Ed Briggs

I’m usually very happy just to watch LMH in whatever drama he cares to make and have never been disappointed yet. In all his series so far, the writing and direction have been up to par. Pachinko was exceptionally good, can’t wait to see the final two parts. But now to When the Stars Gossip: at first, I felt that the first couple of episodes managed to satisfactorily suspend my disbelief, straddling farce and drama in a way that kept me wanting to watch more. LMH doing open heart surgery in zero gravity on a lab mouse had me chuckling for days, also the over-the-top truly excessive chaebol wannabe grandfather. But ultimately, though I watched WtSG to the end, I felt the drama did not fulfil my expectations. As many have pointed out, the chemistry between the ML and FL (I admire the actress very much) was just not there, basically because the actors were not given enough face time to allow us to really believe in them. As is pretty much always the case these days, when a drama fails to please, it is the writing that lets us down. WtSG is no exception. There is no central thrust in this drama, it is much too bitty, trying to unite too many themes – romantic relationships between too many characters, money versus science, abandonment versus family … and as for the shoddy research into science, words fail me … and the gynecology! any basic physical examination of the FL would have led at least to suspicion that she was pregnant! To my mind, the writer would have done better to home in on the abandonment theme which would have allowed for more character development. I surmise that the huge success of KDrama worldwide is putting pressure on writers to churn stuff out at great speed. This is not a good state of affairs. Nor is it something that AI can solve.