If We Were a Season

If We Were a Season

3.5/10

If We Were a Season

Genre:                               Episodes: 1                          Year: 2017

School

Synopsis:

Yoon Hae Rim and Uhm Ki Seok have grown up together, and are extremely close friends. The arrival of a transfer student causes the two to reevaluate their relationship.

Cast:

Chae Soo Bin (Yoon Hye Rim)

Jang Dong Yoon (Uhm Ki Seok)

Jinyoung (Oh Dong Kyung)

Ahn Seung Kaun (Seo Min Joon)

Kim Min Kyu (Lee Jung Ho)

Jung In Ki (Yoon Ki Hyun)

General Thoughts:

It’s the first of this year’s KBS drama specials, and well…I wasn’t that impressed. I’ve not had any experience with the one hour drama specials before- are they all like this? The plot synopsis is kinda vague, but I was expecting something a little different.

What do you mean this isn't a high school romance?!

It seemed like it was going to be a sweet friends-to-lovers romance, and it was for most of it’s run. But then it seemed to get confused and just decided it wasn’t going to be a friends-to-lovers story.

Dude, you're cute and all but seriously- step off

It wasn’t really going to be a story about romance at all. Yeah what. The plot made sense for most of the show’s run- and I genuinely thought that both the leads were interested in each other. But then we find out that the heroine doesn’t like the hero. The characters themselves were pretty simple and straightforward, but they were cute in a relatable way. I liked that the drama showed how they fought and reconciled before, as it really made them seem like extremely close friends. Jinyoung’s character, Dong Kyung, was pretty bland and boring. I don’t know why he was smoking a cigarette when he was first introduced as it never resurfaced again, and basically he only seems like he was there so that the heroine had some sort of excuse to turn down Ki Seok when he confessed. In regards to the way the drama was shot…well…there were some scenes that just didn’t seem as visually appealing as they could have been.

Like what even is this? Who thought this was a good shot?

I often found myself wanting to take a screenshot of a scene and was waiting for the angle to come around for the prettiest picture, but then the angle just never came and I couldn’t help but get a little annoyed that there were all these cool shots that we were missing out on.

Close-ups reminiscent of 'Scarlet Heart'

And then there were some scenes that really just had me wondering who it was that thought that particular angle and focus was the best idea. I’m usually pretty unperceptive of these things, so that just kind of goes to show how whacky the camera director was. We also tended to have these extreme close-ups of our characters. I swear that like 80% of this drama is just super close shots of Chae Soo Bin and Jang Dong Yoon’s faces. The soundtrack was pretty unremarkable- I actually have no recollection whatsoever as to what music was playing in the background while I watched this drama. Absolutely none. On the bright side, the locations for the drama were really quite nice. I mean, these kids have got to have to most scenic walk to school I’ve ever seen. 

What Was Great:

Leads:

Chae Soo Bin and Jang Dong Yoon have been keeping themselves pretty busy in K-Dramaland recently, and there’s really no question as to why so many people want to cast them in their dramas- the two really are brilliant actors.

Can we maybe have just one drama where Jang Dong Yoon gets to be happy?

Jang Dong Yoon has floored me in both of the dramas he’s been in this year, and he was just as good here, even if he didn’t really have a lot of room to move. It was nice to see him play a more relaxed, regular character- which only made it doubly suck when he wound up in angsty-town at the end. I’ve seen very little of Chae So Bin, but I’ve been aware of what she’s been in during the last couple of years and have heard mostly good things about her. I enjoyed her fun, if mildly oblivious character, and adored the cute, teasing chemistry she had going with Jang Dong Yoon.

Quit leading us on, girl

Even though at the end there her character really wasn’t making a lot of sense, Chae Soo Bin still managed to act believably and at the very least got me believing that what she was doing made sense in Hye Rim’s mind. 

What Wasn’t:

Talk About a Let Down:

I tend to find that my more scathing reviews come about when I go into a drama expecting one thing and come out having received something completely different. All I really wanted from this drama special was a cute and fun watch about two high school besties realising that they were in love with each other.

This is a total date- do you realise that this is a total date?

I was loving the drama for the whole 40 minutes when that was what we were getting. But then Ki Seok didn’t get the girl. And neither did that other kid. In hindsight I can kind of see what the writers were going for- a wistful, nostalgic show about a boy’s first love that didn’t work out. Hey, you know what? I would have been up for that if they’d done it properly. My issue with the show is that they had Hye Rim acting like she had a crush on Ki Seok right up until she turned him down. And turning him down because she liked Dong Kyung- I mean really, what the hell. When Dong Kyung asked her out she looked right at Ki Seok’s room before refusing. Yet when Ki Seok asks her out she says no because she likes Dong Kyung. We see very little evidence that Hye Rim likes Dong Kyung- sure the two spent some time together but it always felt like Hye Rim was trying to keep Dong Kyung at a distance. And I don’t even get what the deal was with finding out her father was cheating. It seemed her discovery had something to do with why she didn’t want to accept Ki Seok’s confession, but I never figured out what exactly. 

She had two cute guys crushing on her and she rejected them both. Congratulations, you played yourself.

It’s not like I was totally against the two leads not getting together. I actually found the scene of their reconciliation after Ki Seok getting rejected quite heartfelt and sweet- especially the insinuation that their story wasn’t over yet (with the whole ending with a hug thing). My problem is that for pretty much its whole run the show was making it seem as though the two had mutual feelings when they didn’t. I don’t like being stringed along.

Recommend?

Nope. Watch a friends-to-lovers movie instead. Or any movie really.

This is what I wanted- cute, simple teenage love story