Ahahah that conversation with your hubby is hilarious and adorable! ?

And sounds like your stay in Italy has been quite amazing. ?

" That's your mom's way of saying that if Bo Gum was walking across the street, you'd have a new dad. "

This made me laugh so hard lol! I'm thinking she'd find it awkward to have a guy she finds cute as her new dad though haha.

hahaha! Gong Yoo is damn lucky to be irreplaceable in your marriage clause. I always enjoy reading your conversation with your family.

Heh! The conversation is quite amusing. I can just imagine the look on daughter's face. ?

Continue to have a great trip in Italy!

He has second lead written all over his character. Better looking than first lead, considerate of the girl, kind of a push over.

OMGG this meeee when I see my friends in love triangles

I try not to say "goals" in conversations, but you and your husband and the way you guys talk and watch shows together is definitely my "marriage goals." Haha. Lol @ your husband thinking Lee Hyun-woo looks like a 12-year-old! Ouch. Does he know he's actually older than the second lead by four years? Ha. Also, just realized they're both so young, omg. Also also, your daughter is a drama fan in the making! I can just ~feel~ it!

stormy in Estonia too, especially on the sea, my finnish group was late 3 hours. But they were stalled by other storms in a can on the way, too.
it is freezing here. absolutely freezing, we are wearing winter hats and gloves. even 20 degrees would seem like Africa right now.

Am I the only one who got the Flowers in the Attic reference? Hehe, first introduction to it at 12.

Your family sounds too cute.

Convo with your hubby is so hilarious. I got the same agreement with my hubby. If I get a "new boyfriend" as long as its one of my oppas from the drama - he is fine with it. His favorite is Jun Ji-hyun so i guess its safe to say he has nooooo chance at all. Mine still has a possibility ?

Lounging in bed marathoning dramas through out a whole vacation sounds heavenly ? lucky you!! Hope you have a great time! ?

In terms of dramas, I would recommend you start watching Chicago Typewriter. It's a really good show and I'm absolutely loving it! But have to warn you that it's kind of a slow burn show, the first few eps are a bit slow. But it really picks up later on ?

I'm loving Lookout so far. And Fight my way too. Both are good so far ?

I recommend you to start with funny and easy going shows to relax. Fight My Way, Let's Eat and History of a Salaryman fall in this category :)

Highly recommend Defendant!! The storyline was great and the cast was phenomenal!! It keeps you guessing and wanting more

I highly recommend Fight My Way - it's my new crack! The chemistry between the leads is so good, it's been awhile since OTP thrills me like this. It's also a good romcom all around, it's light but realistic, it's funny but not slapstick, it's romance without being over the top.

"Circle" but I don't see it on your list.

You have to watch Circle!!

And Tunnel is worth it.

@kaybee

Tunnel is must watch darl, is a very very groundbreaking show for me, i put it teeth to teeth to signal . Is very odd that 2shows can be so similiar, yet is very different. Genius.

Mystery Queen is cute scobby doo gang, and very Japanese dorama vibe. I like it tho.

History of Salaryman & 6 Flying Dragon is very interesting not all dramas can be these. Grab it while it serve..

I read ur checklist, sounds ur kinda drama ae similiar with mine.
I do want to check Awl & Liar game.

I recommend Liar Game, Tunnel and Fight My Way. Its agood mix of genres. ☺

That's quite the list you got there. You're lucky that you've finished all your exams and now have time to watch more shows. My tests did not even start yet. As for series to start, personally, I would recommend Tunnel or Chicago Typewriter for current-ish shows. For older shows, Liar Game is a must watch. Also, I think 7 Day Queen is pretty good right now, that is if you like saeguks.

Since everyone recommended different shows, I will voice my opinion on two shows that's on your list but didn't get mentioned a lot.

I just finished watching the first 2 episodes(30 minute each) of the Best Hit and I am reluctant to say if I like it or not. I get The Producers vibe from this show. This might be because a lot of the actors(such as Cindy's manager and Kim Tae Ho PD) from the Producers made a short appearance here. For now, the show doesn't seem too cohesive, but I will stick with it a bit longer. I did like The Producers after all despite having mixed feelings about it.

Nine: Nine Times Time Travel is unlike other time-slip shows. I have watched W, QIHM, Tunnel and Tomorrow with you. Nine is a lot more serious, but not grave in the way of the Signal. In Nine, the idea of time travel and consequences of it is dealt in a more profound way. I think the idea of time travel is best executed in here. So I would definitely recommend you to give it a try.

My current crack drama is Fight My Way!

Lol! Reminded me of Chicago Typewriter - how only Se-Joo's place went through an earthquake ?

I agree, Circle and Suspicious Partner are my crack dramas now after a long season of trying out different dramas. What a great time to be a Kdrama fan!

I don't want Chicago Typewriter to end either but want to know the end sigh. This drama really knows hos to play with us.

Same on Chicago Typewriter!

We need tissues for finale episodes of CT ? Watched it raw, and now I don't know what to do.

Busy with marathoing chicago typewriter this whole week , waiting for final 2 episodes.
I am exciting and restless, dying to know what happened in 1930.

I am also curious how the marriage will turn out. Saw the preview, seems like the progress is quite fast ? Oh Min Ha-can I adopt him? He is such a sweetheart and independent too. His conversation with his father was the best part.

I am also curious about the one year marriage internship. It's just so Hye Young to come up with such a scheme as a compromise. However, no matter how thoroughly thought out her contract is, I suspect it won't be as easy.

It's really sweet how JH tries to bond with Papa Byun. Contrast that with the elder brother's whining about how neglected he feels because of Papa Byun but does nothing to rectify the situation. However, I agree that JH would be more hurt if he learns the truth about his birth later rather than sooner. Papa Byun should tell him the truth before JH is in too deep into the relationship. And I really like the relationship between JH and MY to start, like right now. I can imagine the hijinks that would occur between them. It would be too hilarious!

I have to agree that Lee Dong-gun as Yeonsangun is quite interesting. Like he's going to become unhinged at any moment.

I want to watch 7days queenn!!!
The only 2 reasons i havent :

-Is the show pace slow?

-The male lead is too weak in TV presence nor charisma compare LDG. Okay maybe LDG's height is too intimidating?

They should cast like Heirs tiger vs lion, LMH x KWB both got the star power, it just the writer are too sucks in their gaze forgot how to write a drama.

Hi, I also studied in Germany for a month long long time ago. I still remembered how I had to borrow internet access from my host family and the Uni. Great times! Enjoy your stay.

Haha convincing friends (and then succeeding) to watch kdrama is the best thing ever! ?

i just have a feeling that they would love Fight My Way.

...and is it just me or is it a different kind of fulfillment when you get people around you like the dramas you watch? best when they get more addicted than you are.

cheering up: watch Choi Siwon in variety. Or in dramas. He is so ridiculously funny.

Loving Fight My Way also. Watched it because of KJW and ended up falling in love with the four leads and their individual stories.

As a follow up to marketing to a Western audience (does anyone else notice the experimental turn of some of the most recent dramas—Mystery Queen set up for a Season 2 (whether it comes to be or not is another questions), lower romance elements and more action in Circle, Man to Man's higher action, more like a Bond theme...it has a more Western feel than Korean feel to me. Maybe also influenced by Chinese action dramas (Park Hae Jin is home from the Chinese scene now, after all)? Strong Woman probably wasn't meant to imitate Western ways, but it was kind of cartoony in a flawed way. My Secret Romance also thought the audience didn't need rising plot tension or a satisfying character arch. I know some people were satisfied with just the pretty, but so much more could have been done with that one. Making the kid the real son of the OTP, and spending a few episodes of angst on whether or not the he loved her or just wanted to claim his kid—having both of them work through that—alone would have vastly improved the plot.

I just want to say that if Kdrama tries to imitate Western drama, I'll probably lose interest. I don't want excess violence and shock value, overly sexualized romance themes, slice of life or multi season dramas without rising plot tension, slapstick or cartoonish caricatures. I can get all that domestically (and one of the reasons I don't watch American TV is because I don't like being shocked or mindlessly led: I want to be entertained and enlightened). One of my peeves about Kdrama though is when porn is almost product placed, as in High School King of Savvy, where she says he's just a high schooler, so it's normal/acceptable for him to look at porn, or Healer, where he's awarded with a locker of videos of a certain nature for his efforts in martial training. It raises my Human Rights and feminist hackles any time this kind of comment is made, and makes me have an anti-crush on the up until then actor who was doing so well at winning my loyalty. But. If you're going to treat my sisters like that, then you are out! (Girls before flower boys!!)

What I think Korea does well, and shouldn't sacrifice when trying on a new audience is this:

An ideal 16 episode length which allows book-like character growth and complex plot without dragging on too long as a multi-season and making the wrong people sleep together because the script writer has run out of new plot material...(which is what ruined Switched at Birth and Cover Affairs for me and which sparked my search for something better...resulting in Kdrama).

Not slice of life: rising tension sustained throughout the episodes instead to culminate in a satisfying ending. Slice of life doesn't have an ending, so it doesn't matter if I watch it all or not.

Emotional realism, even if the plot might be unlikely to really occur. Rising emotional tension/arc, and having reasons for the emotions that are real (unlike current Jdrama Boku no Unmei no Hito where a guy...

I watched my first K-Drama on Netflix and checked out a couple more on Hulu. It seems that Netflix would be the best platform to introduce to the Western audience since it has millions of subscribers globally and the software does a great job identifying and targeting niche audience who might be interested in different genres of K-drama.

Highly agree with your opinion of American multi-season TV shows and how most writers and producers can't handle crafting the plot and character development over the seasons. I think many of JJ Abrams' shows have been an exception to this, but for the most part the shows fall apart over time (see Sleepy Hollow as a good example of this).

It leaves me concerned with what will become of The Good Doctor on ABC. I think they've picked a good leading man, but what will happen in a potentially multi-season format with this show?

Ironically, there are some KDramas that I think might adapt well to a multi-season format. You mentioned Man X Man. I also think W would be a great candidate for development as an American show. The concept is really great, somewhat quirky, and I think would appeal to a lot of geeks and SF&F fans. I think it would be fairly easy to expand that world or create multiple worlds (do other authors' works create their own individual worlds, or is it all part of the comic book world?).

I think Korea should NOT try to imitate American TV. So many of us pick Korean TV over American for a reason--because it's NOT the same. The biggest two draws for me are the drama format (I vastly prefer an actual beginning, middle, and ending over slice of life series that peter out and get canceled when the public gets bored), and cleaner TV. I get annoyed when sex and violence (and even excessive special effects) are prioritized over actual storytelling and character growth. I don't want shock value, I want the meat of a good story.

If Korea has set its sights on a Western audience, what platform would be best for them to market to? I came into Kdrama through Hulu. Others have come into it through Netflix. And that's great for catching an audience. But the offerings are limited. I think the offerings being limited are the single biggest detriment to every legal streaming site.

Netflix reaches has more than 80 million subscribers in 200 different countries (Ingram, "Netflix Is Winning the Streaming Race—But for How Long?"). Amazon Prime is not to far behind in terms of reach. Both companies have and can spend billions per year in creating, producing, and acquiring content. The only issue here is region accessibility. A good example would be Man to Man. Interestingly enough, Netflix has acquired licenses for a ton of Asian dramas recently, to their library is expanding. So I would say that both Netflix and Amazon Prime are both good candidates for Asian drama exposure.

I'm surprised sometimes though at the shows that aren't streamed on Viki. This week alone, not licensed in my region are My Secret Romance, Circle, Lookout, Ruler Master of the Mask, Man to Man, Bad Thief Good Thief, Radiant Office.

Many of those shows are exclusives to one streaming service or another. Man to Man is a Netflix exclusive, My Secret Romance and Radiant Office are both DramaFever exclusives. This is where is think DramaFever trounces Viki. They usually have more exclusives, and if a drama is a Viki exclusive, its license tends to get acquired by DramaFever eventually--and rarely vice versa. Furthermore, for all the good that is the Viki translation initiative, they generally take much longer to fully sub an episode compared to DramaFever--the difference between 95% and 100% subbed is significant sometimes.

The way to cut down on illegal sites, I think, would be to aggressively license dramas early in their season so that the alternatives aren't as appealing, and to widen the scope of dramas licensed. I don't think selling the license to a single distributor is a sustainable option (like Nightlight on...Netflix, was it?)

Monopolies and competition aside, one of the biggest problems legal streaming services may often run into is money and a consumer's willingness to spend. Sure, one site only costs $5.00 a month, but another costs $9.99, and so on. When you combine costs to watch legally, it really does add up to a tidy sum that many can't afford. Furthermore, sites tend to increase their subscription costs from time to time.

Hear hear! ^^

Hehe .. to be honest I'm REALLY afraid I would get downvotes one day. Appareantly, that hasn't happened yet. But yes to your comment, I think we can always say what we want to say, or express our thoughts about dramas as long as they are not rude or absolutely unbearable.. I do feel very good when I get upvotes but I also always try to be satisfied even I don't get any upvotes for any comment.

Yes @ checking DB all day, errrday. The addiction has only gotten worst after the site's revamp. It's 'kay.

I'm a sucker for upvotes, too. It just looks so ~nice~. Downvotes on the other hand, looks so ugly. I'm mostly over it, but I have to admit I'd probably still be annoyed if I got another one because like you, they sometimes come outta nowhere and I'm just like, "Okay, but what'd I say?" After getting 7 (lol) downies, I'm just like, expecting 'em now.

And yaaaasssss, DB is absolutely one of the best places on the 'net! *finger hearts*

I think we all like the Wall. It's been quite fun interacting with the Beanies! ?

Thumbs up for almost every of this. I'm still groping my way around once in every while, especially when I want to read a certain thread (ratings, open threads or what we're watching) but they're not neatly categorised under Extras or Recaps, but I love the Fan Wall feature.

I can understand the frustrating and disheartening of receiving a downvote. However over time I keep telling myself that I wouldn't trade my voice for one fewer downvote, so I'm kind of settled with my four and growing downvotes now :P

Yess! I check DB so often now within a day. It's like a drug ?

I got my first down vote for a comment I made saying I like Chan Young in Liar. I was a little worried about that but then realized that down votes are just a show of different opinions - which is a good thing. So I'm taking it very positively now ?

Agreed! There is no one around me who watches K-dramas so Dramabeans provides a wonderfully positive and safe space for me to squee with fellow beanies. Thank you Beanies to makes me feel less crazy about some of my reactions and lessening my guilt over my addiction!

"The Fan Wall is a fantastic place to put up my thoughts be it a random one or related to a drama."
Love it and I am having fun with it!

I honestly don't care about downvotes. I'm far from perfect and eventually I'd get on someone's last nerves lol.

Who cares about the petty downvotes when we can get upvotes as many as we can lol. ? I noticed some ppl downvotes to troll, so just ignore them. They are having fun while in disguise.

Frankly I downvoted few times before, because I didn't take it very seriously, I just thought downvoting someone is not mean anything personal, it is just merely a symbol of disagreement without having to write reply. But after seeing many reactions, maybe the downvotes is not a very good thing to be a part of feature here. I used to downvotes a lot in Disqus because some commentators tend to give nasty comments, and then I just blocked these ppl so I don't have to read those comments at all.

you are doing it again. savouring while we the rest are half finished with our ice cream.

Thanks for sharing the hope!

What they don't mention in that article is that one reason they are loosening restrictions is because in China k-dramas are far more popular than nearly all c-dramas. When China imposed the restrictions, the number of VPN's went up hugely.

I am watching FIS, and loving every single moment of it. I love Lee Joon, and how now he is trying to recover lost time with his father. I love how he is a son and part of the family, and not the superstar Ahn when he is with Papa Byun. But when he is at work, he is the superstar Ahn who is incorrigible and haughty.

I also love the petty jealousy he now exhibits whenever MY is speaking to that judo actor. It's so cute. Please, Papa Byun, tell him the truth now so that he can love freely without second guessing himself whether he is treating MY the way he does a sister or something more.

I'm enjoying Actor Ahn and his petty jealousy so much that it's not healthy. Lee Joon is doing a great job and you can't help but root for him.

The plot moves fairly quickly considering the 50-episode trajectory so I am hoping that the truth comes out soon too! I don't want to see once MY catching on her own feelings that both of them will have drawn-out angst over fauxcest. Like Laica said in "What We Are Watching": "Come on, Show, fauxcest is so 2005."

I still cannot get over the fact that fauxcest is legit term and trope in Dramaland!!

They added FOUR new hosts to HT??? Don't they have like, five, already???

I am very captivated by Lookout too. The action, the suspense... I am very vested in the vigilante group, and how they will catch the teenage boy in the end for murdering Yuna.

I am still very disappointed that they removed the late night snack session, that was the best! I am now only watching if the guests interest me, like when Kang Ha Neul and Kim Seul Gi guested (still my no 1 fave episode of all HT episodes!)

I just finished watching that HT ep!
Yep yep, adding another 4 hosts seems annoyingly unnecessary. They said next ep host will be split into two every other week, but still u.u
The living room format is nice and comfy imo, some great episodes there. I do wish they bring back sauna and late-snack program :(
I like Hyun Kyung (the female host) and when given chances she is good but she is too quiet :(

I'm watching SP and I was thinking of watching Fight my Way next because I really like Park Seo-Joon and I'm a sucker for cute romance.

But... I use my phone to watch dramas. XD

Anyway, I currently watch Suspicious Partner and your fangirling are echoing my thoughts. Lol. I wonder if Ji-wook will still do skinship with the wall after episode 8 (15,16).

Fight My Way - I can't find the time to watch it so I regularly read the recaps instead. I could just imagine Park Seo-joon and Kim Ji-won's chemistry, and know that they're sizzling. I'll marathon it maybe before its penultimate episode. Hehe. Friends to lovers is the genre closest to my heart after all.

Also another drama on my plate - Circle. If you're a sucker for thriller/sci-fi done right, you'll most likely fall in love with the show. Let the two dramas you mentioned above satisfy the romance part, and Circle (and SP, perhaps) will keep your head spinning around, looking for answers.

I've always wondered if "his hobbies to dating around but in drama he's such a pure person and everybody praised him. He treated his fans nicely. He's such a perfect oppa in fandom" applies to many kcélébrités. Since everyone pretty much has to act like the purest person out there.

Just leave her be and maybe she'll "accidentally" read the same article