possible.
In this show, it's Eugenie Liu who I have problems with. She acts over-the-top, yes, but compared to other Asian shows I've seen, she acts consciously over-the-top in character, and I think it's this that takes the show away from me. There are some shows where actors exaggerate their acting, but there's a nuance to it that makes their characters still feel genuine and authentic. Eugenie doesn't do that. Comedic acting is a different skill that I find not a lot of Asian actors are good at. But hey, maybe it's a problem with the writing too. It's so tacky, maybe Eugenie just can't do much with it.
Jasper Liu is charming as always though. I'm hoping his character can balance out the annoying-ness of Eugenie's character later on in the show.
This episode is so slow, good god. It drags on and on about Rainie Yang's life in Taiwan, and how conflicted she is about her current situation. This episode is a whopping 90-minute long, and that's all it goes on about. It doesn't help either that her boyfriend - played by Kenny Yen - is legit the most naive and whiny boyfriend ever.
That entire scene where he tells the "prelude" of how he met her was so creepy. He took paparazzi-style photos of Rainie Yang eating in the convenience store in front of his office (with an actual DSLR camera!) for nearly a month before he had the courage to go up to her. Creepy as fuck. And he called his photo-taking as "romantic". How can anyone call that as romantic?! What the heck.
The editing for the fast-forward time cut is done poorly too. I didn't realize that the episode had flash-forwarded to Rainie Yang's imagination until her child suddenly appeared on screen. That episode construction was messy.
There are some pacing issues in the beginning and middle of this show, but Maggie Gyllenhaal puts in such a stunning performance, you'll be willing to ignore it. Lubna Azabal is also incredible in this. Good spy thriller for those interested in learning about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
This is a great adaptation of Taiwan's In Time with You. The two leads - Rika Adachi and Jin Shirasu - have great chemistry together, and they're also talented in acting some of the more nuanced scenes between the two best friend characters, but this Japanese series lacks the magic that Taiwanese director Yu Ningchu brought to the original Taiwanese series that made the show a truly unforgettable small-screen experience.
It's been a while since I've seen the original Taiwanese series, but from what I can recall in comparison, this adaptation drags out the ex-boyfriend subplot far longer than the original show. He takes up 8 episodes of the full 16 episode series, whereas in the Taiwanese version, he is a less prominent character and the focus is shifted to Li Daren instead. By stretching out this subplot, I think it took away some of the sentiment the audience feels for the best friend relationship that's supposed to be in the spotlight instead.
I'm a bit disappointed that this show didn't meet up to my expectations as a ~perfect~ drama adaptation of In Time with You, but I also realize that the original Taiwanese version had just set my expectations far too high. Despite all of this, I would still recommend this Japanese adaptation to anyone who has seen the Taiwanese drama and wants "the feels" again. Jin Shirasu plays the "Li Daren" role to a tee.
I feel like they tried to work far too many plot points into this last episode. It goes from Yo breaking up her engagement with Ryusei to Yo and Ren moving out together -- all within 45 minutes. There's also a few awkward fade-to-black frames inserted in that felt really unnecessary. The two leads have great chemistry together, so I think they could have extended this one more episode. I mean, we spent eight or so episodes in "conflict mode" (with Ryusei as the perpetrator), so having just one episode as the "conflict resolution" makes the series finale feel really unsatisfying.
Maki making an appearance in Shanghai was really unnecessary. Her flying all the way to China added nothing to the overall story line.
The amount of time it took for Yo to teleport from Tokyo, Japan to Suzhou, China is worthy to be in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones.
