Battle of the Writers (2024)

I want to battle these writers

When I first got introduced to Tutor and Yim in Cutie Pie, I fell in love. The announcement of Middleman’s Love had me super stoked, and then the end-result was so bad, I couldn’t even watch it. The whole thing gave me so much secondhand embarrassment that I physically couldn’t get myself to finish it because I was cringing so hard. I was super sad about it because outside of GMMTV artists, Tutor and Yim are one my favorite BL ships. However, looking back, there is one positive about the whole Middleman’s Love debacle — my expectations for this new show were at an all time low. I expected absolute garbage saved only by TutorYim’s chemistry, and that’s exactly what I got. Though chemistry only goes so far, and in the end, nothing could save this mess.

I don’t even know where to start with this one. It’s so absurdly badly written that one would honestly think it’s some kind of parody. The whole thing is so poorly done that it’s actually pretty hilarious to watch. Definitely falls into the so-bad-it’s-funny category, which is the only reason I watched up until episode 10, albeit with a lot of skipping. Well, that and TutorYim. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they’re the best actors, not at all. I think Yim is a bit better with his emotional delivery, and he has managed to make all his characters at least a little bit unique despite them all feeling very samey. He’s also incredibly adorable with his puppy eyes which is a plus. Tutor feels pretty much like the same guy just with varied outfit choices in all his shows. However, I do love their chemistry, and I’m glad to see it’s still there. The series does pretty well in creating moments for their chemistry to shine, so that’s nice. Just sad that it gets ruined by an overdose of cringe. Still, their chemistry might be the only positive thing I have to say about this show.

Actually, there’s a few more positives: When Ozone catches Shan trying to kiss Ob-un while he’s asleep, he calls him out on it. More of that please because I’m sick and tired of this cliché being romanticised. The show also has the characters kissing and have sex a lot, which I appreciate since a lot of shows about adults treat kissing like some sort of sin that can only be done very sparingly. So that's nice to see.

That’s it on the positives. Now, let’s get into the negatives, aka the entire rest of the show (in no logical order because the show couldn't be bothered, so neither can I):

- The series is entirely unhinged. It thinks it’s funny on purpose by including random and stupid shit like Shan and Ob-un getting high on mushrooms and acting like animals. Whenever it’s trying to be funny, though, it’s not funny at all. The only time the show is funny is when it’s trying to be serious, because the whole thing is so laughably bad that you really wonder what they were smoking in that writer's room.
- The dialogue feels incredibly unnatural and oftentimes forced without a natural flow. Conversations shift in topic incredibly abruptly, always reminding you that someone wrote this dialogue rather than it feeling like two humans actually talking.
- While I like the concept of a group of writers collaborating on a project, the inclusion of it is incredibly confusing. The scenes from the novel feel disjointed and don’t really tell a cohesive narrative. The show is almost over, and I still have no idea what the story they write is supposed to be about. We get the same scene from different perspectives, and the scenes jump around in time, so you never get a grasp on the story as a whole. There definitely was a better way of including this.
- For the first couple of episodes, the show always starts with a scene from the novel, but they just kinda give up on that for no reason. Also, Tutor lowers his voice for some of the novel scenes which sounds comedically bad. Luckily, he stopped doing it after a while because I could not take him seriously. On top of that, the scenes are shot in such a horrendous way and are acted out so poorly that it feels like they’re making fun of wuxia storylines. It’s in really bad taste even if it’s probably not done on purpose.
- The editing of this whole thing is a MESS. Scene changes are abrupt and confusing. We see a visual representation of the group chat which happens in someone’s imagination, I suppose, but the first time it cut to it was incredibly awkward and left me wondering what the hell was going on. All in all, the editing feels jumpy and scenes feel scattered in a random way. There are also flashbacks to things that happened less than two minutes ago which is a personal pet peeve of mine. The story of one side couple is almost told entirely through flashbacks, instead of interweaving it with the actual present narrative. I really dislike when shows do that sort of thing unless it's warranted.
- Plot lines seemingly get forgotten about. Things that matter in one episode suddenly don’t matter in the next. The worst example is the whole plagiarism thing. It’s the big deal in the first episode, then Shan and Ob-un never talk about it. It’s not picked up again until episode 6, and even then, it’s not addressed properly. Sure, the whole thing wasn't plagiarism, but only Shan and Ob-un know about that. I assume Ob-un's readers are just left to believe he ripped someone else off, which leaves me wondering if they'd still support him, or if his company still would. But I digress. Similarly, Ob-un having a fight with his roommate and being thrown out never comes up again. It was just there so he could move in with Shan. In the first episode, it was also established that Ob-un needed to work as a delivery guy to make ends meet because writing wasn't enough. Once he gets fired, he never looks for another job again, though, and is seemingly fine without one. Well, I guess he has a rich writer sugar daddy now, so I suppose he doesn't really have to work.
- Most of the show is over, but I still have no grasp on any of these characters because they aren’t characters in the first place. They have one defining trait (if even that), that’s it. The one thing that is focused on most is the genre each character is writing in, however, we never get any real feel for the kind of stories they write beyond the genre being mentioned.
- While I like that there’s a bigger focus on writing than in most shows about writers, I don’t think it’s a very accurate depiction. The idea that a group of guys could write a cohesive novel together with as little discussion about it beforehand is one big joke. Their story would be plot-hole galore, and it most definitely wouldn’t be as well received as theirs apparently is. Now that I think about it, maybe that's how this whole show was written. Just a rag-tag group of writers with big ideas and little planning. So, one threw in the plagiarism thing, another wanted to write about a blind guy, and a third wanted to just make this a series of exaggerated sex-scenes with no plot. They met somewhere in the middle, each writing an episode without asking the others what happened before or after. Maybe that's how we ended up here.
- Shan and Ob-un meeting before the whole plagiarism thing was entirely unnecessary. They should’ve just met for the first time at Shan’s press conference thingy. I still don't understand what the purpose of all that was, and it kinda seems like part of an entirely different show in retrospect.
- The scenes of the Chinese actor are dubbed which is incredibly distracting.
- The entirety of episode 6 is just one massive flashback which, granted, does finally explain some things, but was incredibly clunky in execution. Surely there’s a better way at sprinkling in shorter flashback scenes throughout the series or something like that. The story as a whole came to a halt for an entire episode which is definitely not what you want in storytelling. It’s the TV equivalent of a massive chapter-long exposition dump in a novel.
- Speaking of their past… I find there’s something very disturbing about BL’s obsession with the whole 'They knew each other when they were kids‘ thing, especially in this case because Shan is a lot older than Ob-un. It felt like a teenager prying on a little kid, and if he was a few years older, it would’ve definitely felt like grooming. It comes across as creepy instead of cute. Sure, Shan mentions in a throwaway line that he didn’t fall in love with Ob-un until they met again as adults. But that goes against everything the narrative is trying to push. He’s literally been obsessed with the boy, actively including elements of their summer together in his writing. It sure seems like this grown man is pining after a kid. All in all just very creepy and obsessive. Their story could’ve been cute if they were both the same age when they first met. Them coming up with this story about the fox and the hedgehog and then getting into a plagiarism controversy over it, leading them to meet again, could’ve been cute and fun in theory. The execution ruined it though, because now we have like a 16 year old teenager fawning over a 10 year old child well until his adult years. No thank you.
- In episode 7, there is an abrupt shift to a third couple that comes out of absolute nowhere. Again, the story takes a break to basically recreate Love, Sea The Series just even more insta-lovey. I think they literally fall for each other in a day, at least the dialogue makes it sound that way. Also, it’s very bold to introduce a third couple when you have yet to make any sense of your secondary couple. Focus on fewer things, but do them right instead. In episode 10, the same thing happens with the other side couple. Clearly, the story fails at integrating the three couples in a way that makes sense, so it just takes certain episodes to flesh out the story of the side couples, which is a big fail in terms of story-telling because it unnaturally shifts away from what the rest of the story is about. It just feels so awkward and shoehorned in, like both side-couples were an afterthought.
- It’s getting pretty tropey with falling into each other’s arms, drying each other’s hair, sleeping on each other’s shoulder on a bus, and stuff like that. It's giving BL bingo.
- Shan pretending he's still blind after regaining his vision is obviously horrible, and Ob-un forgave him for it way too quickly in episode 9. However, what makes it worse, is that this whole thing leads straight into a sex scene — one with a BLINDFOLD. Like, come on! You're lucky your eye condition didn't leave you permanently blind, and the first thing you think about when regaining your sight is using a blindfold in bed? After you just pretended not being able to see? And Ob-un is okay with that???? I'm not trying to shame anyone's kink here, but after what happened, it was just a very... odd... choice.
- Speaking of their sex scenes... This show thinks it's insanely hot, but the sex scenes set in the wuxia novel are nothing more than over the top cringe. Again, making the whole thing feel like a parody. It isn't tasteful and it doesn't feel intimate or passionate, it's just borderline unbearable to watch. If I didn't laugh so hard about how bad it was, I might have cringed myself to death. In episode 10, it's no longer just the wuxia scenes, but also the ones in real life. I had to skip. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for shows being sex-positive, but it just feels like this whole show has crumbled into a series of sex scenes which doesn't go with the first half of the show at all. It feels like the writers gave up at whatever mess of a story they created and were like 'Fuck it, let's just have everyone bang for the rest of it. And let's make it as cringe as we possibly can because why not go all in at this point?'
- All in all, the longer the show goes on for, the more overbearing the cringe factor of it gets. By episode 10, it got so cringey that I've decided to drop the whole thing entirely, because I just couldn't handle it anymore without wanting to crawl out of my skin from secondhand embarrassment. We're talking Middleman's Love territories of cringe here, and I can't stand that.

The list goes on, but those are the most glaring issues. It’s kind of ironic how in a show about writers, they’re basically setting an example of all the ways not to write a story. So if you’re a writer and looking for a bad example, this is the show for you. Otherwise I suggest you either don’t waste your time, or you just go into it to make fun of it. Since my bar was so low, I’m not really disappointed. While the show is better than Middleman's Love, we're comparing two dumpsterfires here. So, really, there is no winner or loser. Or, well, the real loser is me, because I genuinely do love Yim and Tutor, so them getting put in all the shittiest shows really sucks. I sincerely hope they’ll get to be in an actually decent show sometime soon, since wasting their chemistry on garbage like this is a real shame.

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