Korean title: 연애조작단; 시라노
Aired on tvN and OnStyle
From 2013 May to June
16 episodes
Main cast:
Notes:
- I stopped watching at episode 12.
- I said somewhere that I stopped watching to re-watch Coffee Prince and that's because Gong Yoo has a cameo in one episode. Then I resumed this drama and then I stopped again to watch Sungkyunkwan Scandal... so yeah DNF!
Review: DNF
Title: The drama is based at the Dating agency Cyrano which orchestrates elaborate scenarios to make people fall in love with their clients.
Girl: I hated her look. I bet she would look 100% better with another hairstyle. Apart from that, she's okay. She's nice. But she has zero backstory. She's bland.
Boy: I'm not a fan of him as well. He's a director who returns to Korea to take care of the theatre Cyrano. Since he's a director, he's good at creating romantic scenarios. He's arrogant. And that's it.
Other boy: I didn't get him. He's a chef at a restaurant but he has a secret that just muddles his characterisation. And he knew Boy's best friend. Technically, it's a spoiler because it's revealed in a latter episode but it's so obvious.
Other girl: I almost forgot her. She was Boy's best friend's girlfriend. She pops up from time to time and we know next to nothing about her.
Relationships: Girl has more chemistry with a random guy from the first episode that we never see again than with Boy. Seriously, I thought she would end up with this guy (for five minutes until I realised we would never see him again). It's a bit better with Other boy but his character is terrible and hers is boring and there was no conflict so... wash. (-)
Plot: First, there are the stories of their clients that take around two or three episodes. At first, it was quite enjoyable and there was something interesting in the idea of realising the scenarios. But the drama fails in several ways:
- it clumsily clears the issue of lying to these people in the first arc. In a later arc, Girl befriends the target of their client and they become quite close. Then, when they succeed in making her fall for their client, she offscreen tells her she's out of her life. "Bye Bye, I have no moral qualms about manipulating you all this time." That's just bad.
- the scenario takes turns and ends up making no sense.
- one arc directly and emotionally involves a member of the agency but once it has ended, it has no bearings anymore on this character. (-)
Second, there is a kind of ongoing plot about Boy's past, his friend, and Other boy. But it's dished out so slowly, being completely dropped from several episodes, probably because there is not much to it, that I lost interest in that story. (-)
Other characters: Now that I think about it, the clients and their targets are more interesting than the core characters. But we never see them after the agency is done with them. When I stopped watching, the arc was okay but it was starting to drag.
Of course, there are the other two members of the agency. They suffer from the same case of underdevelopment than Boy and Girl. At least, one of them is slightly more interesting and gets to be in a cute relationship. He's also the only one who gets to evolve over the course of the drama.
Most egregious cliche: mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
Funny factor? It has its moments but on the whole, not really.
Music: OK.
Bottom line: The review ended up being more vitriolic than I expected when I quit watching. I thought it would just be: this drama just doesn't retain my attention. But when I analyse a bit more, I find out why it hasn't retained my attention. Boring characters and bad pacing of the ongoing plot first, then failure to properly execute the shorter arcs. (-)
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