Answer Me looks to 1994 for a sequel

by javabeans

When you’ve posted the highest drama ratings for a cable show, it makes sense for sequel talk to ensue, as tvN is doing with its surprise smash hit of the year, Answer Me, 1997. The show snuck up on everyone but built on strong word of mouth, breaking 6% ratings (and hitting real-time highs close to double digits), and making stars out of its rookie-filled cast.

Interestingly, the second “season” won’t be picking up after the end of the first, which took us from 1997 to 2005 to 2012, but will instead jump backward: We’ll all be clamoring, Answer Me, 1994 instead.

The Season 2 plans are just talk right now with nothing concrete, though chances are reportedly “high.” Talk that with a grain of salt, though I don’t see why a second series would be a bad idea. Great premise, great producers, and a love of nostalgia make it an attractive proposition.

Why 1994? Admittedly that’s a year that speaks to me less than 1997, but I suppose us Gen-Y-ers already got our show and our chance to relive our adolescence. Now it’s time for PD Shin Won-ho to dig into his own youth, with 1994 being the year he entered university (Seoul National University, in fact, where he studied chemical engineering. Funny how life takes a turn, isn’t it?).

This also gives us a slightly different pop-cultural landscape to refer to: instead of a soundtrack peppered with H.O.T and DJ DOC, will we get Seo Taiji and Kim Gun-mo and Lee Seung-chul? Actually, I could get really excited about that. And rather than the characters glued to the TV to catch the Cinderella drama Star in My Heart, they can drool over Jang Dong-gun with the basketball hit The Last Match, or Lee Jung-jae in campus rom-com Feelings. Or Sohn Ji-chang in both of them.

Apparently there were a lot of fans hoping for a 2002 version of Answer Me, but I like the idea of going back, not forward. 2002 doesn’t seem far enough back to really hit that nostalgia for bygone youth — at least, not in the way that the added distance of 1994 does. If all goes well, maybe 2002 can be the third series.

Via Joins MSN

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