It’s over! Noooooo!

I started watching this more than halfway through the broadcast and actually started watching from there without backtracking until later in the game. I usually don’t watch dramas like this, but I was never into the premise of the story from before it started airing, so I never gave it a fair chance from the start.

I admit that I have a huge prejudice against idols who act because it really pisses me off that most of these idols who have gone into acting are really not that great as singers/dancers but then they’ll go into other things like acting, wtf? First, excel at what you debuted to do. Second, it’s one thing if they end up being good at the acting, but it’s an even a bigger insult to injury if they turn out to be hideous, and by fact of their appearance in a drama they are robbing a role from an actual qualified actor in the biz.

So let me tell you, a joint-production from Bae Yong-joon and JYP with cameos from Kim Hyun-joong and Bae Yong-joon, starring Taecyeon, Wooyoung, Suzy, IU, Eunjung sounded like a freaking dramapocalypse to me. I was excited about Kim Soo-hyun but I genuinely couldn’t see a reason how this could work with an all idol cast.

But the truth of the fact is, this drama has far exceeded my expectations. Let’s just go over two major things: the acting and the story.

ACTING

TAECYEON, to my surprise, is not a bad actor. I learned of this when I watched him in Cinderella’s Sister last year. Sure he didn’t have a very difficult character to play then, but he didn’t shame me (you know, like watching Kim Hyun-joong shames me, or watching Twilight by myself shames me) and he was definitely watchable. I think he is pretty decent as Jin-gook, but my general apathy to Taecyeon in this stems mostly from the actor/character combo: some characters are just “okay” on the page, but it really takes the right actor to bring out the nuances of traits, habits, etc. Then, there are some characters that are irredeemable, no matter how good an actor because you just can’t budge.

I think Taec is one of those actors that needs the right character to play because while he is decent at the acting and he is certainly not bad, but he is certainly not capable of taking a character to the next level. So Jin-gook was alriiiiight and he was funny at times and sad at other times, but he didn’t get me.

WOOYOUNG is, in my opinion, the weakest of the three lead males. Of the group of six, I think he may be the only actor who’s actually made me grimace or wince at certain moments. He’s definitely not bad and much better than I thought he would be for a first project, but he’s a little green and it shows. He generally carries Jason well, and my favorite thing about Jason is that he’s funny, but I attribute that mostly to the fact that Wooyoung is funny, and not because he acts funny, but he just is inherently funny. Complicated enough? But for a character like Jason though, Wooyoung’s actor is completely serviceable and I really have no qualms with him.

IU is a complete surprise. Seriously. I would say that she is the best of all the acting newbies in this bunch, and so much better than I thought she would be. She can be a little forced sometimes with the cute, but for the most part, her acting feels completely natural and she is just lovely. When she cried after she was given no credit for her CF song, I knew we got a winner. She made that moment great.

EUNJUNG is maybe another idol-turned-actor that is not bad at all. She was pretty likable in Coffee House and she is definitely convincing as Baek-hee, but for some reason, Eunjung is just one of those actors that I’ll never really love. To me, she’s like Son Yeh-jin or Park Yeh-jin, or all these good actresses that do a good job with their characters and are just stable and good. Their skill doesn’t really translate into my love for them as actresses. Though with Eunjung I suspect it’s more because I really dislike her speaking voice. That’s an arbitrary dislike, but still a dislike nonetheless.

SUZY is stiff, but not bad. I can say she almost overwhelmed me with the stiff (no jokes, please) but there is something oddly likable about her roboticness, some of which is due to the fact that her character requires it of her. But overall, I didn’t love her performance. There were gamechanger moments for Hye-mi’s character, but I wasn’t really feeling it the way Suzy delivered, whether it be line delivery or intense emoting, a la crying.

KIM SOO-HYUN is of course the king. I really dare anybody argue with me on this. You can be impartial to him because you don’t like Sam-dong with Hye-mi, but there is no way he isn’t the best in this group of young actors. Soo-hyun did a lot with his character, and his character really went through the motions — from embarrassing awkwardness to grip-you-on-your-seat intense. And that takes some skill. Also, nobody would even say anything if he didn’t deliver on all those things, because I don’t think anyone expected blow-your-mind acting in this particular production.

There’s also the thing where Kim Soo-hyun is the only non-idol in a story about singers and he overcame that by about a thousand times. He is SO good that I was embarrassed on behalf of every idol on this cast, save for IU and maybe Wooyoung at times. I would’ve personally been fine if someone dubbed over this singing in the story. It’s not ideal, but I didn’t expect a lot out of this production. I’m glad to be entirely proven wrong.

STORY

Who doesn’t love an underdog story?

I know the writers tried to tackle each of the six main student’s problems individually and then tied tried to weave those separate stories into the totality of the team and the fates of the six as a group. I was not equally invested in all of the stories simply because I don’t think every actor made their characters as interesting as they needed to be. I was interested in how the Hye-mi/Baek-hee rival would go down, I was interested in Sam-dong’s transformation, and I was interested in the overall plight of the 6-membered group. I know I was supposed to somewhat care about Hye-mi’s bot transformation, but Suzy just didn’t do it for me.

Regarding the Hye-mi/Baek-hee rival, I think I appreciate Baek-hee more in retrospect after having watched the whole drama. Baek-hee’s personal problems are compelling not because she goes from friend to rival, it’s more that her feelings of inferiority have probably existed all along, and then manifested themselves really unattractively once Hye-mi condescended her. Her jealousy propels the story, but even more than that, I think Baek-hee is the one whose struggles are the most complex in the story. She thinks her struggle lies with Hye-mi when it really just lies within herself. You know that she’s going to crash at some point so that’s not the conflict of the story, it’s more the question of, “What will she do after she crashes?” And I think her whole entire journey in the story was really satisfying for me to watch as a viewer.

As for the story as a whole, of course you have to love the reject team that everybody dismisses at the beginning. It’s in the law of storytelling to root for the underdog, the fighter, the ones to stick it to the man and prove that they are indeed worthy. Is this story any different than its predecessors? Not really. But you’ve got a good balance in snark, good acting, singing, and lame toilet jokes to make the drama worthwhile of your time, and that’s all you really need. I honestly don’t need a story to blow my mind every single time I sit down and watch something, and acting, heart, a drama’s own ability to make fun of itself are pretty powerful elements in compelling storytelling.

I’m just going to end this post with this performance. I really applaud “Dream High” for being the song that it is, because it is completely fitting for this drama. This is a damn good song. The opening notes gave me chills when amplified at the beginning of this perf and it’s so uplifting. Kim Soo-hyun strains throughout the entire thing but he sounds pretty damn good for a non-idol who has to sing and do so much dancing. And the girls were just all over the place…Eunjung, WTF with the breathing and the off-pitching? I wish this performance were tighter overall to really end the drama on a nice note, but even so, this was symbolic in its own way. I’m going to miss the characters and their stories.

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