Jugglers (2017)

I think Jugglers is the perfect example of a filler drama.  It was watchable, but I was never excited about new episodes.  It's a story that's been done a million times before...  a romance between a cold boss and his meddling employee, the only person who takes the time to get to know him.  This drama delivers the romcom moments as expected. The other focus of the story is the life of personal assistants (aka Jugglers), who appear to be the unsung heroes of the corporate world.  The problem with the juggler story is that it honestly wasn't that interesting.  This drama tries to add all kinds of scandals, and betrayals, and self realization to the juggler world, but none of it stayed interesting for long. I think the problem is that they tried to juggle too many uninteresting storylines.

First I'll mention what worked, and for me that was Choi Daniel. This is the part where I confess that I probably kept watching because I was developing a crush on Nam Chi Won at the same time Yoon Yi was. Being handsome has a lot to do with it, but he really was great in his role.  I loved finding out more weird and adorkable things about him hiding behind his rigid and serious exterior. I also thought Yoon Yi was cute without crossing too far over into annoyingville. I think the romance between these too really worked well, and carried the show. There are lots of cute, sweet, and even some sexy moments. Some moments were a bit too cheesy for me, but that goes back to the bad writing, not the acting.

I think the same can be said for Lee Won Keun and Kang Hye Jung. Their relationship was definitely weird, but adorable. Although I liked watching  how their characters became closer, and think their relationship arc was better than the main couple, I still feel like making them deal with stupid  storylines made them a little less appealing.  

The rest of the supporting cast was mostly good. I liked the office worker cast, though they were mainly there for quick commentary, and comic relief.  I was a little less impressed with  the 4 girl friends. Their scenes all together were pretty boring, and since their friendship is a large part of the plot, that's not a good thing. I especially wish that they gave her coffee making friend more of a story besides just being the mediator.  Then there are the villainous bosses, who were so over the top that I couldn't take that part of the story seriously.  Some situations were funny, but they got to be so repetitive, that I could no longer laugh without cringing a little.  They also waited too long to add depth to some of the characters.  The last episode is way to late to try to make me sympathize with a person who's been in jerk mode for 15 episodes. Too many of the supporting characters were written to be one note.

I think some of the disconnect with me and this drama may be also cultural. I can't really relate to dating scandal plots, and I don't see the big deal about divorce,  or being an older employee... So what were major issues for the characters didn't seem so major to me. The office rivalries also couldn't hold my interest, and I was often tempted to skip scenes.  Obviously that means a low rewatch score from me too.

Overall,  I enjoyed enough of it to keep watching till the very end, but I can't quite recommend it, or say that it was good. It took a while to grow on me, then managed to hold my interest, but I can see myself forgetting all about this drama in a few months. If you like romance dramas, and you don't have anything exciting in your queue, this could be a good way to fill the time.  It's probably much better to binge watch too, so you don't get bored, or tempted to drop it.  At the very least you've got Daniel being as cute as possible for 16 episodes, and for me that was good enough!

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