2023 K-dramas I Found Extremely Disappointing

Now that I’ve highlighted the K-dramas I found outstanding in 2023, as well as the ones I found disturbing but strangely enjoyable, it’s time to call out the complete letdowns. The dramas I dropped due to being BORED out of my mind and not feeling at alllllllllllll.

Here they come. Let’s roll out the wicked drums, shall we?!

King The Land

King of utter disappointment and mediocrity, you mean?🤦‍♀️ I should’ve known from its senseless title alone.

Guys, it’s going to be very hard for me to satisfactorily put into words how boggled I was at the aggressive POORNESS and DRYNESS that King The Land displayed—what, with all the serious teasing and expectations? It’s going to be very hard, but I will try.

Let me start with this: just like words can’t express how disappointing I found this drama, words can’t explain how THRILLED I was to see Lee Jun Ho in this Chaebol rom-com—let alone with Yoona (a fellow K-pop idol turned actor and frequent stage collaborator with whom he shares sizzling chemistry).

Thanks to the outstanding drama, The Red Sleeve, Lee Jun Ho turned me into a super proud, passionate, and undying fan of his. So to see him play a proud Chaebol falling in love with a sharp, ordinary girl—one of my favourite tropes ever— felt like a literal dream come true. My excitement and anticipation knew no bounds. My fears too… knew no bounds. I really wanted Lee Jun Ho to nail this. I wanted this drama to live up to his name.

I was so thrilled and desperate for it to be great that when criticisms about this drama’s plot first came about, I was fiercely defensive. People found the plot too outdated and cliché, but this trope just never gets old for me, so long as it’s done right. Therefore, with a big eye roll (while hiding my own similar fears), my mind told them, shut your damn asses up and keep calm.

Guess who the joke’s on now. Guess whose fears came true.

Immediately… this show felt off. 

I found the editing choppy and sloppy, and as grand and glamorous as the sets were, weirdly, they felt cheap and gaudy. Not to mention, the dialogues were soooo bland and flat, and the drama’s atmosphere (and sets again) felt hollow and empty—not lived in at all, but rather conspicuously staged and managed, especially the hotel scenes where most of the drama takes place.

By now, you’d think I would brace myself up. But no, I still had hope, desperate that things would get better.

Needless to say – they hardly did. 

Lee Jun Ho consistently looked stupid and purposeless (gosh, they wasted my man in this drama). Barely did I find a scene of his or Yoona’s funny (I hated his fake smile face and her cringey in-your-face Karaoke clips soooo much). 

99% of the comedy failed to “land”. They were magnificently forced.

Then we have the CRINGEFEST that were our leading couple’s romantic gestures and amorous gazes—they felt so try-hard, obvious, and unaffecting. And those excessively long, drawled out, slow-mo/frozen-in-time shots given to their cliché love scenes? Infinitely ridiculous. They didn’t have to be so pathetically drawn out even if they wanted to make them “cliché”. This is the 21st century; my patience was spread thin.

For their romantic chemistry as a whole—I kept wondering, is it that Lee Jun Ho and Yoona actually don’t have chemistry or is it that I’m hyper aware they are colleagues acting as lovers, or is it really just the writing? 

I frustratingly couldn’t figure—although I remember feeling a little vindicated once I found out this drama was a rookie writer’s debut. I was like, Lord God, I finally feel a little sane. Though, till now, I can’t believe that Lee Jun Ho praised this drama so much—and how hard he’d worked to satisfy us his fans—let alone, that he chose such a weakly, flimsily, lazily written script following the weight, depth and resounding success of his last drama, The Red Sleeve. Yes, even while knowing he wanted to do something lighter and happier.

Which brings me to my next (key) point. 

Endlessly annoyingly, a lot of people ceaselessly hyped up and defended this drama in the name of it being sweet, fluffy and free of unnecessary angst. “We are tired of dark and heavy dramas,” they said. “We love the lightness of this and how cliché and predictable it is. That’s its charm, anyway. Why can’t the haters see that?!”

Here’s my retort to that: 

I LOVEEEE sweet, stupid, predictable, light rom-coms too. But, good lord, I love it when they’re done WELL! I love it when the comedy hits the spot, wrecking me with laughter; when the romance is genuinely cute and devoid of unflattering cringe; when the major characters are truly funny and entertaining. When the lines are witty, fresh, and original. I love it when the show has direction and a refreshing pang to it—even amidst the expected clichéness.

And there are MANY examples to show for it.

For starters, we have the very light, cliché, Chaebol rom-coms like Business Proposal, Gaus Electronics, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, Something About One Percent, and What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim. They actually had one or several of the above to offer, despite their own sets of flaws (Gaus Electronics, by the way, was a flawless light rom-com).

So let’s stop hyping up nonsense, please. Let’s stop making these writers, actors, directors, and streaming platforms think they’ve done something amazinggg worth replicating—when all they’ve done is embarrass themselves and made rubbish of the genre we all love. SIGHHH🤦‍♀️

Meanwhile, if this show had been about the three best friends in the show—their personal and professional struggles (excluding Yoona’s cringey romance of course), I would have totally bought it. They were legit the only credible and edible part worth watching. Probably the only reason I made it to episode 13😯 (can’t believe I got that far).

To conclude my hate-filled rant, I must say: King The Land nearly ruined the whole of 2023 for me, sapping out all the joy and excitement I used to feel about weekend dramas, making me wallow in lethargy and soul-sucking boredom. What a serious, serious slump.

Mr Jun Ho… I’m exceedingly disappointed! What a waste!

See You In My 19th Life

Talk about another huge letdown.

I’m not a fantasy or time-travel girl, but if you’re giving me a romance with the combination of Shin Hye Sun and Ahn Bo Hyun, you best believe I would watch. You best believe I would look forward to it giddily. I love those actors and enjoyed their dramas, My Golden Life, Still 17 and Yumi’s Cells so much!!

Unfortunately, it is with great disappointment that I report that to me, this show was a colossal waste of space and funds. 

I was so in over my head with how bummed I was.

True, the cinematography was an exquisite treat—richly brown-toned and immersive, but the characters and storyline, on the other hand, were a head-scratching, mind-boggling mess. 

For one, I didn’t get what was so “special” and “deep” about the “bond” that the younger versions of our lead characters—Ban Ji Eum and Moon Seo Ha—shared before losing each other, to the extent that when Ban Ji Eum is grown up, she’s OBSESSED with finding grown up Moon Seo Ha.

They were just KIDS when they became supposedly close, but now, Ban Ji Eum is a 24 year-old grown-ass career woman (by the way Shin Hye Sun looked nothing like a 24 year-old in the drama. She looked way older), and she’s still in love and consumed by the thoughts of the 9-year old kid we were forced to believe she connected with? 

Someone she has not seen or related with, all her adult YEARSSSS?

Come on, make some sense.

The final straw for me was this office scene where she tried to convince Moon Seo Ha—who she has finally just met, someone that can’t even recognize her because he still thought she was dead—to hire her to work in his company, telling him to “date her as a trial” so he could see just what she was “capable” of.

She just met this man and he was supposed to be professionally interviewing her. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t believe the absurdity and insanity of what I was watching. Date you? Out of nowhere? To prove your competency? I don’t even know if they were trying to be funny or cheeky here—but that line was bizarreeeee. So cringey, so not funny, and so out of line. I couldn’t wrap my head around it at alllllll.

That aside, none of the characters were interesting. They were sooooo austere. Including the supporting ones. I couldn’t get the point of the show, and the chemistry between Shin Hye Sun and Ahn Bo Hyun was practically non-existent (it didn’t help that Shin Hye Sun’s character/portrayal was so pseudo-almighty, all-knowing, and prideful. Inordinately so. It was a big turn-off).

Basically, the show’s writing—characters and scenes—were off-the-wall, scattered, bland, boring, and empty.

To worsen matters, a lot of people were SERIOUSLY hyping up this show, saying that it met their expectations (it’s a show based on a webtoon). This hyping of such a bland, purposeless show blew my mind—much like with King The Land🤦‍♀️

I also wondered, did I really have to read this webtoon to enjoy this show like others and see if it “met my expectations?” I didn’t even know Yumi’s Cells was based on a webtoon until later, and I enjoyed the heck outta that show.

To cut the long story short, See You in My 19th Life was a BIG miss for me. I could only bear about 3-4 episodes of it—and even those were torturous to withstand to say the least.

Shin Hye Sun and Ahn Bo Hyun, please, what the hell were you doing in this show? What drew you to it? Just the webtoon being popular and loved, or the script itself? Did you read the full script before taking on the show? I need to understand, because this was such a messsssss.  A very dry one at that.

Not Others

Once I saw that this was a comedic drama about a single mother and the 29-year old police officer daughter she had as a teenager; I knew I was going to watch.

The relational dynamics were fun to imagine; the posters seemed homey and laidback; and Choi Soo Young has always been a bias of mine. So I excitedly checked this out—and it genuinely got off to a great start (despite shocking me almost immediately with a few sexually suggestive scenes and untamed dialogues). I was seriously taken back. Like, when did Koreans become so bold in their dramas?😳

Anyway, the bickering, petty fights and entertaining dynamic I was here for, did not disappoint one bit. This mother and daughter duo were hilarious and fun to watch. 

Eun mi (Jeon Hye Jin) was a childish mother who did as she pleased, and Jin Hee (Choi Soo Young), was the consistently appalled daughter done with the lady, sorry mother, who acted like a spoiled brat. 

Even though I knew this was more of a slice-of-life drama, there was a promising romance between Jin Hee and her sulky, pouty police officer colleague, Jae Won (Park Sung Hoon), so that excited me as well.

However, before long, things started to go wrong—I guess I should’ve suspected, with the show having police characters and settings. 

The drama, all of a sudden, started to FOCUS on what had been a side mystery murder plot. It fully swerved to what has become a dreaded thing in K-dramaland – inserting and focusing on a murder plot much to the detriment of every other thing.

Basically, against my will, I was plunged into a full-on detective, mystery show about a stalker and serial killer, and I was bored out of my freaking mind.

In addition, we had a sub-plot regarding Jin Hee’s long lost father reentering the picture, and that whole arc just felt messy, annoying, and dragged on.

I couldn’t enjoy the mother-daughter dynamic again. The father kept getting in the way. I also couldn’t get the romance I was excited for, at least, not as soon as I wanted it. All Jin Hee and Jae Won did was solve the damned mystery case.

Eventually, everything became so boring and pointless, now solely revolving around the murder. So I dropped the show after punishing myself enough.

Will I go back to it,  just to watch my little romance finally bloom to life? Maybe. I don’t know🤷. All I know is this – they completely messed up the relationships and dynamics I was here for. Pftttt!!!

The Real Has Come

Gone are the days when I invested time in KBS’ 50-episode family dramas—even though the only two I’d watched – My Golden Life and Father is Strange, are amongst the richest, deepest and realest K-dramas I’ve ever watched.

But adulthood don’t play—bills gats to be paid and time gats to be saved. 

What I’m trying to say is that; I decided to do something I wouldn’t ever do these days – decide to watch a drama this long. 

So, why did I do it regardless? 

I was totally in love with the synopsis. A drama about a misogamist-gynecologist who enters a contract marriage with a single, pregnant woman? To top it all, they were going to be living together in a shared, Chaebol family house?

This promised loads of entertainment for me! It was dripping with all the tropes I’m obsessed with – contract marriage, enemies-to-lovers, shared house, Chaebol household, pregnancy, babies, romance – it had everything!!!

So in I went, forgetting the long journey ahead and even the fact that the female lead, Baek Jin Hee, for some reason, is not an actress I enjoy watching on-screen. At all.

Anyway, what happened? 

I HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE🤣🤣🤣 LAUGHINGGGGG MY LUNGS OUT.

It’s true that the sets and clothes were strangely old-fashioned and tacky, the writing was also theatrically juvenile, but something about the actions and reactions in the drama drove me crazy with rambunctious laughter. I was having a seeeeerious blast.

That is…🤦‍♀️

That is until everything became dry. Nothing seemed to be funny anymore, and almost every character started to bore and irritate the hell outta me.

Granted, grandma, aka matriarch of the Chaebol home, was very annoying, but she was entertaining to watch. 

The second married (secretly divorced) couple of the show were also interesting to watch— their bickering and dynamics were humorous, but unfortunately they were not the main characters.

The third married couple (who wanted a baby) were also entertaining and hilarious in their own ways, but they were hardly focused on. Although, even if they were, their storyline had started to tow the line of boring. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t cancel them completely. They still had potential, I guess?

In addition, I loved the youngest actress on the show Jeong Seo-Yeon, as Oh Soo-Gyeom, finding her to be a cutie pie so likeable and enjoyable to watch on screen.

The REST of the cast, however, including the major couple, stupid younger sibling characters who were to become love interests, the moronic uncle, our leading female’s mom plus the entire adult school characters/scenes, and the cartoonish villains, especially the villains—who now enjoyed more screen time—became soooo boringggggg. Truthfully, they had all always been, but as we neared the middle of the drama, I just couldn’t withstand any of them again.

I was no longer getting the good comedy, entertainment, and romance I was here for. Everything just became unnecessarily angsty, dragged and dry, with the focus now largely resting on characters—villains and idiots—I found fantastically irking and useless to the show.

I was very disappointed. I thought KBS would do better—with their repertoire of family dramas, but hey, as I’ve learned hard this K-drama year, no actor, show, or channel is above mediocrity and nonsensicality.

Love To Hate You

I have nothing much to say about this drama other than… it instantly felt like a whiplash.

Rom-coms are my thing, and the leading actors in this are faces I don’t think I’ve ever seen (and I love new faces), so it was a given that I check it out; I was excited to.

However, episode one begins and I felt like I was watching something else. Like a drama entirely different from what I clicked or saw a trailer of.

First, our leading lady is beating people up like a crass thug. Then, she’s having proud, casual sex with every dick and harry in town, and I’m like, am I watching the same show?

Our leading man, on the other hand, is an actor meant to play romantic scenes, but he’s being over-exaggerated alongside an equally over-exaggerated, infantilized, and villainized actress character. Why do K-dramas do this with celebrity characters? I’ll never understand.

Nothing just worked for me, from the get go. I was immediately irritated, scatterbrained, and bored.

So I did what? Tossed the drama in the bin, asap.🗑️

I’ve seen a few reviews that report the same whiplash I experienced, but they all say something surprising – they surprisingly eventually found this show slurpable and enjoyable.

Hmmm. 

Do I care enough to find out?

No—thanks though.😉

Agency

I’ve worked in marketing and advertising all my life, so that world naturally lures me in. 

And as the K-drama gods would have it, Agency was set to depict a fierce woman’s rise to the throne in that cutthroat world, so you bet I was stoked to watch. This was going to be my version of the much raved about Mad Men series I’m yet to watch to date.

The best part of it all? Lee Bo Young would be helming the role. This is an actress I find very pulling and convincing, especially when she’s playing crisp, professional characters, so I was counting up to the release date. For real.

What happened when I finally got a watch?

I was dead bored. I literally can’t explain it any other way. This drama world wasn’t fancy or elaborate as I imagined. Instead, it felt narrow and dry. To top it off, Lee Bo Young’s character wasn’t likeable.

We were also introduced to a character, Jung Jae Hoon (Lee Ki Woo) who might’ve become her love interest, but I have a residual dislike for Lee Ki Woo from his role in My Liberation Notes (where his “good” character visibly hoped his girlfriend wasn’t pregnant), so I couldn’t stand any second of him here. I couldn’t stand any more second of the whole drama.

So I did what? Dumped this fast (Mad Men in the mud). 

Sorry not sorry. 

Revenant

Out of all the dramas on the list, I think Revenant deserves the least ire. Because, this drama was straight up on what it was about – evil possession, creepiness, darkness, ghosts. 

In other words, nightmarish, traumatic, spiritual things I should never ever go near.

However, my obsession with Kim Tae Ri is an unrelenting one. Even though I’d sadly and regrettably decided that this was not for me; that unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to watch this—I couldn’t stop myself.

It’s my love, Kim Tae Ri we’re talking about here. Not to mention, Hong Kyung who really captivated me in Weak Hero Class One is also here. So, I just have to not watch this at night, right?

Well, to say I got burnt, is putting it mildly.

This show was so deeply spiritually evil, dark, and ghoulish that I could barely watch it during the day, let alone at night (which was really the only time I had time).

But, in spite of all that, it was not really the diabolical nature of the drama that was my eventual tipping point. I simply did not find it interesting enough to push through. It scared me batshit, yes, but was I gripped and hooked enough to want to continue threading its dangerous path?

No.

Fans of this genre have had nothing but praises for Kim Tae Ri’s acting and the show’s writing quality. I’m happy to hear that, but from just those 2-3 episodes I saw, I feel skeptical about the reviews—I wish I could wholly assess the show myself.

But who knows? Maybe this really was a brilliantly made show.

Here’s what I do know though: I was not gripped enough to risk it all.

Doctor Cha

First things first, I was seriously distracted by Uhm Jung Hwa’s face. Her many plastic surgeries are so overwhelmingly obvious that I could barely concentrate on this drama without staring at her in wonder every minute.

That out of the way, this drama’s plot, interesting as it is—though definitely cliché—was not executed in a way that really engaged me. 

Yes, I’ll always be a sucker for dramas about mothers rediscovering their true selves and passions after losing them amidst the demands of marriage and motherhood. But the execution of this wasn’t it. I found too many characters exasperating.

I liked our leading character, Doctor Cha. But her family members? 

They were incredibly annoying. I get that the dad is a worthless douchebag, but her grown up son and entitled teenage daughter were so pissing to watch. Like, why treat your mom like a housemaid? Why not stand up to your dad for mistreating your mom? Especially the grown ass son. He was just acting like an idiot in this drama.

Then we had other characters, like the mistress and the cheating, useless husband who was supposed to be funny. I found them all boring, irritating and worth none of my time.

Not to add, I wasn’t interested one bit in Doctor Cha’s upcoming love triangle with the younger doctor in the hospital. I just could care less. Her journey alone to standing up for herself would’ve sufficed for me—at least in her case.

So yeah… this was not a treat at all—just like I guessed before even succumbing to the hype and pressure to watch.

Strong Girl Nam Soon

I wasn’t excited to watch this, even though I should’ve been—the teasers told me not to be.

Its predecessor, Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, is one of my favourite rom-coms ever. The comedy in that drama destroyed me with laughter and the romance between Park Bo Young and Park Hyung Sik killed me with cuteness.

Strong Girl Nam Soon is the sequel featuring Lee Yoo Mi and Ong Seong Wu—both likeable and capable actors—so I was initially interested to watch. Besides, the thought of Lee Yoo Mi potentially getting her big break with this drama tickled me. However, from just the disjointed, serious-looking teasers, I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy this show.

First, it lacked the hilarious vibe and playful pastel of its source material. It also seemed to squarely revolve around a criminal case; Ong Seong Wu was to play a detective. But lord knows how I feel about such uncalled-for arcs being infused into rom-coms, let alone being prioritized.

Basically, from the teasers, I couldn’t find any glimpse of the adorable vibes and rib-cracking comedy I’d hoped to find. And on checking out the first episode, the teasers told no lie.

Nothing felt put together, promising, or funny. Scenes were tacky and jarring, the comedy was offbeat and try-hard, and the supporting characters reeked of austerity.

I dropped this in the first 10-20 minutes, without feeling a bit bad. I already knew it was going to be an oddball. And indeed, it was.

In Conclusion 

For me, every drama on this list had no redeeming quality. They were the most boring, pissing, disappointing, and underwhelming dramas I watched in 2023. Even more so, because I had the greatest expectations for most of them.

King The Land especially holds a VIP tag for my most anticipated yet most awful 2023 watch. I’m never ever forgiving Lee Jun Ho for how sad, bored, and listless his drama me feel for a lot of 2023. 

I’ll hate on King The Land for life, including See You In My 19th Life. 

Well, here’s to hoping for a redeeming K-drama year. May 2024 be good to us all, is all I can muster.

Thank you for reading, lovers! And again, a big thank you to the dramas that came through for the year and I!