There are several very good strong areas in this series -- the male actors are all good, inasmuch as the script allows, and the lead and supporting male actors are particularly enjoyable to watch. The story takes an unexpected turn in the beginning episodes, which prevents what could have been triteness polluting the rest of the story. Also, the portrayal of female friendship and male-female friendship is stronger than I have gotten accustomed to seeing.

Somewhere after the change from one year to another, things go sour in the female relationship areas. I am willing to suspend disbelief to some extent, but I do get tired of adult women being portrayed as two-dimensional, children who are either dim-witted or mean-spirited. There is good interplay with the male characters, and the story does add new considerations. Then it stalls out for about 5-6 episodes, with the female lead going from one extreme to another, spending most of her time looking like a frog with the flu, and honking and whining, really a lot of whining. Flashback scenes are relied upon a little too much, and while I understand the purpose, it sometimes feels like they are being used to fill up the time demanded in the contract.

The last third or so picks back up, and although it goes in circles occasionally, we do get to see that the good guys are not impossibly good, and the mean-spirited women are capable of some introspection. Sadly, a female supporting actress was cursed with the inevitable man-obsessed, drama queen, screaming, stomping hot mess identity, so I fast forwarded during her appearances after a while.

The last two episodes are probably the best of the series; they are certainly the most tear-jerking. I'm calling it bingeworthy because there is enough new stuff going on throughout to keep your interest at a positive level most of the time. It doesn't demand a whole lot of close attention either, which is also OK. The realistic friendship portrayals in the front and back ends save it from being a Bechdel fail, but I really hate it when it gets all stereotype and caricature. The music was on the upside of OK because it did vary throughout the series.

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If you take out all the details, the outline is neither new nor special; it's the creativity in choosing novel situations at major junctions that makes this worth watching - and those were done quite well.

Acting was mostly Afterschool Special level, being juvenile, shallow, and predictable. The male lead was a shouter/stomper except when his relationship with his boss starts to take shape, and then their interactions were knee-slappingly funny, both overacting deliberately made it even funnier. The female lead had a bit more depth than seems to be usual, however, there was no shortage of moping. Her relationship with her mother was warm and nicely done.

I would rewatch this if I wanted to not "brain" too much and needed a good laugh.

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The storyline was middling good up until the last 5-7 episodes, when it went a little over the top The premise was hackneyed, but creative writing and some good acting saved it. I was impressed by the lead actor's ability to portray growth and change over time. Sad to say lead female was a visual and emotional caricature -- another who thinks everything that happens is because of her - whether it's because of her actions, thoughts, wishes or presence, it will OF COURSE be rectified by her doing something usually self-sacrificing with a good deal of moping involved. I don't think it was the actress's fault in this case - I'm going to point a finger at the script and director.

I think the secondary actors were almost all quite human, excluding, in particular, the sister who resorted to shouting and stomping in and out of rooms instead of acting. The two sinister actors were done well also.

Unfortunately the music was downright doofy, however, there were useful clues in the cartooning during the introduction. Overall, I would say it's watchable, even bingeworthy during the first 2/3, and a bit of a slog for the last bit, The ending does seem to wrap up loose ends neatly.

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This series was at least 3, if not 5, episodes too long. They started doing flashback after flashback to a huge extent, and it was, frankly, boring. I can only see that being useful if you were comatose during the first 10 episodes.

The second male lead was a superb actor -- very believable, fully realized, acted like an adult with brains and character the whole series. I did not care for the main lead male - there was more fist thumping and shouting than acting. Female lead overwhelmingly "Perils of Pauline" , bouncing between happy then desolated like a rabbit on hot pavement. I also thought her acting was mediocre - she's cute, no doubt, but brought no depth to her character. I think the hairdresser needs to be sent to actual hairdresser college for the second female - who looked like a drowned rat for 90% of her time on screen, and rhe acting seemed forced, but not grimly so. I hope the problem was more with the script and directing because it seemed like the actors were reined into stereotypes, excluding 2nd male. It was nice, however, to see a female character written to show actual marketable talent.

Near miss on the Bechdel test -- too much twaddle about men and feelings about men between women. Some scenes were better when work was discussed or if evil was being plotted.

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Small Disappointments Add Up

I am having to take a significant pause in watching the rest of this series for several reasons:

1. Stop petting her head: given the age/status difference, this seems wildly inappropriate even if meant affectionately. It minimizes her and what she is saying and never seems to really fit the scene.

2. Epic/profound fail on the Bechdel test: So far, 15 episodes in, there has not been one single conversation between women that is not about men -- getting one, keeping one, separating from one, marrying one -- they don't talk about work, family, pets, hobbies, dreams, hopes, or anything else without the overriding theme of "get man". Revolting.

3. Not by any stretch of the imagination, not even in remote, small villages, is any 32 year old woman that naive, oblivious, and unable to make logical inferences and sensible conclusions; this is like watching fruit rot -- it just gets worse and worse. If she's that stupid, she's certainly too stupid to earn a living, so doing this to a woman who is a senior administrator is beyond ridiculous and highly insulting. Let alone that it ignores the endless series of conversations about men, which in and of themselves would have given her a great deal of information.

4. Slapstick bits and hammy acting don't help: it's not frequent in most cases, but it is jarring and does not serve to advance the story.

5. College girls behaving like elementary school children with their dumb pranks, theatrics for attention, and outright doofy clothing in many instances.

That's it. If I can finish the series, I will because there some elements in other people's reviews that make me think it gets better.

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Great Production

Many other reviews have mentioned how terrific the production was, how talented the actors were, and how erratic attention to science was throughout. I agree. I think the female lead was not particularly sparkling and, despite having survived and thrived in a horrible dystopian future, she often behaved like a spoiled teenager in interpersonal relationships.

I have one major issue with Sisyphus - TOO MANY FLASHBACKS, MANY OF WHICH ARE STUPIFYINGLY LONG. Quite a few are unnecessary and/or boring. Otherwise, it's an above average series, and you can watch it without having to warm up your thinky bits much.

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Cultural Cliches

South Korea's largely homogenous population's expectations caused the writer's bad choice in the script to become an issue of "acceptable" bigotry and xenophobia, and I found it increasingly offensive as the series continued. ML's name was Ryan Gold. Everyone in Korea pronounced it "Lion". It's not that they COULDN'T say it correctly, it's that they chose to mispronounce it - every single character who had cause to use his name, probably 98% of the time. They introduced him with the mispronunciation, too. And, frequently, they laughed about him being a lion, drew pictures of lions and so forth. He tried correcting them - it didn't stick, so having some social skills, he just took a deep breath and acted as though he thought it was funny, too. It didn't matter if he was Korean by birth; he had been raised for the other 29 or so years of his life in an English speaking country and afahk only had an English/American name. Doesn't matter if he was Nigerian, Australian, Intuit, whatever -- it's insulting to not even try to say their name correctly.

Making this social faux pas even more appalling is the fact that he was the Big Boss of the company where all these folks worked. I don't know about you, but if my big boss had a name that I found hard to pronounce, I would darned well practice it in front of a mirror and on a recording so that I SHOWED RESPECT FOR MY BOSS BY SAYING HIS NAME RIGHT! If your name were "Jin Gwa Ber" and all of your subordinates, neighbors, and friends called you "Jingle Bell" over and over and over again, and laughed over how witty they were being, I guarantee that you would become more and more offended each time they did it.

Sadly, this pretty well ruined the series for me. It was typical fluff, generally sweet trying to seem deep from time to time, well cast and had some very nice sets. The music was repetitive and annoying, though. I don't think it passes the Bechdel test either. I wish I could say I liked it, but I found it increasingly appallingly bigoted as it went on --and as repulsive as a roomful of farting dogs.

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I can't tell if the acting is good because I don't understand the original language and that is probably the only thing that would make it comprehensible. The sets are OK, the music is not annoying so far, but the acting is mediocre -- too goopy fan-girl nonsense and hammy scenery chewing by secondary characters.

What makes it stupendously wretched is that this show has possibly the absolute worst dubbing I have ever heard, especially when contrasted with the frequently weirdly different subtitles. I originally tried listening to it in English, which was clearly drawn from cheesy 1970's B list movies, and it was every bit as tacky and outdated as you might imagine. So, I switched to subtitles, and that's where it got even worse. Composite example: dubbed "Your old lady talked trash to my daughter! C'mon, man, get with the program!" versus subtitle "I am sorry my child was rude. I will pay for your mackerel." Or worse, dub "Yo, your sister be shakin' her booty just fine!" versus subtitle "Your dog just peed on my favorite shoes! I demand satisfaction!" OK -- those were not in the parts of the show I watched, I have blanked out on actual words but accurately reflected the dissonance between them - and the cheesiness. I can't bring myself to listen to it again because it's so awful and just WRONG.

That being said, as a result, it is transformed into a lower quality production than "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" which I begged my Dad to take me to see when I was a tot, and it was at the matinee. The dialogue was immensely lame, the costumes of school play shoddiness, and the props were either spray painted or covered in tin foil. It was so monumentally dumb that my tiny self asked my Dad if we could leave at intermission, and he said,"Why wait?" and we bugged out right away. I advise you to do the same with this show.

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