So I recently went through a phase where I was completely out of it due to a medical situation; I felt light-headed and woozy, and my brain basically felt like cotton wool.
Given that not too long ago, when I’d felt too exhausted for more regular-type drama-watching, I’d found quite the lovely little drama snack in Noble, My Love, I thought that this time around, I might find a similarly fun and fluffy distraction in I Order You. At about 20 minutes an episode, the commitment was low enough, and I had it on good authority that the kisses in this were better than the ones in Noble. Ahem. Good kisses are always a plus, no doubt.
Too bad this little web drama just didn’t work out for me the way I’d hoped it would.
THE BETTER STUFF
To be fair, I Order You does have some stuff going for it. Here’s a quick list for the record:
1. Everything’s pretty to look at. Stuff is prettily filmed and the color palette is cheery and warm.
2. The tone is light and breezy, at least in the early episodes, and the short episodes add to the fluffy, bite-sized feel.
3. The cast is pretty too, although I’ll say that the Pretty in this show isn’t quite my kinda Pretty. Yunho and Jang Seung Jo are both good-looking male leads, to be sure. Just, not quite my style, and neither of them grew on me as I progressed through the episodes. Kim Ga Eun did grow on me somewhat, though.
4. The food looks great, and would’ve probably qualified as food porn, if the camera had just lingered a little longer.
5. It’s true, the kisses are better in here than in Noble. Yunho and Kim Ga Eun go for it pretty gamely, and the camera lingers long enough to convince us that yes, they can kiss.
SO WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME?
Nope, it wasn’t the not-so-great acting nor the abundance of tropes that are typical of web drama series like this. And no, I didn’t drop this one because I couldn’t get on board with the Pretty either.
The thing that threw me the most, honestly, is the Lack of Logic throughout. I kid you not, I regularly felt like I had no idea why the characters were behaving the way that they were. About 80% of the time, I honestly felt like I didn’t understand the emotions nor the thought processes behind any of the lead characters’ decisions.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Quite literally, we go from seeing male lead Gook Dae (Yunho) looking at Song Ah (Kim Ga Eun) with contempt one moment, to him grabbing her and kissing her in another. I.. honestly have no idea how or when he started feeling differently about her.
Anyway, lots of angst ensues, and she rejects him even after he comes clean with his I-was-married backstory, which really doesn’t even amount to very much.
Lots more angst later, when Song Ah realizes that he’s the one who’d caught her when she’d fainted, and that he’s the one who’d caressed and kissed her forehead when she’d been ill, she races all the way to the restaurant to confront him. He confesses he likes her, and demands (why so demanding?) to know if she likes him back.
…Cliffhanger later, Song Ah flatly denies that she likes him and coldly turns down his feelings.
Which leaves me scratching my head, But, why??? She’d seemed so consumed by the knowledge that he’d been the one at the hospital, and had taken off running towards him, with so much intent. Plus, it’s clear that she does like him.
[END SPOILER]
There’re lots more examples where that came from, but essentially, I just don’t get why the characters behave the way they do. Which makes me feel like I’m watching a very random sort of show. And I realize it’s really quite impossible to be emotionally invested in a show where the characters behave in such seemingly haphazard ways. Basically, I can’t care, if I can’t figure out whether you care, and why.
10 episodes into 16, I still wasn’t feeling this show.
Worse, with the appearance of the possessive ex-wife in episode 10, things looked to be turning dark. It’s one thing to hang on to a show for more servings of illogical light fluff, but another thing altogether, if it’s illogical heavy melo that we’re talking about. I put my ear to the ground – or rather, my eyes to Google – and sure enough, word on the street is that this one, despite having a happy ending, does turn heavy and melodramatic after all. Which is when I decided that it was time for goodbye.
Sorry, I Order You. Guess you and I just weren’t meant to be. For the record, you were pretty decent with the kisses. But, good dramas are made up of more than just prettily filmed kisses, right?
