青春時代

There's an obvious case to be made around the exploration of the ups and downs of being a young adult, but this drama was an excruciating exercise in superficiality, offering nothing but a hollow shell of what could have been a worthy experience. From its cardboard characters to its cringe-worthy dialogue and moments, the drama failed to maintain an attractive hook, opting instead for a glossy, saccharine portrayal that felt more like a caricature than a digestible imitation. The stories were equally pretty shallow as well, its attempts at drama fell flat, overshadowed by its overwhelming lack of substance, conviction and commitment between most of the characters, relationships and dynamics. Its surface-level approach with everything left no room for any proper investment to be had. By every metric possible, the 2nd season was a significant downgrade to what was an already struggling piece. Yoo Eun Jae was undeniably the weakest link in season 1, recasting her actress to someone who's struggling to play it, made things 10 folds worse. The replacement was trying really hard to mimic the original while the actress facial expressions, fluency and intonations were the polar opposite. It doesn't take a blind man to be appalled by the comparison, not like the original was any better. Unfortunately, things got even worse, her continuous story, background, conflicts, motives, and character writing were a nauseating concoction of utter literary incompetence and creative bankruptcy, a slap in the face to anyone with even a modicum of taste. To be fair, both Ye Ri & Eun Bin brought a much needed improved performances into the 2nd season, their characters as well had a better fit. Overall, the drama was a disappointingly bland and forgettable entry that failed to leave any lasting positive impact. If you care, streaming services like Netflix cut off any inner songs/tunes/humming/reading-lyrics-out-loud, the first episode is +3 minutes shorter than TV.