Doril
Confused Like a Cyclone that Dissipates and Leaves an Unclear, Cloudy Day
This show was passable but lacked a unifying storyline necessary to tell a compelling story. It delivers a complete beginning, middle, and end, but I found that it failed to innovate the tried-and-true Kdrama formula in any meaningful way, and didn’t execute the plot in any special way. You may find some joy in watching it, but I think that it will not satisfy you, unless you are a megafan of the cast or crew.
Before it aired, this show seemed like a guaranteed high-quality, mega-hit. For its production, you have the relatively-new NPIO Entertainment who were riding high from their 2021 Red Sleeve, a veteran director whose last major work was the Baeksang winning When the Camellia Blooms, and a screenwriter whose credits include the well-liked Dr. Romantic series. For its lead cast, you have Song Kang, who somehow managed to be in 3 productions during COVID-filled 2021 while still winning hearts of fans everywhere, and Park Min Young, sometimes considered one of the most beloved actresses for romance-genre Kdramas. It seemed like a formula that could not fail and at first it seemed like it wouldn’t.
The series came out of the gate like a strong typhoon blowing ships of the water. It tried the unique formula of treating weather forecasting like a high stakes medical diagnosis that would either save or doom the patient. To be honest, I found it both completely ridiculous and mesmerizing: they showed scenes where the predictions were a highly-controversial, still-science discussion similar to how surgeons might debate a sick person’s treatment in a hospital show. They showed potentially life-and-death consequences of the weather, like accidents caused by unclear weather. It was as if meteorology was actually weather manipulation and the national weather service was comprised of super scientists who toiled 24-hours a day to make this happen. By episode 2, I was actually on-board with this TV blueprint.
However, it quickly abandoned this strategy and devolved into a typical family-style Kdrama, whose main characters happen to work at the same place. Moreover, the show piled main and side character storylines that didn’t really have too much cohesiveness with each other: you have main characters that try deal with mismatched expectations about marriage, two-timers that got married and are dealing with the challenges of marriage, a stoic man who gets attracted to the main character’s cartoonist sister, a woman who needs to completely take on both familial and work responsibilities to support her husband, and an estranged husband who tries to reconcile with his family. For me, not only were there too many plot threads, but also no real link to the weather theme of the show, aside from some hasty weather analogies, like the tagline of this review. You could have moved all the characters to a law agency, a hospital, a stereotypical office, or pretty much whatever line of work you wanted and it would have changed nothing.
Moreover, I was really confused about what message the story wanted to send: is it trying to tell us something about work-life balance? Is it trying to show us different perspectives on marriage? Is it trying to tell us to think about the difficulties of weather forecasters? This confusion led to my ambivalence about the character development too: I wasn’t invested in the break-ups, the make-ups, or other evolutions of each of the protagonists as it didn’t feel that each of their individual plot lines were working toward any kind of grand scheme. My internal monologue towards most of the happenings of this Kdrama would probably be “that’s nice.”
Other elements of the show didn’t work well for me either. I usually don’t tend to focus on KDrama OSTs as they are usually all the same, high quality tracks or background music. However, for this one, the OST was so just forgettable: aside from the Cheeze track featured in the trailers for marketing, I don’t think I can tell you what other songs were in this show.
The acting worked, but I don’t feel that the actors and actresses were given much to work with, so I don’t feel I could really comment on whether they did a passable job or a spectacular job. You kinda have the standard, in-love-modes, sad-modes, angry-modes, and other stereotypes that just match the average storyline.
Overall, I’m really disappointed with this one. I watched it until the end due to habit, usually doing things like washing the dashes, and I found it really forgettable. It’s possible that Song Kang or Park Min Young brought you here, but unfortunately if you’re looking for a compelling, unique, sensible story, this is not it. It starts with a whirlwind and leaves on a cloudy day: it's not the bright, warm, sunny weather you were hoping for, but it's also not a horrible, destructive typhoon. It just is.
Before it aired, this show seemed like a guaranteed high-quality, mega-hit. For its production, you have the relatively-new NPIO Entertainment who were riding high from their 2021 Red Sleeve, a veteran director whose last major work was the Baeksang winning When the Camellia Blooms, and a screenwriter whose credits include the well-liked Dr. Romantic series. For its lead cast, you have Song Kang, who somehow managed to be in 3 productions during COVID-filled 2021 while still winning hearts of fans everywhere, and Park Min Young, sometimes considered one of the most beloved actresses for romance-genre Kdramas. It seemed like a formula that could not fail and at first it seemed like it wouldn’t.
The series came out of the gate like a strong typhoon blowing ships of the water. It tried the unique formula of treating weather forecasting like a high stakes medical diagnosis that would either save or doom the patient. To be honest, I found it both completely ridiculous and mesmerizing: they showed scenes where the predictions were a highly-controversial, still-science discussion similar to how surgeons might debate a sick person’s treatment in a hospital show. They showed potentially life-and-death consequences of the weather, like accidents caused by unclear weather. It was as if meteorology was actually weather manipulation and the national weather service was comprised of super scientists who toiled 24-hours a day to make this happen. By episode 2, I was actually on-board with this TV blueprint.
However, it quickly abandoned this strategy and devolved into a typical family-style Kdrama, whose main characters happen to work at the same place. Moreover, the show piled main and side character storylines that didn’t really have too much cohesiveness with each other: you have main characters that try deal with mismatched expectations about marriage, two-timers that got married and are dealing with the challenges of marriage, a stoic man who gets attracted to the main character’s cartoonist sister, a woman who needs to completely take on both familial and work responsibilities to support her husband, and an estranged husband who tries to reconcile with his family. For me, not only were there too many plot threads, but also no real link to the weather theme of the show, aside from some hasty weather analogies, like the tagline of this review. You could have moved all the characters to a law agency, a hospital, a stereotypical office, or pretty much whatever line of work you wanted and it would have changed nothing.
Moreover, I was really confused about what message the story wanted to send: is it trying to tell us something about work-life balance? Is it trying to show us different perspectives on marriage? Is it trying to tell us to think about the difficulties of weather forecasters? This confusion led to my ambivalence about the character development too: I wasn’t invested in the break-ups, the make-ups, or other evolutions of each of the protagonists as it didn’t feel that each of their individual plot lines were working toward any kind of grand scheme. My internal monologue towards most of the happenings of this Kdrama would probably be “that’s nice.”
Other elements of the show didn’t work well for me either. I usually don’t tend to focus on KDrama OSTs as they are usually all the same, high quality tracks or background music. However, for this one, the OST was so just forgettable: aside from the Cheeze track featured in the trailers for marketing, I don’t think I can tell you what other songs were in this show.
The acting worked, but I don’t feel that the actors and actresses were given much to work with, so I don’t feel I could really comment on whether they did a passable job or a spectacular job. You kinda have the standard, in-love-modes, sad-modes, angry-modes, and other stereotypes that just match the average storyline.
Overall, I’m really disappointed with this one. I watched it until the end due to habit, usually doing things like washing the dashes, and I found it really forgettable. It’s possible that Song Kang or Park Min Young brought you here, but unfortunately if you’re looking for a compelling, unique, sensible story, this is not it. It starts with a whirlwind and leaves on a cloudy day: it's not the bright, warm, sunny weather you were hoping for, but it's also not a horrible, destructive typhoon. It just is.
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