I’ve just looked on Wikipedia and on their list this one looks like the oldest/ earliest TV series adapted from the novel 😀 . I’m not very familiar with adaptations done by other countries such as the variety show in Korea or other versions by Japan except for the manga Dragon Ball which I used to own and read to tatters as a kid XD.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Thanks for tuning in too. It’s always good to have someone to share the same interest, even if you might end up thinking you like the book better :D. There are other adaptations made in 1996 and 2011. I’m pretty sure there are other versions in other years too if you’d like to have a look, just in case the 1986 isn’t exactly your taste. The 1986 version is so old the ones available online sometimes have a good chunk of the original scenes missing, so that might disrupt the flow of the story.

I just want to give the cast and crew a big old hug and let them know their drama is loved. T_T

@noelle
Me too 🙁
I want it to rise so bad just for their sake. At this rate there’s only hope of some increase after SP and Ruler end. Yet with Yeo Jin-Gu’s rom-com coming up next after SP I’m not so sure. The boy is super talented and is well-loved in Korea too.

At this point, I am looking at the ratings more with bewilderment than anything. I am not even angry anymore.

I don’t think Ruler or SP matters. Ruler no matter how absurd is the kind of melodrama that ahjummas love and SP is just middling. That the ratings for this drama have been dropping, I really want to ask people in Korea “Why?” Just curious, very curious.

Yes, I also feel like that a tragic end is in store for him. As for your imagined ending, while it would be awesome, romantic pairings in Korean dramas are pretty much determined from the beginning.

Same! I stopped caring as well.
And honestly, I’m actually fuming as I watch the scenes unfold.
I want to care and be interested in what Lee sun is doing. But all the talk about copper are just flying past my head. I don’t feel the conflict to be real enough and Dae Mok also took a back seat today.
And Hwa Gun is actually becoming more interesting to me as a character…
But I wish I cared enough about her to root for her and the prince. But I can’t care for her either. Her obsession with the prince still makes no sense…and she even chose to help her father and ended up betraying the prince. So i really have no idea where she is standing at the moment.

I’m annoyed too, and it’s not even minor annoyance.
Somewhere on the Internet the viewers actually have to make sense of Ga Eun’s motives and romance toward the CP by drawing details out of thin air. Much of those aren’t solidly set in the show itself, but pure speculations about her actions. One example is Ga Eun is convinced by the King’s protection and the King Consort’s kindness toward her so she had decided to lay low and put her revenge at rest.
I don’t criticise such interpretation, though I personally find it being based on rather flimsy backdrop. I do criticise the writing and directing, because such work of making up situations to explain for the lack of characters’ motives speaks volume about the writing quality. It’s not our job as the viewers to make up details to understand the main characters for god’s sake!

Will have to wait for subs but from the comments, it seems the Queen is making use of GE to get to Lee Sun. Why does she need to do that? She hasn’t done anything for 5 years and now, she’s woken up? I think this is merely another subplot to create crisis for GE and CP. I see that some fans are happy that GE and CP have OTP moments but honestly, this couple doesn’t excite me. The so called squee worthy stuff are staged.

I am thinking this drama has the same problem with Moon Lovers. The writer and PD are too focused on creating scenes which they think will delight fans. I don’t know about you but I was never sold on Hye Soo and Wang So’s romance.

@outofthisworld
Tbh I wasn’t watching ML for any of the cast XD nor for the romance. There were interesting elements in there and I kept watching for the vain hope that things would get better and prove me wrong but the whole drama failed to do so. I remember one beanie back then said something like, ML is so bad it becomes amusing to watch, and I’ve got to say I agree with them XD. I really liked the scene where Lady Hae died on her husband’s back. That scene is iconic in itself, but the show failed to create any other that had similar impact on me. Too bad, it had the potential to be epic, but it ended up no more than a teenage cosplay.
The problem with Ruler is that the writers are too ambitious and want to create something great which has some classic feels to it but fails because they didn’t get their focus right from the get go. The Queen is someone whose motive I can’t read and she completely came out of the left field. If she really wants to counter DM’s power she should have been shown to aid the late King in one way or another. If her purpose is to get rid of DM herself then what’s her role to play in the King’s assassination? If back then she just wanted to lay low to save her life why did she reveal her claws to DM as soon as the CP was enthroned? And now she wants to get rid of the fake CP, for what? Has she got a substitute? If yes, then why haven’t we seen hide nor hair of him? Has she always wanted the throne for herself? Then she must have wasted the last 5 years for nothing as you have mentioned.

Then when HG helped her father and the Water Bureau official to escape, she didn’t let out a single scream but suddenly CP turned around and noticed her, when he didn’t see her before on the cliff top, and the first thing he saw was both men galloping away as soon as he arrived at the foot of the cliff. I thought his first instinct would be to chase after them, but somehow miraculously his peripheral vision was activated (what a rare thing in Kdrama!) and he noticed something that he needed to turn 180 degrees around to see.
Sigh, at this rate I think a piece of Swiss cheese even has fewer holes than this.