I love that that some KDs attempted to feature the best and the worst of the Korean society through the ages. For sure like every other ethnicity, there is a tendency at times to be insular, xenophobic and distrustful of others but it takes genuine love, courage and resilience to see your own society’s foibles and brutalities in an unvarnished way as it is only then you can truly cherish what unites us as humans but makes us also unique in our own diverse ways as peoples.

1. Creating a character named Park Gye-won, characterized by Jang Hyuk in Bloody Heart.

2. The two Sagueks I enjoyed watching had less of the royal court politicking and more of the characters outside the royal court politicking, and the central characters remained central to the story - Queen Dowager Choi, Park Gye-won and Consort Park(Yoo) in Bloody Heart, and Queen Im, King Lee Ho and Queen Dowager Hwang.

3. The ultimate betrayer Jamie the Cat who came through right when Hae-jin needed it the most.

I love how Link really focused on the characters growth, showing emotions, deal with it together. The characters feels real eventho the genre is fantasy.
Imo Kdrama for the past few years kinda shy about being dramatic. 2019-2021 was all about "slice-of-life" and havent really changed. This year have so much diversity but i feel like its lack of something that keep viewers engaged. But maybe its just me that not really searching (and maybe because so many streaming services now) but please recommend me some good romcom or fantasy drama.

It's not a KDrama thing, but this year, I noticed more deaf characters in the TV show I watched.

In US, there is New Amsterdam, one of the main doctor is deaf.
In Japan, there were First Love with the ML's sister, and Silent is about the ML who lost his hearing.
In Korea, there was a deaf supporting character in May I Please the Court.

Otherwise, in KDrama specifically, since about a year, I pay more attention to KDrama introductions. There are really beautiful and interesting like Little Women, cute with Extraordinary Lawyer Woo or Summer Strike, etc.

K-drama playing around with time-and-space-bending theme, and actually doing something new and unusual with it. I would never take that for granted. In other words, thank goodness for Grid and Reborn Rich.

JTBC's 3 episodes per week has my vote! I don't know if it is a marketing luck, genius or what 😁

The year of background couples alongside the main leads:
Twenty five, twenty one
Business proposal
Thirty nine ensemble all female leads had relationships
Forecasting love and weather (not cute out of order pairing)
Love all, Play
Shooting stars
Gaus electronics
Love is for Suckers

Casting Seo Hye Won - the Second Female Lead for our Second Male Lead's, his fan girl
Business proposal - in love with Sung Hoon
Alchemy of Souls - in love with Yul
May I help you - in love with Dong Joo's boss

Aziz in Gaus.

The year a FL told the ML that making sure she enjoys, uh, completion in their physical relationship is worth contractualizing because it's just that important (Law Cafe).

The year a character played by a non-ethic Korean actor was actually given a real personality and great lines (Gaus Electronics).

The year that even the utterly delightful and charismatic SIG wasn't enough to make a bad drama watchable (Cafe Min).

The year that a character's wardrobe was more interesting than the drama itself (Lee Joon's character in Bulgasal) or so appalling that it dragged the drama down (Go-reum's white cowboy boots and mom jeans in Love is for Suckers).

And finally, this was the year when, for the very first time (for me, at least), the Hong sisters showed they can write a drama that stays addictive all the way through (Alchemy of Souls, Part I--I'm also confident I'll love Part II).

I appreciated how *Korean* 'Gaus Electronics' was. Its Koreanness didn't get diluted for the international market as some series do these days. It was full of names with double meanings, Korean puns and wordplay, arguments over hierarchical status, etc. I didn't come to K-dramas to just watch 'American' shows in a foreign language. I prefer my Korean shows to be Korean.

Just recently I was commenting to someone about how Korean shows often have a well gender-balanced cast. There are often as many female main characters as male, as many female supporting characters as male, even as many female background extras as male. I also commented about how female leads are often given a support system of female friends. That doesn't happen much in American dramas, it seems.

What I like about Kdramas this year ( or in the past years)

1. Production quality: it’s becoming better and better. Can’t comment on all shows all genres because I only watched 5 and the majority of them were romcoms/ coming of age, but imo the cinematography is top notch and even when I don’t feel invested in the story at any point I’ll still drool over the beautiful office, wardrobe, colors they used.

2. Ensemble cast: Good shows make you enjoy it, but good shows with excellent ensemble cast become great ones. When I watched Sh**ting Stars or 2521, for example, i felt these were so wholesome. I’d love to have more of these shows.

So many women led dramas and with interesting & endearing female characters (Anna, Extraordinary A. Woo, Little women, 25 21, Yumi's cell, Glitch, Under the queen's umbrella...)! I love this trend! <3

This year I appreciated the hesitant move in some mainstream dramas toward reducing othering of gay people and showing them as simply human - no explicit happy-ever-afters yet, gosh no 🙄, but fewer gay characters played strictly for laughs, more straight characters who are actively accepting of or at least shrug off other characters’ sexuality, less gay panic, and more depiction of homophobia as harmful. Baby steps.

One thing I MISS in K-dramas this year are the 'Candys'. The cheerful, hard working, friendly, competent working class heroine. The 'Candy' trope got a bad reputation so instead we've seen a wave of drama heroines who are decidedly NOT cheerful, NOT friendly, NOT hard working, and NOT particularly competent, either. It sounds like I'm describing the lead in 'Summer Strike' doesn't it!

Consent was well done in Shooting star.
Particularly in the penultimate or last episode, with the main couple. They are quite childish in their love affair, but I was positively impressed by the scene where Tea-Sung moves to kiss Han-byeol and upon seeing that she is reluctant retreats and talks to ease her in the mood for kissing.
In a sea of forced kisses, I find him very seducing.

Three episodes per week a la Reborn Rich is great! Hope more broadcasters follow suit.

On the other hand, 12-episode run is great too to make dramas tighter than meandering for no reason than making up for the mandatory 16.

I wouldn't say it's my absolute favorite thing that happened in dramaland this year, but I really love the song "A Curse of Asphalt" from the Sound of Magic.

I found Il-deung's storyline one of the most interesting parts of the drama, and I was sad that the show didn't show what/how he was doing after he decided to drop out. (In my imagined fan fiction account of his life he apprentices himself to a traditional potter and eventually becomes a successful ceramics artist who blends traditional techniques with modern styles. Because why not?) Of course, parental pressure to do well in school is not at all new in dramaland, but this song (and accompanying visuals) made me feel that pressure on a very visceral level.

I thought this part of the drama was so interesting and heartbreaking to watch. Il-deung is surrounded by other students, but they are all moving in unison and he confusedly tries to follow along while looking around and wondering if he's the only person out of step with this whole system. Ri Eul is the only other one moving freely, as he confronts Il-deung with his choices and a stripped-bare version of what he's been going through for the past few years. At a snap of Ri Eul’s fingers, all the students start racing each other, and Il-deung joins in, vaulting over other people and shaking them off when they grab at him, though it’s clear he’s running out in front to be out in front, and not because he understands why any of them have to do this at all. It was just such a perfect visualization of his mindset – going through the motions to be the best without any idea of why he needs to or what the point is.

It was so heartbreaking and a bit scary to watch Ri Eul singing about escaping from the thing that has consumed Il-deung's life for so long, when Ri Eul's own story is such a close and tragic parallel. Are all the things you have the things you want? Is your beating heart beating for yourself? Do you even know who you are? In this song Il-deung finally looks as helpless as he feels, and you can feel his complicated desperation as one part of him wants to break free from all those expectations and one part of him is terrified of what that might mean.

They existed. That's it.
They helped me survive this last year of college! I'm so grateful for that. I'm not the type to call family or friends when I'm having a hard time, I just watch a movie or tv show. Some of the dramas I watched this year really gave me comfort and made me feel better.
So that's what dramas did for me this year, they gave me a hug. ☺️

Quality & Quantity: The Quality of production is fantastic: fashion, costumes, makeup, sets, locations, sounds, cinematography, music, special effects, casting, actors, writing, etc. The Quantity of 3 episodes per week is fantastic, or dropping the whole series at once and the smaller number of episodes (10-12)