Decent enough romance drama

I started watching this drama as I generally enjoy coming of age romance dramas, and I had just finished When I Fly Towards You and so I was interested to watch another similar drama with Zhang Miaoyi, but overall this was just okay especially when compared to the aforementioned drama and other dramas with similar themes.

My main issue was with the ML. His performance was completely dry - he was completely expressionless and lacked any emotion or conviction whatsoever and it really brought down the entire drama. I understand that his character is supposed to be the quiet, introverted, somewhat cold type, however there is a way to have this type of character in a show without it being devoid of any expression whatsoever (again, like in WIFTY which has a similar ML character). It made the entire drama drag for me as I just felt absolutely nothing when I watched him, and this was especially disappointing when the FL is such a vibrant and expressive actress as he just did not compliment her at all. Even scenes that I should have found objectively sweet and probably would have made me cry if they were in another drama, I just had no emotional response to as the performance was completely lifeless to me.

The drama itself was decent, although I did start to lose interest a little towards the end as it just started to feel like nothing of value really happened once the main couple got together and especially since the ML made the drama fall completely flat it was hard to even really enjoy the more filler type stuff because I had no emotional connection to the character.

Overall it was okay, however there are plenty of other dramas that do the exact same plots and tropes infinitely better and with much more interesting MLs.

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Strong premise that got lost along the way

I started watching this drama not actually knowing what the story was about, and it almost immediately piqued my interest as the premise of the FL being able to detect lies seemed interesting and unique. I really enjoyed the first few episodes, however it slowly started to lose itself and it felt like it didn't really know what it was trying to achieve.

My biggest issue is that there are far too many episodes. They clearly did not have enough material to fill 16 episodes of upwards of an hour each, and it was just impossible to drag the storyline out for that long without it getting lost along the way. There is so much unnecessary filler in here, which I often don't even mind in dramas, but in this case it wasn't even particularly interesting a lot of the time. By the time it gets to the final 2 episodes it's just completely pointless and nothing is happening as they have already wrapped up the main crux of the story by this point, and it was so fillery that it was not only boring but also felt incredibly awkward because already pointless scenes were being dragged out longer than they needed to be. I didn't even want to finish it since the story had already been completely wrapped up and so there was no incentive to, and ended up skipping through huge chunks of the final episode because nothing of value was happening at all.

It also got to a point where it felt like the FL being able to detect lies - which was the main selling point of the premise - felt completely inconsequential to the storyline, as at it's core it's really just a basic murder plot and while to some point her lie detecting powers did help them solve the case, it very easily could have been solved without her being able to hear lies. There was also no reason for her to lose and regain her powers towards the end, in my opinion, as they didn't really have that big of an impact on the story in the first place and there were no consequences to her losing her powers either. I understand that it was part of her character development of her learning to accept hearing/not hearing lies, but again it just felt completely inconsequential to me.

To add to this, the storyline itself once you remove the FL being able to hear lies is incredibly basic and predictable. I knew exactly what was happening at every moment before it happened, and I had guessed the culprit almost immediately. I also had a feeling that the "twist" with Deuk Chan being in love with Do Ha was going to happen, although I wasn't sure if they were actually going to go down that path or not. The mystery as a whole left me feeling underwhelmed as nothing felt shocking or had an impact on me, and it really was just a run of the mill murder mystery.

The acting overall was pretty decent, and the main couple was cute enough, although I thought that this was supposed to be a romance first and foremost and it kind of lacked in that department for me too.

It's overall relatively decent and I managed to make it through to the end, but it didn't feel like it did anything particularly special and I felt a little underwhelmed and disappointed in the end as I had much higher expectations for it based on the first two or three episodes. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had been condensed into maybe 12 or even less episodes, but it's an easy enough watch (although TW for self harm/suicide) if it's the kind of drama you're looking for.

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A few small issues, but overall a fun drama

Overall I really enjoyed this drama. I pretty much immediately got hooked on it and finished it in a few days because I was so invested, although not without a few slight issues.

One of my biggest issues with this drama was I felt like the ML was incredibly underdeveloped. I like Lin Yi as an actor and enjoyed his performance in this, but I spent the entire drama feeling like I knew nothing about his character. The FL was incredibly vibrant and I feel like we got to see a lot of her personality shine, as well as find out a lot of her backstory, but this was lacking a lot for me with the ML. I still became invested in his character and their relationship in general, but I wish he had been fleshed out a bit more.

I also think this drama spent far too much time, especially at the beginning, fleshing out the whole make-up/hairdressing story. While I appreciated getting to see the FL figure out what she was passionate about and make friends, the vast majority of this plot was just simply unnecessary to the drama as a whole. They could have lost a good 5 episodes if they had cut this down, and it would have been a much more concise and clear story.

My only other slight issue with this drama is that I wish they had gone in a bit harder with the romance aspect. The leads genuinely had good chemistry and I feel like they could have done a lot more with that, but it was kind of wasted potential. I was super invested in their relationship regardless, but I would have liked that element to be a lot more intense and I think it would have made the drama better overall - especially considering it's allegedly a romance drama.

All that said, I still really enjoyed this drama a lot. I enjoyed the performances of both of the lead actors - Liu Haocun especially blew me away as I had never seen her in anything before and she really really sold her character and all her emotions to me. I personally do not understand the criticisms of Lin Yi being a bad actor or having no expression - while I do agree that his face is on the more stoic side, he still sold to me everything that his character was thinking and feeling and across all of the dramas I've seen him in so far, I've never been left feeling like he did a poor job.

I also really enjoyed the OST for this drama and have had a couple of the songs stuck in my head non-stop since watching it.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this drama - especially if you enjoy Sci-Fi or mystery type shows. I'm personally not a massive Sci-Fi fan, but it wasn't too overwhelming for me and I enjoyed the mystery element to it and the fact that it kept me on my toes the entire time. While the romance was somewhat lacking, I would still recommend if that is the reason you're interested in watching this as the chemistry between the lead actors was good and I was very invested in their relationship the whole time.

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A sweet but slightly messy rom-com.

I really enjoyed this drama overall - I think the casting was good and I love that it depicted such a mature and healthy relationship, however I had some slight issues with the plot. It felt like it was trying to do a lot of things all at once and I'm not really sure if it succeeded in balancing them very well as it often felt like the plot had completely changed direction to what it was doing a few episodes before.

While I appreciated the representation of "fangirls" who are older and not just teenage girls, this whole part of the plot ended up feeling completely inconsequential to me. At the beginning of the show this is such a huge portion of what the show is about and it kind of gave me the impression that that was what the drama was about at it's crux, but at some point along the way it was almost completely dropped and I honestly kind of forgot that that was where we even started. Duk-Mi's fan site was made to be such a huge deal, but then it reaches a point where it's basically not even mentioned again until the very end, and I'm just not really sure any of this was needed in the show as it had no real consequences on the plot or the characters.

It also felt like it was trying a little too hard with all of the side characters having feelings for other characters, when again these storylines beared almost no impact on the overall plot, and all of the sudden backstory we get at the end also felt like it was trying a little too hard and felt unnecessary when it was all just rushed in the last couple of episodes.

Overall, despite having some issues with the plot, I am glad that I watched it, and I would definitely recommend it if you enjoy rom-coms as I think that element of the show was very well done and the leads did an amazing job.

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