It’s that time of the year where I look back on the dramas that I have recapped for DramaCurrent and let you know which ones I finished and which ones I dropped.

She Would Never Know

My first recap of the year was the drama She Would Never Know, starring Rowoon and Won Jin Ah. Now I love both of these actors so this was a no brainer for me. The show is well shot and has interesting characters. Adult siblings is always a fun thing for me when it is written well into a drama. The different business settings were interesting ones that we don’t see in dramas very often. On paper, this drama checked off all the right boxes for me.

Unfortunately at the time this drama started, it was only available on the iQiyi website which was not at the time, super user friendly. It was also a VIP drama, so without a membership I was unable to continue watching. I relegated this drama to the land of the lost for me and shelved it with the other dropped dramas. HOWEVER, I now have a membership, and iQiyi has added an app for the Roku. It’s not a particularly user-friendly app (there is no search bar, and it doesn’t remember what dramas you’re watching) but it exists so I have been watching a bit more from that streaming service lately. Maybe now is the time to revisit this drama and see how it ends.

Verdict: Undetermined

How To Be Thirty

The second recap I did this year was for the drama How To Be Thirty, starring Jung In Sun and CNBLUE’s Kang Min Hyuk. This drama follows this lives of a thirty year old writer/artist and her 2 best friends. They navigate romance, break ups, and workplace politics, all while having each others’ backs.

I really loved this drama, I watched it as it aired and enjoyed almost every moment of it. The show massively over-used flashbacks, some episodes were almost entirely made up of scenes from previous episodes, but the story was a good one. I really enjoyed the actors and actresses in this. Some people were not happy with the way the drama ended, but I personally thought it went in exactly the direction it needed to go.

Verdict: Completed with two very enthusiastic thumbs up

Navillera

The Netflix drama Navillera was my third recap of the year. This drama centres on ballet, which is a huge plus for me since I was a giant dance nerd as a child. In Navillera, Park In Hwan plays an old man trying to pursue the art that he has loved his whole life. The other lead is a cranky young dancer played to perfection by Song Kang who was all over Netflix this year.

I absolutely, totally, incredibly loved this drama. It tops my list of all the dramas that I watched this year. I am so enamoured of the characters, the story and the focus on ballet which could easily be called my first love. This drama never missed a beat. I laughed, I cried. And cried. I cried some more. Listen… there was a lot going on here. Navillera is a gorgeous drama that deserves to be watched.

Verdict: Drama of the Year. Completed. Might even try for a rewatch

Lovers of the Red Sky

The distinction of being the only historical drama I recapped this year, Lovers of the Red Sky was an historical fantasy rather than a straight sageuk. This drama had a wild and beautiful start. Kim Yoo Jung stars as an artist who was blind from birth but was gifted with sight through a childhood accident. Ahn Hyo Seop plays a scholar who was blinded in childhood on the the same day. There are supernatural beings at work and the story is in turns beautiful and disturbing.

I’m gonna be honest with you, I watched this drama religiously until about halfway through… and then I just forgot to go back. Sitting down to write this article, I was reminded that I still haven’t finished it. I plan to finish it, I will finish it… probably. I am told by many that the second half of the drama becomes pretty repetitive. A friend from the Soju Chronicles podcast tells me that I am probably fine to skip to the last two episodes and watch the end. What I have watched, I really enjoyed so I do plan to get back to it. I need to know how it all turns out.

Verdict: uhhhhh…. I forgot?

Light On Me

Korean BL as a genre has really taken off this year. Light On Me is one of the better dramas to come out in the genre this year. I recapped this drama when it first came out, but we had a bug in the website and it never posted. We got things cleared up and I posted it after the full drama had aired.

I loved this drama. The characters were interesting and nuanced in a way we don’t always get in BL dramas. The romance was sweet and innocent. It felt like a high school romance. The students felt like kids in high school (despite being played by actors in their 20s 😂). If you love a sweet, cute romance, this is the drama for you.

Verdict: Two delighted thumbs up

You Raise Me Up

My last recap of the year (things got kind of weird and busy, I will try to do better in 2022) was for the drama You Raise Me Up. This was a quirky little drama about erectile disfunction. That’s not a subject I ever thought that I would watch a drama about, but I’m not at all mad about it.

This drama was a little bit hit and miss. The humour was quite good at times, and the emotional aspects were surprisingly heartfelt. HOWEVER, it probably should not have been a romance. For a drama where they were clear about this being a mental problem for the lead, they wound up healing it without any proper therapy. In fact, the therapist and the urologist behave in very, very inappropriate ways that should probably get their medical licenses removed. This drama could have been something really special, but it went in a bad direction (in my opinion).

Verdict: Completed, mostly enjoyed, would have preferred a very different ending

Final Verdicts

I finished four out of six of the dramas I recapped this year, and I still plan to maybe finish the other two. To be honest, I didn’t get very adventurous with my recaps this year. I mostly picked dramas that I knew I would enjoy. Listen, 2021 was a rough year, and we should all be doing whatever we need to do in order to enjoy our entertainment. I will hope for a more adventurous spirit in 2022 and will try to bring you all a little more variety.

Interested in hearing more of my thoughts on other dramas I watched this year? Check out our year end episode over on Certified Noonas