First Love?

Recently my Sunbae showed me a post that she wrote a little while ago.  We were discussing my review of You’re Beautiful.  Her article is called What Makes Drama Crack Stay Fresh / Turn Stale?  It really hit home for me.  Especially since I just went back and watched  Boys Over Flowers last weekend.  Ouch…

In that article she talks about how you can get sucked into a show and need to watch it like its crack.  Then when you go back at a later time to re-watch the same show it falls short.  Though she also discusses the reverse effect, and she used You’re Beautiful as her primary example.  The first time she watched it she felt it didn’t measure up, which is how I felt about it as well.  However, her second (and third) time through she absolutely loved it.

If you’ve gone over to read her article (you really-really-really should if you haven’t) then this might seem like a rehashing of everything that Sunbae’s already said.  However, it is very true and I feel that I need to get it off my chest.  The very first Korean drama I ever watched was Boys Over Flowers.  When I wrote my review I still had my rose colored glasses on and my heart still fluttered at the thought of that show.  It was seriously my first love and I could hardly accept that there was anything wrong with it. 

I was having a bad day and wanted something to lift my spirits, so of course I immediately thought of Boys Over Flowers.  Turning it on I sat down with coffee and a brownie and prepared to be relieved of my stress and feel that heart-pounding love I’d known seven months ago when I watched it the first time… oh boy was I disappointed.  No, it was way more than disappointed, I was in pain!  I watched the first four episodes in a row and just couldn’t get back that feeling that I’d known, the pedestal upon which I’d placed the show was cracking. 

But I wasn’t willing to believe that it wasn’t as magical and perfect as I had thought just a few weeks ago.  So I skipped ahead to the beginning of the contest to win Jan Di… and the pedestal was even worse off.  So I spent the rest of the day skimming through episodes trying to qualify the exemplary review that I’d written.  And sadly it just didn’t live up to my dream.  But… I still love the show, I mean a lot.  However, that love has less to do with the story and more to do with the fact that because of Boys Over Flowers I found Korean Dramas.  And for that I will always love it, always.

Sadly though, I’ll probably go back and adjust my rating and review of Boys Over Flowers to reflect a more objective view.  But not today, I want to preserve at least a little bit of the pedestal that is still standing.