Thank you @missvictrix for an informative article! They are apt comparisons!

I do have reservations, though, about ceding any creative control over to the audience. I have this vision of Jane Austen's publisher coming back to her with "but 60% of your target readers hate Darcy, we're ditching him and moving Wickham into the lead."

In an ideal world the artist's vision would be respected, as its not a collaboration!

I still think that Dostoyevsky's Idiot was one of the first Korean makjangs 😁😁😁

Even seeing pictures of our Ji-an makes me smile.

I remember the out cry before it had started and wondering why people couldn't wait and just see what the story was going to be and then discuss. I'm so curious as to what they sponsored.

I'm not sure how much is owed to the fans but I think in some cases the trust has to go both ways. I didnt keep up with How I Met Your Mother, but I know a lot of fans felt betrayed by the ending, especially after being loyal viewers for so long.
Not sure if it happens often in kdramas but with American shows I'm sure many of us have been burned by an unexpected cancellation or change in creative team in the last season. Just give the loyal viewers a good send off, please.

We were just discussing the similarities of serialized novels with Kdrama while watching North & South. The intersection of fans of Korean dramas and Victorian novels is not a coincidence both for the stories they tell and how they are told.

If there was a way to have the live-shoot system work better for actors/crew/writers then I'd be all for that, but I'm hard-pressed to come up with an idea for that. Maybe move to one episode per week? I do like most of the aspects of the audience influencing the drama (especially when you have a surprise breakout character that needs to have more scenes), but I don't know if it's worth it for all the pain live shooting causes.

Plus, the worst part of live shooting -- when you get caught up to the part where they're shooting, there are no more previews! *cough*LastEmpress*cough*

Oh this is a subject I have been thinking a lot about lately and am happy to see this, more broad based article. I had been thinking about the endings of dramas and how fans sometimes completely change their opinions about the drama based on that last hour of the 16 hour long adventure. If the writers/directors/producers of the drama (the background art team) have a vision for their art, does that art become a failure because the viewers wanted the ending of the drama to be something different from what it was? Does the value of the art (that was seen all through the drama) disappear because it doesn't please the audience at the very end? And, if the art team works to please the audience rather than the art, are they sell outs? Does that make them less artists and more businessmen/women?

So many times I read criticism about the dramas from viewers and I sometimes wonder "why" and "what's the purpose of the put down" to second guess the artist. It feels a bit like a group of museum goers looking at Van Gogh's Starry Night and bitching about the colors used and how much better it would have been if oranges and reds had been used.

One kdrama I remember from years back was Fashion King, which got more than it's share of negative criticism. People hated the ending. To me, I thought it worked perfectly with the drama, a work of art. I trusted the art team who put that together that this was the story they wanted to tell, and I accepted that and evaluated it on those terms. If the ending had been changed to some sappy happily ever after ride off into the sunset, I'm not even sure I would still remember the drama. The power of it would have diminished.

Yes, we want the dramas to be works of art and we also know that they have to make money to even be made in the first place. But if changing the dramas to please the audience is the main goal, artistic integrity will be challenged and the power of the drama will be diminished. There has to be an acceptable compromise or the kdrama won't be worth the time.

I’ve always found live shooting preferable to preproduction. I know this puts a lot of pressure on the actors and crew. But it’s not like preproduction has a more laid back work schedule. They’re still pressing for hard set deadlines. Also, the majority of unexpected circumstances of preproduction do not result in refilming as most would expect, because the money to refilm is not grown on trees. Writers and directors shift the story only enough to get by with meeting deadlines and budgets, or completely abort the production. So many preproduction Kdramas when met with dilemma end up being canned and filmed footage never see the light of day. While a live shoot drama has no choice but to keep the show airing.

Live shoot also results in the inclusion of the hottest news topics. When you see pivotal things going on in society, it’s nice to see it reflected on screen as well. Sometimes just for being trendy, other times for making a statement or sharing an opinion to the viewers before the viewers move on to the next interesting topic.

I really wish that they had gone ahead with the My Ajusshi storyline the way the writer had intended. It was a masterpiece to be sure, but I can't help but think it could have been even better if they were allowed to bring their full vision to fruition. I was not in the least bit grossed out by a possible romantic pairing with PDH and JiAn. The chemistry was electric. The open ending left me feeling a bit empty. It was really the only complaint I had about that drama.

I really love Live watching dramas. It gives me a treat to look forward to at the end of a long day. I wish that the pre produced dramas would end up being better than live shot ones, but I have been sorely burned by almost all of the pre produced dramas I have watched.

One of the most recent Live shoot bummers was Let's Eat 3, where the lead had to go into the army immediately before being able to finish the drama, and it hosed the flow of the entire trilogy, with a sucky open ending. That was such a bummer.

I prefer this type of storytelling and long before I was introduced to Kdramas, some of my favorite shows were miniseries: North and South, the Thornbirds, Downton Abbey, Poldark, and sitcoms that have an overarching story: Brooklyn99, HIMYM, The Good Place. I find that they are like chapters to novels, and I like seeing how the story unfolds week to week.

I do wish that kdrama writers would just write the story they want to write and not listen to viewers so much though. There was always going to be a ship war on A Poem a Day, and although I was happy Bo-young ended up with who she did, I was also upset to know that the original story the writer had planned was for her to be with the opposite lead. I would have liked to see how that story played out as well.

And how many shows have had the rug pulled out from under them because of live shooting? What was that one where the lead actress was switched early in the show a couple years ago? And the government/military apparently waits for no one, not even a Hallyu boy band actor to finish the last 2 weeks of his kdrama. We’ll never know how LE3 was meant to end. But that’s what made it more meaningful to me, as life imitating fiction is always more interesting than life just imitating life. Thank you, again, for another intelligent read!

Whoa that's pretty cool. I heard about that history with Arthur Conan Doyle and never expected in to be told here in DB.
No wonder some people like pre-produced dramas. They keep true to their intent in storytelling without the criticism of the audience.

Arthur Conan Doyle did not think very highly of his Sherlock Holmes stories- he felt that his historical novels like 'The White Company' were far more worthy. That is why he tried to kill him off. In fact they were his most influential works of literature. Maybe it was just something about those times: Gilbert and Sullivan did not think much of their comic operettas either, but now they are properly valued as the masterpieces that they are.

I was hugely disappointed in 'Introverted Boss'. I love Marriage , Not Dating and 'Oh Hae Young Again' - both are masterpieces, some of the best of K-drama. But no amount of re-tooling could save 'Introverted Boss' from the original gigantic mistake they made with the story. Here is a hint to future writers: If you are writing a rom-com you do not start it with a scene of someone committing suicide. That awful backstory destroyed the story. And it was so unnecessary- a different backstory (say one centered around the male lead's repulsive father) would have served the story far better. 'Shy boss' actually had a wonderful premise which should have worked. In fact, in some ways 'What's Wrong with Secretary Kim' could be seen as a variation of 'Shy Boss' but done right.

Great analysis! I've thought a lot about the parallels between Kdramas and Dickens, and not just because Kdramas are serialized. There are other similar elements: rich v poor, plot twists, and sudden reversals of fortune. This would make a great dissertation. :)

One problem with dramas actively responding to criticism is 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease', those least able to tell a story are the ones most loudly arguing for changes. Take for example Goblin, those viewers 'outraged' that the female lead was a teenager. They seemed unaware that they were watching a broad absurdist comedy that was heavily dependent on that situation between the pair being absurd. Where would the comedy have been if Goblin's bride had been a 40 year old?

The so-called 'outrage' over 'My Ajusshi' age difference pre-dated the first episode being airing. Those preemptive complainers were expecting a boilerplate generic rom-com, couldn't imagine any other story line, and were demanding the story exactly follow rom-com tropes.

Watching 'Pretty Noon who Buys Me Food', I got the impression they made the male lead much older than he was originally meant to be (by perhaps 6 years), anticipating viewer complaints. But in the process they lost the story of 'doomed forbidden romance' that they had been going for.

I'm skeptical that considering viewer input generally leads to better writing. My Ajusshi, for instance, was a lovely and beautifully paced story, and I would have much preferred to see what the writers really wanted instead of what they felt cowed into.

In regard to audience participation in their serialized show, the first American show to explode audience interaction was LOST. Because of its ensemble cast, complex story lines, and mysteries led to many fans creating on-line communities to share easter eggs, theories and explanations of the plot. It became a week long fan-driven event between episodes. The show runners did acknowledge the fan fever and fan theories to the point of rebutting some during the run of the series. In the end, many fans thought the writers were "making it up" on the fly because many plot inconsistencies and continuity errors during the last season.