The Problem With Weekend Drama

This feature isn't going to be a regular thing, but I wanted to write about weekend drama today and how often they disappoint me, mostly because I tried to watch New Tales of Gisaeng and immediately liked the vibes I got from the opening and first few minutes of the first episode, only to discover it wasn't quite as unique as I'd hoped. For now, I'm not sure whether I want to continue, and here's why.

I found the premise of New Tales of Gisaeng very interesting, in that it was set in an alternate reality where gisaengs (women who were artistically trained to entertain upper class men, and often worked as courtesans too) still exist in modern society. It was supposed to be about how the main character, a dance student, became a gisaeng and found love with a rich man.

  I really liked this premise, and the opening made me think it would be a wistful, melancholy kind me show. I was wrong. Everything I liked about the few episodes I watched was ruined by makjang elements and unnecessary focus on annoying supplementary characters.

  Now, this is just my first impression of the show - I can't speak much for the plot and how the characters may change later now, but what I've seen of the show wore me out and I'm completely unwilling to sit through this show and deal with all of the little subplots when only one interests me.

  A fun fact I discovered while researching this drama was that it was written by Im Sung-han, who more famously wrote Princess Aurora, the drama that went wild. Here's a recap of all the crazy that happened in and behind the scenes of that drama. It's hilarious. Knowing this helps me to understand one thing - the looong first scene of New Tales of Gisaeng had the main character's step-sister dancing and dancing and dancing. The focus on her here makes more sense now that I know the actress is Im Sung-han's niece.

The thing about weekend dramas is that I rarely see the long episode counts being used to the fullest. In Jang Bori is Here, there were about twenty episodes of backstory and I basically skimmed the show for the key events because I got tired of the dramatic and repetitive formula. The plot could have filled twenty or thirty episodes to a more satisfied standard rather than being so painfully stretched out. It's a shame, because it starred genuinely stunning actors like Oh Yeon-seo and Lee Yuri. I'm not sure sometimes why good actors opt for a weekend drama over a mini series, but it's probably because weekend drama do really well. By the time Jang Bori is Here ended, it was getting around 37% ratings.

The beauty of Five Kids, the first weekend drama I've watched in full, was that it actually had enough story to take up fifty hours of screen time. Sure, I didn't like some of characters, but Five Kids knew what kind of story is was trying to tell and never shifted the focus too drastically. It was about an older couple, dating for the first time since his wife died and she divorced, who want to marry but each have kids. The problems stemming from this are endless - child custody, meddling in-laws, the children not accepting each other as siblings - and so I was never bored. Interestingly, the main leads from New Tales of Gisaeng, Im Soo-hyang and Sung Hoon, also had roles in Five Kids, where they had love lines with other characters!