kdrama: Warrior Baek Dong Soo eps 18-29 (end)
I hit one of my "Do not want subtitles! Too much work!" phases about 6 months ago and only really worked my way up to movies with subtitles in January. (The last time I hit a "Do not want subtitles! Too much work!" phase it lasted about twice as long. I was in the middle of shows then, too.) Thankfully, the break didn't make this show lose any steam for me.
I know a lot of people had issues with WBDS, especially regarding the pairings (I had the same preferences as most among the 4 main characters, but also grew rather attached to what the show went with) but I never had that problem, and this is definitely going to be on on my list of favorites if I ever do one again. I do think the extension was, in the long run, something of a mistake. Not because what they came up with was bad (though some things rather fell apart in the last episode) but because the writers were obviously basically done and finishing up with wrapping up most of the subplots and it was obvious they were scrambling to think things going. (Extensions can be good things, but give your writers advance notice!)
Thankfully, the fight scenes and characters and conversations were always the best parts, with the fact that the plot was also good more of a nice bonus. Speaking of fight scenes, I would not have believed Ji Chang Wook had a couple of the later scenes in him early in the series. Particularly "let me lure a dozen assassins who are after me into and alley and throw down my sword so I can see if I can handle a dozen armed men while unarmed myself JUST TO SEE IF I CAN DO IT" (Dong Soo, every time we thought you were finished growing up, you went and did things like that...) and "let me protect the king by fighting a hundred assassins in the courtyard, all alone, in the rain." (Dong Soo, I know you spent 3 years on a mountain with a dude who was considered Best. Warrior. Ever even before he spent 16 years living in China with warrior monks and doing things like initentionally dangling off a cliff doing one-armed pullups, and so can probably catch arrows with his toes, but you have limits.) This thing is seriously a traditional sageuk fused with wuxia, resulting in a "mostly good parts only" shounen manga.
Spoilers!
Speaking of the extension: Network! Couldn't you have done the extension before they killed my favorite character! I knew Ga-Ok was doomed from the start, but I could have had more of her! And more of my OTP! (Ga-Ok/Gwang-Taek was basically everything I could ever want in a wuxia OTP and Ga-Ok may have been my favorite fictional character last year.)
I did like, though, that the extension apparently let them expand Jang Mi's role a lot. Though I wasn't pleased with how Ji Sun basically had no lines for a few episodes there. Though I was glad Ji Sun's actress finally relaxed in the last few epiosdes. While I don't think she was experienced enough for the role, I don't think she was anywhere near as bad as a lot of people did, and I hope to see her in more sageuks.
Is it wrong that my main reason for being happy that Yeo Un finally got his act together was because he finally got a good wig again? I'm sorry, but that thing he was sporting for a while was just awful! Yeo Un is...I dunno. I like him a lot (though Dong Soo>>Yeo Un a lot for me) but he just seemed so deliberately passive about his life most of the time and it's like he had all these options in the first half and never took them even though everyone was all "You have choices!" And I don't mean the "if you want her, take her" stuff Cheon was spewing ( Cheon, I'm dismissing that as grief, ok?) but basically everything in his life. And seriously dude, would it have been so hard to say "I didn't kill your father but I've always felt responsible for it and I was there" or "No Dong Soo, I did not just try to murder our BFF. My subordinates did to protect me eventhough I ordered them not to."
Speaking of shallow thoughts on hair, I was so happy when the plot finally had enough time pass that they weren't doing weird things with Yoon So Yi's hair and makeup to try to make Jin Joo look younger. It was criminal, the things makeup was doing to such a beautiful women. Also, the "creepy assassin kidnaps Jin Joo and beats her up a lot while luring all her daddies out" plot was the one time I really felt the writers were desperately scrambling to get something on the screen. What was with that thing? (And Yeo Un, couldn't you have done a better job of killing him? I can't believe characters kept not killing him for so long.)
I kind of think the show would have been better off tweaking episode 28 a bit and ending it there. It would have spared us some serious character assassination on Cho Rip's part and ended it at the pace of the rest of the series. Things wouldn't have been wrapped up as neatly but really, they were wrapped up a little too neatly and we would have been able to see where all the important stuff was going without it actually being spelled out.
In other news...uhm...are sageuks being replaced by cute time travel stories this season or something? I know there are some longer traditional sageuks running on the weekends (Naturally, the only one that interests me is the one that isn't getting subbed, as far as I can tell.) but it seems there's usually at least one or two sageuks-regular or fusion-as weekly dramas too, but there aren't any right now that I can see, and the only upcoming one I've found is Arang and the Magistrate, which appears to be a fusion horror sageuk (which I am naturally all over).