Just done with Episode 3 and the drama’s picking up. I can’t believe I’m getting excited about the drama now but I am. Plotwise, it’s moving along at a nice pace and the dialogue, for some reason, is improving as well. I think, the best part would be they’re starting to get the hang of their characters more so the awkwardness is fading away. The comedy has also progressed from trying too hard to being LOL-worthy (while still being cute).

(This reminds me of the days I was watching On Air and I had to be patient with the first three episodes or so because all the characters were shouting at each other making me feel like I was being duped into something I didn’t want to watch. But turns out, the drama was just growing into itself. I have a feeling HTTG will be the same for me albeit it’s from a different genre altogether.)

The setting can be pretty much anything (coffee shop, bakery, office, restaurant, grocery store, boutique, farm, etc.) if the storyline, dialogue and acting are superior.

I love japanese sports dramas, but i’m not so sure about korean sports dramas… No offense as much as I like watching korean dramas… some how I’d rather not watch korean style sports dramas….

It’s tough to do a good sports soap. The more episodes there is, the more story is obligated to selling the romantic relationship, because the highs and lows of sport starts to wear off. But, okay, if you try to depict it as primarily a romance, then the sports stuff becomes tedium preventing you from enjoying the couple.

Dream kinda puts the romance on the backburner. It develops in the 2nd half of the story but it never comes the focal point of the show. Dream has some elements that you might see in sageuk. You got a real villain, a fallen hero, and a no-good neophyte You got intrigue and backstabbing. You got RPG-style team gathering and “character building” missions that lead them closer to ascending to a ultimate goal. Above all, you got men bonding over beating the crap out of other men. .

Yeah I agree with the article in that most of the dramas that promote themselves as ‘sports’ dramas arent really that.

For example I found Triple really deceiving when I started watching. Figure skating was just like a background theme in a story about relationships. And I felt cheated and bored by it so I quit. Which I guess many others also did too.

But while Dream may not be getting high numbers I think its a good show particularly because it DOES focus a lot on the sports i.e boxing. That is the main storyline of the show and the relationship/romantic stuff is well balanced but not the core of what Dream is about.
I got exactly what I was hoping for in Dream….a story about sports and thats what’s kept me sticking around.