There's a certain kind of joy that comes with watching a gleefully bad show, as those who read my review of Risky Romance will know. When a show embraces its awful, it can be delightful in how trash it is. Good trash.
And I generally like good trash.
Unfortunately, while Forest has several aspects of Good Trash and I got some joy in how bad the first few episodes were, it's just boring enough to be trash without any qualifiers.
The romance between a resident surgeon with a TRAUMA and a GENIUS tsundere CEO with a TRAUMA (no doubt due to a shared childhood experience they don't remember as yet) who both end up in a Forest of Secrets (I wish) is ludicrous in all the right ways but simultaneously a boring trope salad of romcom cliches, corporate shenanigans, and Candy-meets-Hot-Cold CEO scenarios (including forced cohabitation, a fake engagement, and a love triangle).
Park Hae Jin does his best with the material (and it's honestly just good to have him back on our screens again) but Jo Boa overacts, a somewhat disappointing performance from her after her kickass turn in My Strange Hero.
The show makes little sense, although that's not its biggest problem. It's just not fun enough to endure the bad writing, the bad cliches, or the inconsistent characterisation.
Also, considering how bad this year's fire season has been, turning fire fighting into a romcom for rich kids with other agendas leaves a bad taste in my mouth and that's something the show won't be able to overcome.
Dropped after six episodes.