Regarding Faith, I think people who are not feeling the romance may feel bored while those who are feeling it, are ecstatic and obsessed. There's a lot of fanfics, fanvids and comic illustrations around for this drama and many of them are r-rated I tell you.

I'm actually puzzled when you guys describe the use of the osts during the romantic scenes because I didn't realize it at all. I adore every scenes Choi Young and Eun Soo together that it surprises me by how little gesture and skinship can cause me swooning so much. The way ES likes to hold onto CY's sleeve, the warming hands among many others, I don't know, its just so romantic the way they do it.

I think it really comes down to if you can feel it, then you feel and if you don't, you dont.

But I agree, the directing is really disappointing.

With Answer Me 1997, I love that drama. So real, intimate and makes me nostalgic. I also like the high school portion more.

The rest,

Big - Dropped midway

Gaksital - Dropped after 2 episodes maybe. Its one of the dramas that I see people rave how great it is so I try watching but just not feeling it.

Too Beautiful - Didn't like the previous versions ,so not bothered to watch this one.

Totally agree with everything the both of you mentioned about AM97. By giving in to the fan fervor the makers of this show did take away the very elements that made it a success. The last bunch of episodes seemed too looong...esp the finale. Did we really need a 70+min finale when a 45 min one would've worked much better. For instance, the skinship served to just fill the lull b/w the narrative. This is actually unfortunate since it took away the fuzzies that the first half of this show filled me with.

K-drama makers will have to figure out a way to not give into fan requests/ploys to generate ratings and instead do justice to the story. How many times have most of us been burned by bad endings. I'd rather have a short show than a longer one where the likelihood of it making missteps increases. When a good show does this it becomes even more frustrating since you looved it SO much.

you guys are so on about Faith. I like it because of Lee MinHo but you're right. Its supposed to be a romantic scene and Eunsoo and Choi Young are just looking at each other...wth. I do however still wait for it every Monday and Tuesday because of Lee Min Ho...only! Who is playing the king of the uncle...dont you guys think he's cute as hell?

I wasn't sure if Javabeans was a male or not, but now I know.

younha <3

First podcast listen! And thank you for giving the times, since I don't want to be spoiled for AM1997.

I SO wanted to love Big because I love Gong Yoo. He is the reason I watched the show, and he's the reason I stayed till the end. Like you said, there were parts in the middle that were so good, so butterfly-inducing--like the part when she finally comes to grips with her feelings and he finds her and kisses the hell out of her--damn. I have to say, I think Gong Yoo is a fine kisser--all of his dramas showcase good kissing. :) And the whole 10:10 thing. It was when they had to deal with the body swap/coma/medical/fantasy aspects that the show failed. Why, oh why isn't a simple relationship development enough for a k-drama? *sigh*

And Faith? I really, really want to love Faith. There are moments, but it's so sloooow. Nothing happens. Best parts: when Choi Young kicks ass and when he's teasing the Suribang people. I think it's really poor direction. When LMH is on, he's ON. Like in the beginning of City Hunter, when he's loving life and running around causing silly trouble in the jungle. He has the capacity to be really great--that face of his can be so expressive and so captivating. It's a shame he's so often asked to be stoic and repressed in so many dramas. Regardless, I'll watch this one till the very end.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Thank goodness for your recaps, they come in handy for skipping the boring political dialogues in Faith (and for knowing which episodes to skip over when I do watch the episodes). I completely agree with you 2 about how out-of-place the magic is and how non-action-packed Faith is. It's very unfortunate considering the initially novel premise that it set out to build on.

And Answer Me 1997 post-time skip was also disappointing. I felt it slowly lost its cohesiveness after the post-time-skip car scene between YoonJae and ShiWon until it was quite meh~ by the end. But I still consider it one of the best for the year.
Even though I loved the Gaksital action sequences and beautiful camera work, costumes, etc, I really wish the female characters had more layers (or maybe just MokDan...). Ah well, It seems that a lot of the dramas for this year have high highs and low lows.

Can't wait for the next half of the podcast :)

i started ep 1 of gaksital - im not sure about it yet though so I havent watched anymore...i love JOOWON!!!

so love your bgm selection!