SBS shows overall aren't as popular as MBC and KBS with the D-addicts/Soompi set. SBS programming caters more to ajuhmmas, and they tend to run more "Cinderella meets chaebol" soaps and melodramas than the other two stations, emphasizing production and stars over telling new kinds of stories. In some respects, SBS programming, which is often rightfully criticized for their very, very formulaic approach to romantic geometry and implausibly storylines, are also much less maudlin and occasionally more gritty,
because they target an older audience. And since the SBS formula is so well understood, there's a lot of room for subversion. I'm watching What Happened to Bali right now, and superficially, it fits the SBS chaebol drama template to a tee. But the actual content is nasty, corrosive stuff; this was the same writer of Thousand Years of Love (another SBS drama), which though rather terrible was also exceptional in its meanspirited and misogynistic tone.
That said, there's pretty healthy discussion about On Air over at Soompi. Lee Bum Soo started to draw a Soompi following after Surgeon Bong Dal Hee, but the Lee Bum Soo/Kim Ha Neul match up is very, very appealing, especially if you watch a lot of Korean movie/romantic comedies. I like Park Yong Ha and Song Yung Ah (who BTW was in Hotelier) a lot, so it's almost a perfect cast for me.
Must be from all the negativity over at dramabeans
Yeeaaaahhhhh . . . . I can see where she is coming from with it (if you've seen any of the Lovers trilogy or Hello Miss, it's the same PD team.) My family was split on Lovers in Paris, but I like how the PD writes individual "chemistry" scenes between the actors; there's a lot of "space" for ad-libbing and you can tell they tailor the voice of each character according to the actors. I'm watching Lovers in Prague, and the president's daughter is written, you can very much sense that it's "Jeon Do Yeon playing the president's daughter", just as it's "Kim Ji Eun playing Cinderella", or "Park Shin Yang as chaebol." Star quality is heavily, heavily emphasized over storytelling, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. In that regard, the main appeal On Air of me
is as a winky meta-drama, even though X himself has said the show utterly fails at that level.
One thing I noticed about Hong Gil Dong is that the Hong sisters are almost the opposite of that. There's a certain "unedited" quality to their scenes, kind of a scattershot rant-style that becomes the voices of each character. I really enjoyed it, so I'm going to start My Girl (finally) soon.
"We can't all be like Daniel Henney"
