Patreon Year End Awards: Trent’s Year In Dramas 2024! – The Fangirl Verdict

We’ve got one more EOY to wrap up the drama year that was 2024 – surprise? 😁

Trent‘s EOY would have come out earlier, but he came down with a nasty bug while writing, that put him out of action for a bit.

I’m so glad that he decided to finish writing his EOY, nonetheless, and here it is! YAY! 🥳

I’ve said this before, but Trent and I often agree on dramas (though he definitely has a greater appetite and endurance for darker, bloodier fare 😅), so reading his post definitely makes me want to add to my never-ending list of shows that I would be interested to check out.

Trent also writes about dramas on his own blog, which you can visit here.

Thanks Trent, for taking the time to write this post! 😘

I hope you guys enjoy!

~ KFG ❤️

PS: If you missed our EOY earlier posts, you can check them out here: Sean, Deni+JJ, Natalia, Ele, j3ffc, MC, Elaine, ABV, Diasporic Chick, TopTeenu.

PPS: If you missed my year-in-review post, you can check it out here!

Hello, everyone.

Here we are with my (very delayed) fourth annual year-end post at the FanGirlVerdict. Better late than never? You be the judge!

The cut’n’paste introduction: Boring white dude easing into late middle-age (ain’t that a trip? Oy); living in the U.S.; watched my first kdrama in May 2020; been hanging out here since November-ish 2020.

This year saw kind of an extended slump in my drama watching.

I didn’t completely halt at any point, but I slowed down significantly for appreciable chunks of the year, and as a direct result, the overall count of shows I finished ended up being the fewest since the first year I started (2020–where I only had a little over half the year to count in the balance).

In total, I ended up watching 36 shows in 2024.

The good news(?) is that I feel like I’ve picked back up, somewhat, in the last month or two, so let’s see how this year goes on the drama front, right?

And of course, as I hope I detail below, there were some good dramas last year, which were still plenty fun and engaging.  But there were also the usual crop of “fine,” “adequate,” and “meh” shows that appear on the slate every year, alas.

I keep saying this is a strong argument for putting more prior-year shows on the watch list, ones that have “stood the test of time,” in some sense, and have a better chance of being worth it to watch because the viewing audience has had a chance to digest and pass judgment on them (although that, too, is fraught–the crowd over at MDL is often woefully out of touch with what I consider worthwhile, and vice versa, and Viki ratings often require a giant grain of salt as well).

Watching more from the previous-release slate was, in fact, an explicitly stated goal in my last year’s retrospective… which I almost completely failed to accomplish (I think I watched one, maybe two, pre-2024 shows last year).

Well, I’m going to set the same goal this year, and do better, by golly!  We’ll see next year how I did.

Anyway. Continuing the tradition (three times is enough to establish a tradition, yes?), a list of all the shows I watched this year, for the curious, and to calibrate where I’m coming from in my comments:

So here we go, the Top Ten list from 2024, in reverse order.

(The standard disclaimer: the rank order is not exactly a law of nature, and if you shuffled the order of shows around a bit without telling me, I’d probably look at it and say “hmm, that seems about right!”).

Top 10 Shows (2024)

Honorable mentions: Death’s Game; Light Shop

10. (tie) Gyeongseong Creature, S1.

A show that has several elements that I found interesting, woven together in a reasonably competent fashion, making for a solidly entertaining watch experience.

It doesn’t hurt that it comes in at a relatively tight ten episodes, so there’s not a lot of stuffing or filler to wade through.

The story is set in Gyeongseong (old name for present-day Seoul) during the waning days of World War II.

The Japanese occupying army is, unsurprisingly, up to no good; specifically, they have a unit that is running barbaric experiments on the native Korean population in a tightly-guarded prison complex.

The FL (Han So-hee) and her father are hunting for their long-missing mother/wife; the ML (Park Seo-joon), a wealthy pawn shop owner, gets drawn into their quest.

Could their search draw them to investigate the nefarious goings-on at the prison? It’s a good bet!

Show has a good mix of mystery, action, character development, pathos, pretty decent creature effects (yes, there’s creatures; it’s right there in the title!)… I enjoyed the watch.

(The second season, only seven episodes, features the same leads, set in the modern day; it’s watchable but not as good as the first season, in my view).

10. (tie) Squid Game, S2.

The first season is still the most-watched Netflix show ever, so even if you haven’t seen it, you’ve almost certainly heard of it.

Did such a global phenomenon really need a second season?

Well, maybe not, but I personally am more than happy to watch it, because if you don’t mind this sort of brutal, tense, emotionally wrenching Battle Royale type of show, this second season still delivers.

A survivor of the first season, Gi-hoon, is resolved to put a stop to the games, but the only way he can figure out how to do it is to go back for another round.

It takes him a couple episodes (during which Gong Yoo’s first season cameo character gets some more screen time–not at all warm and fuzzy, Gong Yoo fans, be warned!), but eventually our man is back in the arena, literally, for a new season of games.

Along with him, of course, are 455 other new contestants, including one ringer that is obvious to us, the audience, but not to the oblivious characters.

As before, there’s decency mixed up with brutality, a lot of life-and-death dilemmas and decisions.

Unlike the first season, we end this season in the middle of the games; at a natural pause-point, but still waiting for the final season three (out this June!) to resolve things and see who–including whether the game itself–will survive.

9. The Atypical Family.

This is a nifty little show that doesn’t just stay true to its title by depicting an atypical family; it’s actually an atypical drama that zags at a number of points where you might expect the typical show to zig.

It depicts a (clearly dysfunctional) family whose members all have some form of “super power” (all except the patriarch, who serves as a sort of majordomo and facilitator for his wife).

They get entangled with another, also clearly dysfunctional, (found) family–whose members are “ordinary” but who make their way in the world by running scams and cons on others.

I quite enjoyed the unfolding of the narrative here, and the increasingly complicated interactions between our two families as they get up in each others’ business.

I didn’t really get absorbed by the romance between Jang Ki-young and Chun Woo-hee’s characters, particularly toward the end, but it was fine; it bore the narrative weight it needed to, and created the structure for a nice ending that I felt made sense in the context of the show and solved its central dramatic conflict in a fairly clever fashion.

Overall, a fresh and interesting script, well-acted by a quality cast, and that’s more than enough to put it well ahead of the run-of-the-mill drama pack.

8. Lovely Runner.

Now let’s stipulate that straightforward high school romance dramas are generally not my cup of tea.

Fortunately, this is not that straightforward, although we do get some high school romance. This is what I think usually gets referred to as a “time slip” drama.

We first meet our FL as a wheelchair-bound thirty something; before long she finds herself launched back in time fifteen years, before the accident that landed her in a wheelchair, and with a chance–she hopes–to not only alter her own circumstances, but also the trajectory of her classmate (and love interest) who she knows is on a path to an early death.

Our protagonists end up winding their way through not just one, but three (I think, I’m hazy here–no doubt the true fans will set me straight!) timeline resets as they seek to set aright each new problem and obstacle that pops up.

Unsurprisingly, the real draw here is the central couple.

The FL (Kim Hye-yoon) is perky and adorable and indefatigable in her pursuit of seeing her beloved Sun-jae to safety, while the ML (Byeon Woo-seok–who is really having his moment in the sun–good for him!–as a result of this outing) is tall and handsome and exudes leading man charisma.

Together, they’re a lot of fun to watch through their various relationship iterations.

7. Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born.

At first glance, this may not look like the sort of show that will really set your heart on fire. And okay, maybe it’s a wee bit hyperbolic to say that it does, in fact, set your heart on fire.

But I did find the opening episodes to be much more absorbing and interesting than I was expecting them to be, which is always a pleasant surprise.

This is a show set in the immediate post-war (Korean War) period, and follows a young woman (the eponymous Jeongnyeon) who has a burning desire to use her developing pansori skills (a traditional vocal/singing art form) to join and rise in a gukgeuk troupe (gukgeuk being a stage production that puts on dramas where all the roles–including the men–are filled by women, and the narrative is carried by pansori songs).

Although its narrative direction in the second half doesn’t unfurl in a way that I find entirely satisfactory–with a stronger close, I would have put this even higher up the list, I think–one thing the show gets resoundingly right (which was unexpected, and came as a complete but welcome surprise) is how many actual on-stage gukgeuk/pansori performance excerpts it showcases, and how dramatic, interesting, and moving they turn out to be. Who knew?

6. The Trunk.

A show that leans somewhat arthouse in its pretensions, this nevertheless ends up being a very solid watch, anchored by the evolution of its central couple from damaged strangers to somewhat-less-damaged companions.

It’s true that the show requires you to take its fairly outlandish premises at face value–chief among them that there is a professional agency that provides contracted spouses for set periods of time (“does the manual allow for sex?” “if both parties consent”), and that the ML’s ex-wife enrolls him in just such a contractual marriage as a sort of twisted punishment-and-control kink she’s indulging in.

But swallowing the boundary conditions is just table stakes to get into the drama itself, and shouldn’t be too much of a quibble (I mean, the core premise of Squid Game is ludicrous, and that certainly didn’t stop it from becoming the most watched Netflix show ever, right?).

Anyway, at the outset, the FL shows up with her eponymous trunk (an actual physical object that in reality is an inconsequential McGuffin, and a slightly more consequential metaphor) at the ML’s chill, slightly brutalist mansion; they enter into a contractual relationship; the ex-wife snipes and sabotages from the sidelines; and relationship stuff happens.

Given that perhaps less than enticing description, it’s a surprisingly interesting and affecting watch. I liked it!

5. Marry My Husband.

I vibed really well with this show; I just liked what it was selling. Which, let us be clear, is at its most basic level a revenge fantasy.

We first meet the FL after she has been diagnosed with cancer and her prognosis is not so great.

She goes home early one day, only to find her husband and best friend in bed together; in the ensuing struggle, she suffers a fatal accident, only to revive as her younger self, ten years earlier, but with all her memories intact.

Before long, she has come to the conclusion that she can escape her future miserable fate by passing it to someone else… and so she sets out to extricate herself from her relationship with her fiance (and future husband) by getting him and her “best friend” to marry each other instead.

There is a romance in the show, and it’s a nice romance, although not necessarily top tier (I definitely warmed up to Na In-woo, though; a better role for him here than either Mr. Queen or River Where the Moon Rises).

But this is really Park Min-young’s show (ably assisted by the quality of her villains–fiance/husband and best friend are aces; BoA as a late-arriving psychopath less so, but she still gets the job done).

I know there was some dissatisfaction with the latter episodes, a feeling in some quarters that things had gotten too dark.

My view is that the show is admirably consistent with the mythology that it has established, and that it is just as dark as it needs to be to get where it needs to go.

Oh, and the ending of episode six is in the running for one of my favorite scenes of the year; I’ve rewatched it probably ten times (best use of BTS in a drama? Who can say…probably?).

4. A Shop for Killers.

Speaking of unrealistic but super-fun romps…well, consider this show!

Jeong Ji-an’s parents passed away (were killed) when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her somewhat mysterious uncle, Jin-man.

She goes off to college, whereupon her uncle also unexpectedly passes away. She comes home to the isolated house where she grew up, and then suddenly there’s waves of scary dudes showing up trying to invade the compound and kill her.

What the heck?!  Turns out her uncle was running a very clandestine, very illegal weapons emporium, and all sorts of shady interests want to take it over.

This is way more fun than it has any right to be, as all that training Ji-an’s uncle insisted she get while growing up starts to make sense, and his old comrades show up out of the woodwork to defend her against the nasty hordes.

There’s been rumblings that there might be a second season, and it would be awesome to see these characters again, so that would be pretty cool.

3. Queen of Tears.

A long (sixteen episodes, but each episode is almost an hour and a half in length), glossy, all-the-bells-and-whistles romance melodrama, this is a show that is 100% powered by the high wattage charisma of its two leads, Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won.

It’s not just about them–show has a lot of balls in the air at all times–but without their solid foundation, show would collapse under its own weight.

She’s the icy third-generation chaebol who runs the family department stores with ruthless efficiency; he’s the smart, competent graduate of SNU law school from a humble background who goes to work for the company.

Three years ago they met, fell in love, married; now, they’re estranged and miserable, and he’s contemplating seeking a divorce.

The central mystery is what happened to them to get to this point, and the central question going forward is will they get back together.

Of course there’s a lot of other stuff going on: wacky family hijinks, on both sides; a bunch of makjang or makjang-adjacent foofaraw surrounding a hostile takeover of the chaebol; and that’s all varying degrees of interesting.

It’s the main couple that makes it all work, though, and fortunately the writers mostly understand on which side their bread is buttered, and give us lots of OTP goodness to feast on.

I tuned in each week looking forward to seeing how our beautiful couple was progressing, and I was rarely disappointed.

2. Mr. Plankton

This is a show that sets itself a very difficult task: skate the fine line between absurdity and deep meaning.  It somehow manages to thread the needle, an impressive feat.

Our ML, Hae-jo, is the product of an accident–the fertility clinic who facilitated his conception made a mistake, and his biological father could be any one of five people. Needless to say, he has some attachment and abandonment issues.

Then he gets a diagnosis that he has a fatal brain condition, and only has three months to live. So what does he do? He decides to set out on a quest to find his biological father.

Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Jae-mi is about to get married to a proverbial nice guy (except he really is a pure-hearted dude), when Hae-jo swings by to kidnap her and have her accompany him on his quest.

They set off cross-country, with Jae-mi’s fiance (and others–don’t ask, just go watch it) in more or less hot pursuit, and all sorts of wacky hijinks ensue.

This show has an unparalleled ability to rein in the crazy just before it spins out of control and escapes containment, and then to hit you right between the eyes with some emotional beat that you weren’t expecting.

And those emotional beats taken together add up to some pretty profound messaging about family and belonging and mortality and various flavors of love.

It’s a real accomplishment, of the sort that doesn’t come along all that often.

1. Shogun.

I’m old enough that I watched the original Shogun miniseries (with Richard Chamberlain and Mifune Toshiro) when it first aired in 1980. And I loved it!

I must have gone on to read the James Clavell novel from which it was adapted probably five or six times. And although it’s been over forty years since I’ve seen that miniseries, I have to say I think this new adaptation is better.

I’m in no way a scholar of Japanese history, but to all appearances this show absolutely oozes authenticity; a beautifully shot encapsulation of late 15th century Japan in every frame.

The first adaptation felt like it centered the Englishman Blackthorne–the Western audience’s proxy–much more; here, the character Blackthorne is still important, but the focus, rightly, feels much more turned towards Lord Toranaga (aka Tokugawa Ieyasu), his vassals and retainers, and the intricate struggle for power and ascendancy taking place following the death of the Taiko (the historical Toyotomi Hideyoshi).

Because of course this is a thinly-veiled roman-a-clef; almost all of the characters, although nominally fictional, are based on actual historical figures, and the struggle it depicts is the leadup to the Battle of Sekigahara and the founding of the Tokugawa Shogunate that would rule Japan for the next 250 years.

Marvelously acted, intricately plotted, a feast for the eyes, this is drama at its best, and it’s no surprise that it ended up winning 18 Emmy awards, “the most awarded single season of television in Emmy history.”

Best Female Lead

The nominees. (Once again, my best female lead list insists on overrunning the banks, and refuses to be constrained to just five nominees. Oops.):

Seo Hyun-jin (The Trunk).

A frequent guest on my own personal “best actress” lists, Seo Hyun-jin is always a pleasure to see on the screen, even when it’s in service to a lousy production (*cough* Why Her? *cough*).

Here, she’s bringing her impressive range to a nuanced depiction of a character who initially seems to have it more or less all together, but is eventually revealed to be as traumatized and damaged, in her own way, as her opposite number (played by Gong Yoo).

All that, plus it’s just great fun to watch her ruthlessly put the ex-wife villain in her place.

Lee Yu-mi (Mr. Plankton).

The beneficiary of a couple of brief but intense break-through performances (Squid Game, for which she won an Emmy award, among others, and then All of Us are Dead), Lee Yu-mi has a chance to really shine in a leading role in Mr. Plankton, and she makes the most of it.

Along with her co-stars Woo Do-hwan and Oh Jung-se, she’s one leg of an acting tripod that needs strong performances from each to deliver on the requirements of the tricky script, and she certainly holds up her end of the bargain.

Employing her delicately pretty features and a nuanced emotional range, she brings Jae-mi to life as a young woman with not only a deep need to belong and find a place, but also a reciprocal well of kindness and compassion to share.

Park Min-young (Marry My Husband).

A veteran actress who’s been starring in top-tier productions for a couple decades now, Marry My Husband is perennial favorite Park Min-young’s best outing since What’s the Matter with Secretary Kim, possibly even since Healer (caveat: I haven’t yet seen Her Private Life).

She does an impressive job of progressing from a timid, beaten-down doormat fighting a cancer diagnosis, to a young woman given a second chance at life, and the foreknowledge to make the most of it. And through guts, intelligence, and persistence, make the most of it she does.

My default posture is to root for Park Min-young in whatever role she’s inhabiting, but I certainly rooted extra-hard for her in this one.

Kim Ji-won (Queen of Tears).

I first saw Kim Ji-won in Descendants of the Sun–a show that I liked!–playing the 2FL in a role that I disliked (I had a strong aversion to the nepotism and fraternization issues that the show essentially ignored) and for which I thought she was miscast (not necessarily her fault; she presented as too delicate to convincingly portray an Army surgeon).

Then she did a bang-up job in the nuanced, emotional-deep-waters My Liberation Diary.

And now, at the height of her powers, she absolutely slays as the brusque, efficient chaebol subsidiary CEO who is concealing a wounded past and suppressing her innate capacity to feel and to love. Well played, and a delight to watch.

Go Min-si (The Frog).

A bright spot in an overall disappointing show, Go Min-si proves to our satisfaction (or mine, at least) that she can play a very convincing sociopath.  Just in case you were wondering or something.

This is the type of role that requires the exercise of a certain restraint, lest constant over-the-top antics lose power and effect, and yet also a willingness to leave restraint behind without hesitation at strategic points.

And I’ve gotta say, Go Min-si understood the assignment.

She smirks, she cajoles, she simmers with barely concealed rage, and then when the time is right–sometimes unexpectedly, to great effect–she completely loses her shit. Bad show, but interesting performance!

Kim Hye-yoon (Lovely Runner).

My first encounter with Kim Hye-yoon comes from her very tightly wound teen overachiever in SKY Castle.

Here she plays–for at least part of the story–a very different teen. She also plays her part in different timelines, as this is a time-slip drama, and definitely flexes her considerable acting skills to adapt and portray a character who is thrust into changing contexts.

Through it all, she maintains a baseline level of gumption and persistence, and never sheds her aura of adorableness as she gives her all to make sure her beloved Sun-jae will survive and thrive.

Anna Sawai (Shogun).

The essential key that ultimately provides the means to unlock the way forward for her master, Lord Toranaga, Anna Sawai’s Mariko is a seething bundle of conflicting passions firmly held in control beneath a preternaturally calm exterior.

Manifesting a steely will, intelligence, determination, and great physical courage, Anna Sawai brings these qualities and more of Mariko all to life and makes her lady samurai every bit the worthy retainer as any of her master’s other vassals.

Like her co-star (Hiroyuki Sanada), she won an Emmy and a Golden Globe award for her effort here.

The Winner(s) :

I think I’m going to have to share this one, between Seo Hyun-jin and Anna Sawai; a couple of nuanced, excellent performances all around.

Best Male Lead

The nominees:

Jo Jung-suk (Captivating the King).

Prior to this, my deepest impression of Jo Jung-suk was as the happy, outgoing surgeon in Hospital Playlist. Which is a great show, and a great role!

So it was a surprise and a revelation to see his turn in Captivating the King, where he plays the Crown Prince, and then the King, with a smoldering intensity that demands attention and comes close to melting the screen.

Although the script falters in the latter half (and particularly lets down his co-star Shin Se-kyung), he sees it through with a gravity and seriousness that impresses all the way to the end.

Hiroyuki Sanada (Shogun).

How do you replace a legend like Mifune Toshiro in your remake of a forty year old mini-series? Go find another legend, obviously.

As Toranaga Yoshi (a very thinly-veiled fictionalization of the historical Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded the Tokugawa Shogunate), one of the five regents governing feudal Japan following the death of the ruling warlord, the Taiko, Hiroyuki Sanada does an outstanding job as the brilliant strategist, adapting to changing circumstances and new pieces on the board to parlay a seemingly weak hand into a winning combination.

He won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for the role, and will presumably be back for the confirmed season two.

Woo Do-hwan (Mr. Plankton).

A reliable performer for years in both supporting and lead roles (e.g. The King: Eternal Monarch; Bloodhounds), in Mr. Plankton Woo Do-hwan gets the chance to really dig deep in a role that calls for a lot, and he rises to the challenge and shines.

As a live-life-on-the-edge iconoclast with deep-seated abandonment issues, suddenly given just a few months to live, there’s a lot going on here, and Woo Do-hwan brings it all vividly to life.

His Hae-jo often acts like kind of a jerk, but we’re never far from being reminded of the pathos, hurt, and yearning lurking behind his eyes. It’s a tremendous performance.

Gong Yoo (The Trunk).

Always good for a solid jolt of star power and charisma, Gong Yoo gets a chance to put his acting chops through their paces in this role as a wealthy middle-aged man who has been deeply traumatized by life, first by his father and then by his ex-wife.

Watching him grope his way towards healing and something resembling normalcy via interactions with his new contract wife is a subtle but pronounced pleasure.

It would only work with a deft and assured performance from the actors, and Gong Yoo ably delivers on his half of the bargain.

Seo In-guk (Death’s Game).

It may be a bit of a stretch to call Seo In-guk’s appearance here a leading role, just based on screen time.

The conceit of the show is that his character is reincarnated into various other people as the episodes go on, while Seo In-guk is the “original” and the one that reappears as a sort of framing device at the beginning and end of each episode.

But within that limitation, he makes the most of his time to convey the range of emotions and experiences gained through each sojourn through a “new” life. It’s well done and deserving of praise.

The Winner:

Tip o’ the cap to Woo Do-hwan, who takes on a complicated role, gives it everything he’s got, and rides off triumphant. Bravo, sir.

Best Supporting Actor (Female)

The nominees:

Go Youn-jung (Death’s Game).

Sure, fine, if you want to accuse me of being a Go Youn-jung perma-stan…guilty as charged! But still, she plays a relatively short but memorable part in this catchy little show.

She appears as the girlfriend of the main character played by Seo In-guk, and serves to amp up his trauma and regret in several ways, through absolutely no fault of her own.

In the midst of an A-list ensemble cast, she still manages to do her part to elevate the quality of the production.

Song Ha-yoon (Marry My Husband).

One reason that Marry My Husband manages to hit as well as it does is absolutely down to the quality of its villains, and in particular to Song Ha-yoon’s performance as the casually back-stabbing “best friend” of Park Min-young’s protagonist.

She plays a conscienceless narcissist with real flair and believability, and I have to say it was a real delight to watch her lie and emote with utter abandon in service of her own advancement.

(It’s the sort of performance that you might expect to lead to at least a few awards and juicy new roles; alas, she had a bullying scandal–the bête noire of K-ent celebs everywhere–blow up at precisely the right (or wrong, from her perspective) time–near the end of the show’s run–to kneecap positive developments)

Geum Hae-na (A Shop for Killers)

Dropping on us seemingly out of nowhere (well, on me, at least–this is the first I can recall seeing her), Geum Hae-na crashes into the very fun A Shop for Killers as one of my favorite character archetypes–the hyper-competent, bad-ass assassin with a heart of gold.

She provides a much-needed shield and protection for our gutsy young protagonist while she scrambles to find her feet in this bewildering new world of scary dudes with guns suddenly coming to kill her.

Here’s hoping Hae-na has a prominent part to play in a possible second season.

Chun Woo-hee (The 8 Show).

A seasoned actress, Chun Woo-hee proves it here by playing a character that is about as far from her character in The Atypical Family (whose airing schedule overlapped with the release of The 8 Show) as it could be.

I mean, The 8 Show is already an extremely off-the-beaten-path, at times almost surreal, show.

Chun Woo-hee’s contribution as an amoral, utterly narcissistic, quasi-sex-kitten airhead (but not without a certain low cunning) really spices up the pot of this motley crew of sadsacks, misfits, and reprobates.

Park So-yi (The Atypical Family).

One of the absolute delights and best parts about The Atypical Family is young (currently just shy of 13 years old!) Park So-yi, who plays the daughter/granddaughter of our eponymous atypical family.

As a young girl standing on the verge of puberty, with a mother who passed away early and a father who has completely checked out emotionally, not to mention a (to her) particularly burdensome “super power”… well, it’s fair to say she’s going through some things.

Park So-yi does a marvelous job of conveying her inner turmoil through the window of her expressive eyes.  Looking forward to more great performances from her in the future.

The Winner:

This one goes, I think, to Geum Hae-na, who was such a great physical force, and tremendous fun to root for as she unfurled her one-woman wrecking crew on all those over-confident special ops bros.

Best Supporting Actor (Male)

The nominees:

Oh Jung-se (Mr. Plankton).

Pretty much every year is another “Oh Jung-se showed up and knocked it out of the park in a show or three” year, and this is no exception. And such range!

He can do venal, he can do villain, he can do autistic older brother, you name it, he’ll show up and ace the assignment.

Here he’s playing the good-hearted heir of a wealthy traditional clan with an overbearing mother.

He’s devoted to the FL, his fiancée, and determined to do whatever it takes, in his inept but pure-of-heart way, to “rescue” her when she’s kidnapped by her chaotic ex-boyfriend.

It’s a great show, and Oh Jung-se’s character is an important element in what makes it work.

Kwak Dong-yeon (Queen of Tears).

A paragon of the “eager beaver younger brother” model, as he demonstrated in Vincenzo, Kwak Dong-yeon shows up in Queen of Tears as one of the members of the just slightly over the top family circus revolving around the FL.

Playing as, yes, her try-hard, aggressively clueless younger brother, he eventually wins us over with his genuine devotion to his young son and his wayward wife.

It’s a well-done portrayal that adds an additional dimension to a show that some might contend is over-stuffed, but were I cutting stuff, I’d still leave in the dorky younger brother who redeems himself with his unalloyed love for his wife and kid.

Lee Yi-kyung (Marry My Husband).

As I mentioned above, the quality of the villainy is a real, material factor in the success of Marry My Husband, and Lee Yi-kyung (as the titular husband, no less) is a standout as Song Ha-yoon’s “partner in crime.”

He manages to walk a fine line between being venal and trashy, but with a somewhat comic flair, and then manifests a real and believable menace, enough to come off as convincingly dangerous, at important junctures (unlike his co-star in villainy, he didn’t have a bullying scandal pop up, so his career appears to be rolling along just fine).

Tadanobu Asano (Shogun).

This guy is a pure delight to watch as the gutsy, wily retainer and ally of the main man, our aspiring Shogun.

Tough, competent, but with a certain humorous approach and devil-may-care charm, he always seems to be successfully riding the storm, right up until a critical (but understandable!) error in judgment trips him up.

I’m not alone in my appreciation; Tadanobu was nominated for an Emmy, and won a Golden Globe and Critics Choice award, among others, for the role.

Park Chan-yeol (The Frog).

Yeah, it’s a secondary role in a bad show, but I do think that Park Chan-yeol’s (relatively brief) appearance is one of the actual bright spots in the show.

He plays the now-grown son of the main couple in the show’s earlier timeline, and really does a decent job of showing the quiet trauma and desperation that have resulted from those events that came early in his life.

He also has an action set piece, which even though it feels like it has been imported from another, slightly different show, is still one of the more interesting and entertaining parts of an otherwise largely forgettable show.

The Winner:

This one goes to Tadanobu Asano, who brought verve and presence to the roguish Yabushige, all the way to the end.

Best OTP

The nominees:

Kim Ji-won & Kim Soo-hyun (Queen of Tears)

I mean, c’mon, these two and their relationship made Queen of Tears the show that it was; without this OTP, I don’t think it would have had any hope of bearing the narrative weight that the writers insisted on saddling it with.

As it was, though… two very very beautiful people, both brimming with charisma; skilled actors at the height of their powers, with an irresistible dramatic hook: a married couple fallen from love to indifference and mutual detestation, do they have any hope of finding their way back to each other? (spoiler: duh…)

I loved watching these two, and their journey to rediscover each other, and yes, I bawled at the ending like a big dopey bear.

Chae Soo-bin & Yoo Yeon-seok (When the Phone Rings)

Say what you will about the show’s second half decline (and collectively, we have, at length!), but these two managed to spark some undeniably crackling tension and electricity with their little cat and mouse games in the opening stanzas, and even maintained some pretty good chemistry as they started to open up to each other and together wander the road to the minting of the OTP.

I do not generally view Yoo Yeon-seok as romantic hero material (although he did very well with Moon Chae-won in the enjoyable movie Mood of the Day), but I have to say that his turn as a mucho tsundere model of sartorial elegance was certainly well done here.

And of course, Chae Soo-bin, for whom we have stanned, hard, since her Robot days, will always be one of our ride-or-dies.      .

Lee Yu-mi & Woo Do-hwan (Mr. Plankton)

When we first meet these two, they are very much exes; Jae-mi is on the verge of marrying her kind and steady fiance, Heung, before she’s literally kidnapped by wild child Hae-jo to go road-trippin’ in search of his biological father.

You might say this is…kinda problematic? And you would not be wrong!

Viewed through a sympathetic lens, though, I think it’s possible–more than possible–to come around to the show’s point of view, which is that these two are soul mates (or very well-suited to each other, if you don’t subscribe to some metaphysical concept of soul mates), and they have never really stopped being in love with one another, although they have managed to bury those feelings for various reasons.

We get to tag along as they clear away the clutter and excavate their authentic selves and true feelings.

Seo Hyun-jin & Gong Yoo (The Trunk)

By far the most engaging part of this trippy little psychological study is the development of the relationship between the two main characters.

From a purely contractual marital pact, entered into under quasi-duress on his part, and a business transaction (with perhaps a whiff of self-flagellation) on hers, it slowly begins to evolve into something exhibiting true, honest care and mutual regard.

It sounds cliche, but in the process of falling in, or at least towards, love, they also begin to each find their way toward the healing of their individual traumas, and back toward emotional health. It’s a pleasure to watch them do so.

Kim Hye-yoon & Byeon Woo-seok (Lovely Runner)

One thing you may have noticed about each of our OTP nominees is that they are all a core–in some ways the essential–element of the show they inhabit. And this pairing, rounding out our group of nominees, is no exception.

The time travel shenanigans are fun, as our characters hit reset on their lives and live out different situations, but the central thread winding throughout and unifying the narrative is Sol’s appreciation for and devotion to her Sun-jae, and Sun-jae’s often-concealed but deeply felt reciprocal feelings for Sol.

Great chemistry, and they really were super cute together.

The Winner:

I have to hand this one to the Kim-Kim combo, Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won from Queen of Tears.

I was most invested in their journey as a couple; gradually filling in tidbits about their past–courtship, marriage, and estrangement–while anxiously tracking their halting efforts to overcome the past and revive what once was–their mutual love for each other.

Razzie Award 

(“worst show, OR the show that promised so much but delivered so little”)

The nominees:

The Bequeathed.

I’ve said it more than once: I’m not much of a horror fan.  But then just within the last year or so, I’ve seen a couple of really well-done Korean horror (or horror-adjacent) productions (Revenant and Exhuma).

So when the marketing for this six episode Netflix show seemed to promise a walk on the occult side (family burial ground! contested inheritance! ominous events! occult mystery! spooky atmosphere!), I was more than ready to buckle in for the ride.

Friends, we were sold a bill of goods.

There is nothing particularly occult or even occult-adjacent about the entire show; the atmospherics are intermittently spooky, but to no apparent purpose; the family burial ground is a dumb McGuffin; the contested inheritance, while central-ish to the show, is pretty uncompelling; and ditto the mystery (which as I mentioned, is not occult at all).

Verdict: a boring waste of time better spent on superior dramas.

The Frog

A show that looks like it might have real potential in the noir thriller vein, alas in the execution turns out to be mostly a dud.

A retired widower spends his time managing his sprawling rural lodge, which he rents out to vacationers.  Then a mysterious young woman shows up and sets up camp at the place and proves… difficult to get rid of.

The lead (Kim Yoon-seok) is a veteran actor; Lee Jung-eun, Ha Yoon-kyung, and Roh Yoon-seo all class up the joint; Park Chan-yeol is memorable in a minor role, while Go Min-si gives it her all as a very creditable sociopath, but all that said, the script is a bit of a sprawling mess, its attempt to be elliptical and mysterious gets away from it and often misses the mark, and the attempted integration of different stories on two different timelines mostly doesn’t work.

Watchable?  I mean, maybe, kind of, if this sort of thing is your jam.  But certainly doesn’t live up to the potential of its glossy cover, and mostly a disappointment.

The Impossible Heir

This started out with a fair amount of promise in the first couple episodes or so, enough that I seem to recall commenting (or agreed with someone else commenting; I don’t remember which, now) that it seemed to have hints of Money Flower (which, if you haven’t seen Money Flower, is a high compliment).

But alas, it quickly betrays its early promise and heads south, never to recover.

A younger son of ruthless daddy chaebol makes alliance with a hungry, smarter (but lower class) comrade to scale the forbidding heights of corporate and familial power.

Along the way, they both have the hots for the same woman.  Alas, the superficial resemblances to Money Flower mostly end there.

Not even the efforts of recently-established A-lister Lee Jae-wook can rescue this goofy makjang turkey as it spins out of control on its way to a limp conclusion.

When the Phone Rings

Blessed with a cracky, fun first few episodes that get way more mileage out of an implausible premise than might have initially seemed possible, the good times dwindle as implausible mysteries–of the inevitable “family secrets” variety–mount and the narrative slowly runs out of steam.

All that would be more or less forgivable; it’s the train wreck in the final episode that basically compels show’s inclusion on this list.

The sins comprising said train wreck are too numerous to canvass here, but suffice to say wandering in a designer dress through rebel-occupied territory in the middle of the night, in search of your wayward, wilfully incognito husband, just… no.

Bad writers! No cookie for you!

Red Swan

The second of this year’s “strong silent bodyguard protects successful but beset, endangered woman” offerings (Blood Free being the first), this starts off in the first couple episodes with some real glimmers of potential.

Rain does yeoman’s work as the broody, intense former cop, driven to get to the bottom of his best friend’s murder under shady, mysterious circumstances.

Alas, it goes nowhere after that, spinning its wheels endlessly in frankly boring small-potatoes corporate and family politics.

And Kim Ha-neul as our outsider-married-into-snooty-rich-family FL is a real let-down. Granted, the script does her no favors, but she makes it worse by sleepwalking through most of it.

I was mostly bored, and only my completist instincts (that I haven’t yet managed to entirely shake off) saw me through to the (dumb, incoherent) end.

The Winner:

I think this goes to The Impossible Heir. Only it truly has the initial potential combined with depth of fall.  And it was a definite fall!  Congratulations? I guess?

Hidden Gem

I’ll repeat again my usual mantra here, that “hidden gem” is a bit of a misnomer.  It’s not necessarily that these shows are hidden or gems–although they may be either or both–but that this is the sort of catch-all miscellaneous category that I use to flag shows that may not have clawed their way onto the Top Ten list for various reasons, but still had something about them that was quirky or interesting or worth pointing out or mentioning.

Death’s Game

This is a very entertaining little eight episode gem, one that recruits a veritable stable of top talents to swing by and contribute an episode’s worth of work in a worthy cause.

The premise is that a young man (Seo In-guk), after seven years of failed attempts to find a stable full-time job, in despair attempts suicide.

Whereupon an offended Death, personified (Park So-dam), sentences him to twelve incarnations into living people who are fated to themselves soon die. If he manages to avoid their death, he’ll live out the rest of their life.

What follows is a new scenario, akin to a short story, each episode…all connected by the throughline of our main character moving into (and out of) a new (to him) life.

Almost all of the scenarios are pretty interesting in their own right (although be warned, one is particularly bloody), and in the end, it’s even quite emotionally meaningful.  Definitely recommended.

LTNS

Wikipedia describes this as a “black comedy satirical television series,” and sure, let’s go with that. It’s as good a description as any, I suppose.

At its heart is the main couple, played by Esom and Ahn Jae-hong, who are on fire for each other when they first get together. After several years of marriage, the spark is long gone and they are just going through the motions of a hum-drum life.

One day, they learn that one of their friends is having an affair, and they hit on the idea of unearthing people having affairs (she works the front desk of a hotel, a ripe source of intel) and then blackmailing them.

As they wander through several iterations of their scheme, their own weaknesses and insecurities inevitably come bubbling up.

This is… interesting, and definitely off the beaten track of your usual kdrama fare.

It is often extremely funny; it’s frank and bawdy and speaks about sex in an earthy tone that you don’t tend to find in most kdramas.

It’s also often raw and uncomfortable as it grapples with infidelity, and particularly with the foibles and problems of the central couple.

I’m not convinced it quite sticks the landing.  But it’s definitely trying something new, and it deserves props for that.

Parasyte: The Grey

A relatively short (six episodes) science fictional, conceptual adaptation of a Japanese manga (which I haven’t read), this portrays an alien invasion in which alien parasites enter a human host, killing the existing personality and taking over the body, which gains the ability to morph its head into wild new shapes as needed.

The protagonist (played by Jeon So-ni) is a target of a parasite, but the possession goes awry and is only partially successful, leaving the human host and the parasite in a sort of equilibrium where they have to negotiate with each other to move forward.

Meanwhile, other parasites in human form are trying to hide from discovery while expanding their reach, while the government is on to their existence and is actively hunting them.

It’s a fairly well-executed, entertaining story, and as long as you’re not overly squeamish about CGI heads suddenly splitting open to form blades or tentacles or other appendages, I’d definitely recommend it.

The 8 Show

This is an entry in the “confine a random group of people in a closed environment and impose arbitrary rules and then see what happens” sub-genre.

Unlike, say, Squid Game or Alice in Borderland, it is not explicitly deadly in design, although violence does inevitably intrude as matters progress.

Eight disparate individuals are lured into a game in which they are locked into the “arena”: a large auditorium-like space, with a personal room for each contestant on one of eight separate floors, to which they are semi-randomly assigned.

There are cameras everywhere, and the goal is to amuse the unseen audience such that they will collectively continue adding time to the game clock. The longer the game runs, the more money each contestant accumulates.

There are other rules, of course, and as is usually the case with this sort of show, the interplay of rules, boundary conditions, and individual personalities leads to drama, conflict, and a psychological study of humanity under stress.

It’s quirky and interesting and definitely trends toward the surreal at points, particularly as it barrels into its finale.

But it certainly kept my attention, as even when it was failing, or not entirely succeeding, it felt like it was doing so in an interesting sort of way.

Light Shop

The second (recent) adaptation of a Kang Full webtoon (after last year’s best drama Moving–yay! for an announced second season) to come to our screens, this immediately went on the must-watch list. And I would say it’s a worthy effort and a worthwhile watch.

It didn’t quite grab me and suck me in like Moving did, but that’s not really a criticism.

This is a show about the liminal space between life and death, and souls who are caught there for a time.

It’s a relatively compact eight episodes, and the first half–the first four episodes–lean heavily on atmosphere (which can often be spooky and unsettling, to be clear) without revealing much of what is going on beyond hints and feints.

Eventually the clues get slotted into place and it becomes clearer where our characters are coming from and what they are doing in the space where we find them.

Although, and this is not a bad thing, per se, even at the end I think the show leaves us with questions to ponder and impose our own interpretation and understanding.

So yeah, I would recommend this, just go in with an open mind and don’t worry too much about the sometimes eerie, spooky atmospherics.  If a longtime horror skeptic like me can handle it, I’m sure you can too.

Welp, there you have it. 

2024 and its crop of dramas officially in the books.  Let us bow our heads and give voice to our ritual invocation for a fine rich crop of 2025 dramas to grab and enthrall us.

IN MEMORIAM

Last week (February 16, 2025), news broke that Kim Sae-ron had been found dead at her home, and police sources soon confirmed that it appears to have been a suicide.

Twenty-four years old when she passed, Kim Sae-ron was an award-winning and widely-praised child actress, appearing in significant and lauded roles in A Brand New Life (invited to Cannes), A Girl at My Door (with Bae Doona), and of course, The Man from Nowhere (opposite Won Bin).

In recent years, she appeared to be on the verge of successfully navigating the always-tricky transition from child actress to adult roles, headlining The Great Shaman Ga Doo-shim, appearing in Netflix’s Bloodhounds, and announced as a cast member of SBS’s Trolley.

Then in May 2022, she crashed her car in the Gangnam district of Seoul, and was subsequently charged with driving under the influence.

Although no one was injured, there was significant property damage, and she had her driver’s license revoked and was ultimately fined around $15,000 by the court.

After her death, it was reported that she was in debt to her former management agency for several hundred thousand dollars due to compensation paid on her behalf to affected businesses in the area of the crash, as well as cancelled endorsement contracts and penalty fees.

As a result of the incident, her scenes in the latter part of Bloodhounds were awkwardly edited out, and she was dropped from the cast of Trolley.

Her attempts to find part time work at a cafe or as an acting instructor were soon discovered and spread across the internet, where they met with sneers and opprobrium.

Her attempt to ease back into acting in April 2024, via an appearance in a stage play, caused such an uproar that she was forced to step down the day after the announcement.

At her funeral last week, her father was quoted as saying “certain YouTube videos exposing aspects of her private life had caused her significant distress.”

Last year (well, technically the end of December 2023) it was Lee Sun-kyun. Before that, Sulli and Goo Ha-ra.

No doubt other examples could be found, of celebrities buckling under the immense pressure to conform to a strict code of behavior demanded by the public, enforced under penalty of completely losing their career and their livelihood.

To be clear, it is usually possible to point out mistakes or foibles or even criminal behavior on the part of celebrities.

We are human; none of us are perfect in all aspects of our lives, and none of us are immune from criticism for our missteps. Do we condone driving under the influence?  We certainly do not.

But where is grace? Where is the possibility of mercy, of redemption? Where is the principle of proportionality, and of paying your debt to society and then moving forward with your life?

Where is the justice in being hounded by some shitty asshole “reporter” on YouTube, in concert with legions of anonymous trolls, for the rest of your life because you made a dumb error of judgement and crashed your car one morning when you were twenty-two years old?

I don’t have an answer, and it’s not in my hands. But I’m plenty angry about it.

I’m sorry it finally became too much to bear.  Rest in peace, Kim Sae-ron.

~Trent

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