Dolce e Freddo (2023)

Strong Leads, Flirty Romance - but I expected more

This drama has a really cool CP dynamic, with a lot of mutual flirting and two strong, mature leading characters played by actors with very good, natural chemistry.
I totally had a girl crush on the FL, who is exactly how I imagine a cool woman in her thirties would be.
She is more than "just“ strong, she has a lot of common sense + in all things she is no-bs, when handling issues she often voiced the things I criticize in how other dramas handle relationships. She might be one of my favorite cool-headed FLs.
As for the male lead he was really nice + had a calm aura, honestly I wish cdramas had more of those nice and loyal guys that only have eyes for the FL.

The first 10 episodes of the drama raised my excitement for the rest of the drama sky high - however I soon was awakened from my dream of rating this a 10/10, when the writer appeared to have fallen asleep.
There is nothing wrong, nor would I say it took a nose dive, but the build up was so strong, that I had expected it would only go up from here but it kind went from sprint to marathon, where the good episodes came out first and then nothing happened for multiple episodes.

The business plot of the drama was slightly boring to me, as I was in it for the romance but the message about being a strong women, identifying PUA and relationships in general from a female perspective was good.

Critique: (spoilers ahead)
The three major critique points I want to highlight are for one, the therapist/patient relationship of a side character that was incredibly unprofessional and like many other things in this drama was anti-climatic. If you want to showcase a unprofessional therapist, then go all the way and let it "explode" and then deal with the fallout, but to just let it fade into the background and not address it? Hm, no thanks.
Secondly the secondary couple. Oh boy. I loveeee age gap couples but what happened to the poor woman's brain once she met the guy? A little spoiler here but when a woman in her early fourties suddenly talks and acts like a 16 year old, it's just plain embarrassing. When she fell because she saw a dog, I could only laugh.
But I have to admit since age gap couples are my kryptonite I somehow still enjoyed this pairing but it was a love/hate relationship for me, lol.
And my last critique point is that for the amount of flirting and spicy scenes we got early on, it was really was a lackluster later on. Yes, they had a very healthy and mature relationship for most part of the drama but it focused more on the business side and supporting characters after episode 10 and that was a let down.
I can only repeat myself but the first part of the drama was simply the best. The plot of her friend and the affair I thought was really interesting because the dynamic of a second family was different than your average husband-cheated storyline. I was bummed to see that this person just completely vanished and that part of the story was dealt with super fast. Same goes for the FLs family background, which I had expected to have more of an impact but it seemed like that was a story of the past.

!!ENDING SPOILER!!

....like so many chinese dramas it suffers from a very rushed (happy) ending, it didn't have last-episode-feeling and for all the investment in side characters earlier on, only a few showed up at the end. There is a lot of room for a second season but there are no major plot holes or open endings.

Like I mentioned above I felt like the writer fell asleep. however the flirty romance in the beginning was worth it in my opinion and if you know what you're in for I believe this can be a great watch if you want something flirty + it has a really great OST and for once I did not skip the intro because it's so darn cute!

All in all I would say I expected it to be different after having such a great start but I also enjoyed it a lot at times.

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Whatever

It started out really good, then it went off track and only hinted at coming back in the last two episodes. The story seemed forced to make statement after statement. Granted it covered some much needed to be talked about subjects, but they throw them in your face and never actually resolve anything. Only one villain is held accountable for anything.

There is nothing smooth about this story. It rushes from on point to the next with no real connection.
The chemistry is rushed too. There is nothing earned, everything is given and nothing makes sense.

This drama fell flat on so many points: story, premise, chemistry, continuity, reason, relatability, sincerity.

It is not worth the time to watch.

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