“Every time I think about how that drama ended, I feel like I have to throw up!”
After recommending two new dramas (A Gentleman’s Dignity and Big!) in my last WWATD?! post – A Tale of Two Dramas, I felt compelled to give an update.
In that post, I was a bit harsher on Big! for its uneven pacing and overly simple plot while I was concerned that A Gentleman’s Dignity might be heading down the road of cliche, lame, and unnecessary plot devices to drum up artificial tension. Ultimately, I recommended both dramas. Well since posting that, Big! has wrapped, while we got several more episodes of A Gentleman’s Dignity before a break for the Olympics. The final two episodes will air next week.
Thankfully, A Gentleman’s Dignity did not head down that road of having the character do stupid things out of honor or guilt for an extended period of time. Or rather, it did, but he acknowledged he was being stupid, and the drama did not dwell on it. In other words, at best it worked and at worst it never felt like the drama was treading water. I’m now eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the drama, and it’s shaping up to be a favorite of mine. I’ve really been enjoying it!
Big!, on the other hand, would win a gold medal if treading water was an Olympic event. It dragged itself towards the finish line. We dutifully plodded along driven by nothing more than to know how it ended. After multiple episodes throughout the drama where nothing really happened, and an entire major character (Suzy’s Jang Ma-ri) who really has nothing to do and is kind of pointless, we were just hanging on to find out how the whole body switch and love triangle turned out. Well, after all of that waiting, the final episode was a disaster. If this was gymnastics, Big! fell on its butt on the dismount. After episodes of nothing happening, showing side plots of minor characters that are pointless and contrived, nothing happens in the final episode! Nothing really gets resolved! It was absolutely amazing and made no sense whatsoever. It completely contradicted what the characters were doing and saying leading up to the final episode! Gil Da-Ran says that she wants the wedding ring she lost in order to make the final decision with bravery and class. So after basically wrapping up her decision earlier than the final episode, all we have to hold on for in that episode is to see how the two love interests, Yoon Jae and Gyung Joon, handle her decision, and if they both even live after returning to their bodies. But we’re never given anything. Seriously, I complained about how another Hong Sisters drama, My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, ended, but this was on an entirely different level. This was an epic face-plant.
So, yeah. Not recommending Big! anymore. If you want to see a herculean effort by two stars trying to pull a drama up, you might watch say the first 5-6 episodes, but once it starts to drag, I’m telling you, abandon ship! Iceberg, straight ahead!
Can’t wait for A Gentleman’s Dignity to come back on! Only two episodes left!
