What’s Up posters are finally out

by javabeans

Finally! “Now Is Our Time,” indeed. (Now is past time, I’d say.)

What’s Up has been in stasis forever, and even though it’s premiering this weekend — yup, tomorrow — we’ve seen and heard very little from it. Posters are out now, though, so at least there’s a teeny bit of movement in the promo front, which has been practically nonexistent for months.

The drama set in a university musical theater department is taking up the weekend prime-time slot on new cable station MBN, and will air episodes on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Given that its rocky production road has pushed back its premiere by over half a year, the drama has long since completed filming and will be 100% pre-produced. While pre-produced dramas haven’t had much luck hitting the popularity jackpot with the public, they do tend to boast higher than average production values. (That doesn’t mean pre-produced is automatically better — that’s dependent on writing quality — but it usually means pretty.)

A lot of What’s Up’s cast members have actually moved on to other projects (I wonder if that’ll keep them from being able to promote this show): Kim Ji-won is currently acting in High Kick 3, while series lead Im Joo-hwan is serving army duty. Lee Soo-hyuk is about to make his bow in a different MBN series, the sitcom Vampire Idol, and Jang Hee-jin already has another drama under her belt, Myung-wol the Spy, which wrapped this summer.

With such early buzz, a star writer (Song Ji-nah of Sandglass, Story of a Man, and Legend), and cast of budding up-and-comers, it’s amazing that this drama hasn’t had a smoother path to getting on the air. Maybe there’s something wrong with it that we aren’t aware of (since we’ve seen so very little from the production by which to judge it), or maybe it’s just been hit with a string of bad luck: First SBS canceled the timeslot it was slated to occupy (the now-defunct 9pm hour on Mondays and Tuesdays), then Daesung got into the car accident that led to a motorcyclist’s death, perhaps making some people wary of involvement.

But that aside, I’m looking forward to checking it out, even if it’s coming into a super-crowded field with very little fanfare. Let’s cross fingers for a decent premiere.

Via Chosun

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