Dropped: The Witch – The Fangirl Verdict

This is one of those times when my goodwill just isn’t enough, my friends ???? – I’m tapping out of this one, 5 episodes into Show’s total of 10.

Originally, I’d had every intention of finishing this show, if only out of curiosity, but.. it didn’t end up working that way, as they often say, in kdrama. ????

Still, I’ll do my best to lay out the pros and cons that I personally found, while watching, and hopefully that will help you figure out which camp you belong to, because, for the most part, folks seem to either love this one, or hate it. ????

MY INTEREST

I thought it would make sense for me to at least share why I was interested in this show in the first place.

Mainly, it’s because the original story comes from Kang Full, and he’s demonstrated a flair for telling stories, particularly with Moving (review here!) which I loved.

For the record, I loved Light Shop (review here!) less, but I still found it a very worthwhile watch, in the end.

I also have some affection for both Jin Young and Roh Jeong Eui, and I liked the idea of them headlining this drama together.

I didn’t find myself super drawn to the premise itself, but I was intrigued enough, to want to find out more.

DOWNSIDES

I’m going to start by talking about the downsides, because these stood out to me pretty strongly, right from episode 1.

1. Show feels heavy

The first one being, that Show feels quite heavy, overall.

Tonally, it’s very melancholic, which I found rather heavy-going, in the watch experience.

Some people love that melancholy, but I personally didn’t care so much for it, and therefore, watching the episodes admittedly felt like a bit of a drag, for me. ????

2. I found it hard to connect with Mi Jeong

Our female lead Mi Jeong (Roh Jeong Eui) is very withdrawn, and I found it hard to connect with her, as a character.

Additionally, this might just be a me thing, but I found Roh Jeong Eui’s delivery of Mi Jeong rather flat?

I’m sorry if you’re a Roh Jeong Eui fan! I’m not trying to hate on her; I like her too. ???? I just would have liked to see more nuance and dimension in Mi Jeong, and it’s entirely possible that there’s some of that in the episodes that I didn’t watch, but based on what I did see, she felt rather flat and two-dimensional as a character, and I didn’t feel drawn to her.

Because I found her unappealing, I also found it hard to understand why so many male characters were drawn to Mi Jeong, but Trent pointed out to me over on Patreon, that a pretty face can matter a lot, to the average young male, so I’ll take that. ????

3. I found it hard to understand Dong Jin

I found it hard to understand Dong Jin’s (Park Jin Young) attachment / fixation with Mi Jeong, and his very strong desire to help her break her curse.

[MINOR FOUNDATIONAL SPOILERS]

Dong Jin’s never spoken to Mi Jeong, and therefore doesn’t know her personally at all, and yet, we even get a scene where he’s teary-eyed at wanting to break her curse.

And then he dedicates himself so wholly, to proving that she’s not a witch, that he would choose to major in statistics, for the cause.

Not only that, it feels like Dong Jin dedicates almost his entire life, to this mission that he’s given himself – for someone whom he doesn’t actually know.

It’s not impossible, I suppose, but I found it to be a stretch, and one that continued to niggle at me, during my watch. ????

And I do think that my disconnect with Dong Jin contributed a good chunk, to my struggle to enjoy and appreciate this show.

[END SPOILERS]

4. I struggled with the curse itself

This isn’t a spoiler since it’s in Show’s premise and synopsis, but I did find the curse itself to be pretty dark, coz people – specifically boys who like Mi Jeong – keep dying.

I guess I’m not very good with dark themes like this, eh? ????

[SPOILER ALERT]

5. How we lose Mi Jeong’s dad

In episode 2, Mi Jeong loses her dad (Ahn Nae Sang), and I did not like the way this was handled at all.

I get that the whole idea is to isolate Mi Jeong as a character, but the way it was done, was just way too melodramatic, with Dad sucking the poison out of Mi Jeong’s snake bite, and then refusing to let her call for help because it would increase the fingerpointing that Mi Jeong would suffer – and then he dies. ????????‍♀️

I did not like this plot point so much, that I ended up ranting about it quite vehemently over on Patreon, in my quick impressions voice note. ????

Everything about this plot point, particularly the way it was written, made me feel less interested in following the story, to be honest.

[END SPOILER]

UPSIDES

Yes, there were upsides that kept me watching for as long as I did, but I have to be honest; the upsides were a lot fewer than the downsides, for me. ????

For one thing, I found that I liked episode 2 more than episode 1, because we get to see things from Mi Jeong’s perspective, and that helped to flesh out her character in my mind, at least a little bit.

I also thought it was quite a fresh approach, to have episodes 1 & 2 handle the same events, but from different perspectives.

I liked this idea, of playing with points of view, and context.

[SOME SPOILERS]

In terms of specific plot points, I really did genuinely enjoy the arc in episode 3, where Dong Jin ingratiates himself with a withdrawn Joong Hyuk (Lim Jae Hyeok), and them eventually becoming friends.

Also in episode 3, I liked the idea of Dong Jin’s mom (Jang Hye Jin) getting some much-needed comfort from Dong Jin’s biased statistics paper about Mi Jeong not being a witch, before her death.

[END SPOILERS]

SAYING GOODBYE

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’d had every intention of finishing this show, if only to see how Show would conclude Dong Jin’s mission.

However, two things happened, which led me to my decision to drop this show.

1, It took me a good several hours to finish watching episode 5.

I’d found it boring, and kept wandering off to distract myself with something. It felt genuinely arduous, to get to the end of the one-hour episode. ????

2, Show ended its run, and I happened to spoil myself for the ending – specifically, how Show concluded Dong Jin’s mission – and I found the whole idea kind of lame, to be brutally honest.

[SPOILER ALERT]

Basically, the curse doesn’t apply, as long as Mi Jeong likes the other person back, and we get a happy ending where Dong Jin confesses his feelings for her, and she reciprocates. ????

[END SPOILER]

Uh. I guess it’s one of those things where you just had to be there, coz it’s all in the execution?

For me, though, both the outcome and the watch experience were just not compelling enough for me to keep on pressing on – especially since it had taken me literal hours to watch episode 5. ????

And that, my friends, is how and why I decided to drop this show.

The fact that I feel such a great – seriously great – sense of relief, as I’m typing this post, tells me that this was the right decision for me.

I guess I didn’t have as much good-intention willpower stored away as I’d thought. ????????

PATREON!

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Here’s an overview of what I’m covering on Patreon right now (Tier benefits are cumulative)!

Foundation Tier (US$1): Entertainment Drop (Sundays) + the first set notes of all shows covered on Patreon (that’s 2 episodes for kdramas and 4 episodes for cdramas)

Early Access (US$5): +Buried Hearts [Korea]

Early Access Plus (US$10): +Undercover High School [Korea]

VIP (US$15): +The First Frost [China]

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