Marla Jameson

Entertaining enough, especially the first eighteen or so episodes. Lovely leading lady is an excellent actress. However, writer/storyline definitely let the actors down in last two thirds of show as evidenced by the number one overused trope of amnesia times two ( it was the only way writer could get more episodes out of the lead couple’s story after the betrayal ML committed ). I fast forwarded a great deal due to a lot of boring and predictable court politics, schemes, poisoning, concubine jealousy ad nauseum, ML who lies repeatedly to FL, etc. Leading to a train wreck of toxic love (from main and second leads) and some laughable decisions made by our four main characters that guaranteed failure.(You are escaping the country, with dozens of guards looking for you. You are desperate to leave, so of course, you enter the main part of city during a festival with No disguise and walk around freely, and right in front of the people who are desperate to find you. No way you will get caught, right?). If you love angst, revenge, one sided love, this is for you. Certainly wouldn’t watch again, but if you like any of the leads you might enjoy. Think Shakespeare on steroids. Heads will roll, literally. As with so so many C dramas, a promising start led to the ridiculous.

If you demand accuracy in space dramas, skip this. If you can suspend disbelief and just go with the flow, you might be able to enjoy this. Almost halfway through, I have rolled my eyes a few times at the space tourist’s ability to pretty much do as he pleases, lack of organized schedules in space station, lack of oversight and preparation from the ground crew, the dumb actions of the lead and the unfortunate “sexual inuendo” conversations over mice and fruit flies. And who throws a winning lottery ticket into a room without telling the owner, “hey, there is a few billion won lottery ticket you forgot. Might want to pack it carefully.” However, the leads Do have some chemistry thanks to MinHo’s ability to gaze lovingly. And nothing like impending death to bring souls together. Don’t care about any age difference or whether or not someone is considered visually less perfect than the male lead. That is superficial bs. Female lead was given unfortunate dialogue and behavior not quite believable for a space commander, but overall I am finding the space emergency scenario interesting enough to want to continue. Just to see how much goofier things can get! (If FL ends up pregnant I will not be at all surprised. K drama at its incongruous best.). Think “space soap opera” on steroids.

Acting was fine, nice cinematography, and first few episodes charming. Then the unbelievable tragedies and poor decisions of leads begin, and wow do they ever frustrate the viewer. Also a lot of unlikely circumstances occur, as per usual …but I was hoping for more realistic unfolding of events since writer seemed to be going for realism at first, and not Shakespearean tragedy.) Won’t do spoilers but be warned, final half was overall depressing for leads. I get that writers were showing how people learn and mature through their mistakes, and life can be terribly unfair, and sometimes you get lucky and find someone that accepts you as you are. The secondary characters were lucky, the leads less so. Don’t watch if you need a light hearted romance. This is not that.

After watching 3 seasons, (fast forwarding the super boring storylines, like the stepmom who had the hots for her stepson who she had raised from the age of 7, or the golf dates etc) I will not watch a season 4. And having the most compelling actors being replaced in 3rd season was such a letdown. I know it was basically a dressed up soap opera, but still the writers could have done better than having the cheating husband and his hurt wife repeating the same arguments with each other over almost a whole episode! I had to FF that scene. When the possessions, ghosts and grim reapers showed up, I was out. Like what the heck, let’s just make a horror show, kill off everybody and start over. The three stars is for the actors. They worked hard, but the script gave them so little to say and do that made any sense at all.

My husband doesn’t do K drama, but if I find a crime mystery/thriller he will try it. Sometimes he lasts one or two episodes and gets frustrated with the silly tropes and impossible coincidences. This time, however, he watched every episode and was entertained the whole time. This is my best indicator that Killer Paradox was outstanding tv. He liked it and I enjoyed it, not so much for the criminal and vigilante content as for the fine acting of Son Suk-ku and Choi Woo-shik. I could so believe they were those characters. A lot of darkness, gore and violence so beware. But the lead character somehow made me feel empathy and pity for his unmoored life even as I abhorred some of his actions. If you can take a touch of supernatural mixed in with the crime genre, give this a try.

You will not regret watching this drama. Parts are disturbing and upsetting, especially the parts of ML’s horrific childhood, but if you can get through the bad the redemption is sooo worth it. Acting is phenomenal. Those over the top plot twists, so much a part of k dramas, were present here, but the characters are so believable that I totally embraced the crazy and just enjoyed the ride. Will watch again for sure.

So great to see people with special needs highlighted in such a positive way. At first I was bummed out about the sad first episode, but I liked the characters so much I continued watching. Now I’m hooked! Nice combination of continuing storyline and new characters in each episode. I would love for my granddaughter to watch this, but some of the language is not appropriate for kids. For older teens and adults, though, very entertaining and worthwhile. Appreciate the social comment in various episodes concerning treatment of the elderly, same sex couples, domestic violence, adoption issues, even the underground fighting and gambling. (I can hardly wait to see a certain underground boss lady get what’s coming to her!) . Great job by all concerned in the production of the series.