For utter transparency, let me preface this review by saying that I went into this drama a fan of Kim So Hyun and romcoms. I have followed KSH's career trajectory with interest and have a feeling that she is capable of much more than her recent spate of dramas suggest. RADIO ROMANCE had a strong start. I was immediately intrigued by the hero who seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve where the heroine was concerned and the heroine who was so determinedly positive. There were hints of depths and potential for rich conflicts as the two find their rocky way to a romance.

But though the drama teased at a richer story, it failed to deliver. There are many reasons for this but the major one would be that the writing failed the story and the direction didn't do great either. The actors, bless them, tried but when the source material is so cringe-inducing, there is little you can do. A lot of the scenes could have been fleshed out more, elaborated upon to harvest as much emotion out of them as possible but alas. The dialogue was truly atrocious and there was not much of a story once the romance had been established. I feel like KSH got the short end of the stick once again as the female MC had no character/personality beyond the superficial positive/cheerful girl as seen in so many other dramas. There's no depth to her and this is not the actor's fault, mind you. In so many scenes, she has nothing to do but smile and she does so, prettily, but there are only so many scenes this will work in.

Do Joon's character, on the other hand, is richer, more dynamic and grows exponentially from the beginning to the end. Geu Rim, on the other hand, becomes the wish fulfillment of Ji Sooho's character. She has opinions but doesn't voice them and goodness, the romance could have been so much better had the actors been allowed to let their natural chemistry shine through. Instead, whatever chemistry they had was suffocated by the bad dialogue and unnecessarily melodramatic conflicts. However, KSH's inexperience with romance is pretty visible in her acting and I reckon, once she has been in a relationship or two, her acting will improve dramatically. Right now, it felt like she was grasping at depths she didn't really comprehend, if that makes sense.

The love triangle--let's not even speak of it. I feel like this could have been a much drama than it ended up being. Let's hope that whatever KSH picks next delivers what the script offers.

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Here’s a review for your enjoyment of the drama about poetry and stuff and people who unlike doctors are just normal folk like I don’t know physiotherapists.

I won’t post the poster for the drama because honestly? It’s not memorable. Also, I don’t want.

I will also add a disclaimer: I like Lee Yubi and I also like poetry.I will also add that poetry loses a lot (everything) in translation or maybe I am just uncultured. I don’t know.

But honestly, A Poem a Day had a strong start but oh my god, it was boring.

-_-

That was me as I waited for something to happen. And it did, often, but not the kind of thing that I wanted to see. I mean, initially it was cute? Bo Young was cute even without a personality. She had some personality, I suppose but no opinions, nothing that grabbed me by the collar and demanded I give her my ardent support.

The romance was cute for a while until the second lead became super annoying and I was hardpressed not to throw something at my screen leaving myself without a medium in which to watch things which would have been TRAGIC. I resisted, thank goodness.

The major issue I had with this drama was that it felt contrived. Rather than allowing the story to breathe, it tried too hard to be something without going the proper distance. It tried to be meaningful without actually putting in the effort to be meaningful.

As an example, i give you one of the later episodes in which we are introduced to a doctor who works too hard and has a stroke and finds himself in the same situation his patients were in. Bo Young feels heartbroken for him as is her brand and cries and whatnot. Which is fine. On paper, this sounds like solid stuff to tug at heartstrings. HOWEVER, this doctor is entirely without weight. They introduce him in the same episode that he is a paragon of virtue, has a stroke, and deals with his diminished capabilities.

There is no progression of his character, however slight it is; we don’t see him from the beginning. We don’t see Bo Young’s admiration for him until he is used as an obvious plot device so his struggle, his story feels hollow and without the emotional payoff it would have had had this character been present in whatever quantity from the very beginning.

This is not the only time the author does things heavy-handedly and as a writer, I found her/his/their obvious manipulations to be discordant. The poetry too while beautiful in the language of origin feels extraneous to me. I wish they had used few poems and dedicated more time to a single one, perhaps uniting the themes among the characters.

This drama was among my least favourite but hey, at least I got to see Nam Woo and his alligator. I found his story about poverty and love to be the most compelling. He was the best thing about this drama, to be quite honest. Okay, that and the friendship between the Bo Young, Minho, and Nam Woo. I wish they could have removed the romance entirely and focused on the friendship between these three people. The drama would have been so much stronger for it.

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