SPOILERS !!!
1- It's not funny, I hardly ever laughed. Part of it could be poor subtitles, but you don't need those for physical comedy, and there's precious little of that.
2- The main premise of the body swap, which offered unlimited possibilities, is terribly underutilized.
3- Characters do not behave in a realistic way, for example we are asked to believe that while swapped they aren't curious about their new bodies. Also why pretend they don't feel any kind of sexual impulse? If the creators didn't want them to have sex before marriage they could have found some perfectly good excuse.
4- How and why the female lead, from the original distaste for him, comes to love the male lead, is poorly explained, we are left to assume she gets tired of him insisting so much and gives in.
5- The story arc of the sidekick couple, even in its simplicity, is a lot more interesting than the protagonists' one.
6- While the bodies are swapped they are sometimes showed as un-swapped (for the viewer benefit I guess?) but this only causes confusion and negates the premise.
7- The main actress shows good acting skills when she does a man in a woman's body, but below average ones otherwise.
8- The two most important conflicts (the difficult love stories of the two couples) are resolved too soon, so the final episode lacks any punch and is reduced to some 50 minutes of happy ending, which is way too many.
9- The evil mother thing is overdone.
10- The sister of the main character is first introduced and then completely forgotten about.
11- Other characters which either had the potential for an interesting sub-plot (the gay musician) or were genuinely funny (the assistant of the department store director Park) were underdeveloped/underutilized.
12- To an extent this is to be expected in most TV shows, but when it comes to Secret Garden there are way too many plot holes and inconsistencies.
13- For a series produced in 2010, there are too many K-drama stereotypes: rich boy/poor girl, evil mother, sidekick couple, hospital we've seen this for a decade now. Still it would be OK if at least it was well done, but it isn't.
The series by which I jusge all others is "Kim Sam-soon" which, with all the limitations inherent to a family TV program / k drama, is funny, realistic enough, not too syrupy, and sports the best female lead character in the history of television.
That show set the standard for rom-coms, and therefore we can expect it to be copied a lot, but Secret Garden went to far: - same actor in the male lead role - in both shows there's a trip to Jeju island - in both shows the male lead had a life threatening accident when younger - said accident left the male lead unable to ride a transport (car/elevator)
1- It's not funny, I hardly ever laughed. Part of it could be poor subtitles, but you don't need those for physical comedy, and there's precious little of that.
2- The main premise of the body swap, which offered unlimited possibilities, is terribly underutilized.
3- Characters do not behave in a realistic way, for example we are asked to believe that while swapped they aren't curious about their new bodies. Also why pretend they don't feel any kind of sexual impulse? If the creators didn't want them to have sex before marriage they could have found some perfectly good excuse.
4- How and why the female lead, from the original distaste for him, comes to love the male lead, is poorly explained, we are left to assume she gets tired of him insisting so much and gives in.
5- The story arc of the sidekick couple, even in its simplicity, is a lot more interesting than the protagonists' one.
6- While the bodies are swapped they are sometimes showed as un-swapped (for the viewer benefit I guess?) but this only causes confusion and negates the premise.
7- The main actress shows good acting skills when she does a man in a woman's body, but below average ones otherwise.
8- The two most important conflicts (the difficult love stories of the two couples) are resolved too soon, so the final episode lacks any punch and is reduced to some 50 minutes of happy ending, which is way too many.
9- The evil mother thing is overdone.
10- The sister of the main character is first introduced and then completely forgotten about.
11- Other characters which either had the potential for an interesting sub-plot (the gay musician) or were genuinely funny (the assistant of the department store director Park) were underdeveloped/underutilized.
12- To an extent this is to be expected in most TV shows, but when it comes to Secret Garden there are way too many plot holes and inconsistencies.
13- For a series produced in 2010, there are too many K-drama stereotypes: rich boy/poor girl, evil mother, sidekick couple, hospital we've seen this for a decade now. Still it would be OK if at least it was well done, but it isn't.
The series by which I jusge all others is "Kim Sam-soon" which, with all the limitations inherent to a family TV program / k drama, is funny, realistic enough, not too syrupy, and sports the best female lead character in the history of television.
That show set the standard for rom-coms, and therefore we can expect it to be copied a lot, but Secret Garden went to far: - same actor in the male lead role - in both shows there's a trip to Jeju island - in both shows the male lead had a life threatening accident when younger - said accident left the male lead unable to ride a transport (car/elevator)