Spring 2013 K-dramas: Taking a Second Look?

Let it be said that I am as perfectly capable of changing my mind as anyone out there. It’s a fallacy to assume that having an initial impression is making a judgment, all it involves is rendering a limited scope opinion with the facts available. I noticed that lately there have been so many dramas I’ve watched and dropped really fast. Some aren’t even that bad, either the first episodes didn’t hook me enough to continue, or were so choppy I checked out swiftly. Judging by the ratings all over K-dramaland, I sense a geneal ennui with the offerings across-the-board. Gone are the days with dramas pulling in 20 or 30 percent ratings head-to-head, and this year we’ve only had one bona fide ratings hit in My Daughter Seo Young. That’s an abominable track record to speak of. I can understand when dramas are bad and viewers bail, but I feel like the audience for K-dramas have been shrinking rather than growing compared to previous years and the dwindling cumulative ratings pool is proof. Right now I’m only watching Jang Ok Jung, Live in Love and another guilty pleasure drama that I’ll reveal in the body of the post, but there have been quite a lot of Spring 2013 dramas I was interested in only to drop fairly quickly. So my question is this – for those of you watching those dramas still, do you recommend jumping back in because it’s really picked up? Try to make cogent arguments because a thoughtfully rendered recommendation invariably may persuade me (and likely others) give it another look. If more people join in the fun, it just makes the experience merrier, or more people to share the pain with. Starting with When a Man Loves, let’s run down the list of Spring K-dramas that might be worth a second glance. Continue reading