Be Melodramatic: Be Melodramatic (Melo is My Nature, Melloga Chejil)

December 15, 2020 6:30 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

A slice-of-life drama about three best friends working in Korea's entertainment industry. Very little melodrama; more than a little meta.

Im Jin Joo is an assistant drama writer under a tyrannical boss who is also working on a semi-autobiographical script of her own titled "When You Turn Thirty, It Will Be Fine". Hwang Han Joo is a single mother and is in charge of paid product placement for a small production company - a fairly thankless job. Lee Eun Jung is a documentary director deeply grieving the loss of her partner.

Interactions with the various characters that enter their lives slowly give shape and definition to their early thirties.

Currently available on Viki and Netflix.

posted by trig (3 comments total)

I really, really enjoyed this show! I wasn't planning to make a post (Posting Isn't My Nature) but I started to comment on the watchlist thread and realized I had too much to say.

It took me about two episodes to get into this one. (I'd actually tried watching it once before and couldn't even get through the first episode.) And at first I felt a lot of similarities with Because This Is My First Life, which was actually a huge turnoff because that show ultimately left me with such a sour aftertaste. Both shows do have a fair amount in common: a quirky scriptwriter as a lead, three good friends who are women finding their way, and a "fresh" and somewhat meta approach to their stories.

But this show quickly becomes its own thing. The actors are incredible, all the characters - including the minor ones - feel real and finely drawn, the dry humor creeps up on you - I don't think I've ever laughed as much while watching a kdrama - and the heartbreaking moments creep up on you too and hit hard. The soundtrack was unexpectedly good, despite (or because of) the ridiculous lyrics.

This isn't a cliffhanger type of show. The episodes feel somehow slow but not boring, and I never felt like I knew where any episode or plot development was going to go. I didn't feel like the ending was perfect, but the good parts vastly outnumbered the bad... and now I'm feeling some withdrawal.
posted by trig at 6:43 AM on December 15, 2020

This sounds good but is it not on Netflix US?
posted by Clustercuss at 3:59 PM on December 16, 2020

I'm not sure - it's on Netflix in my country but I'm not in the US.
I'm pretty confident it's on US Viki on the free, no-account-required tier though. Here's a link to the first episode - hopefully that'll work!
posted by trig at 6:24 PM on December 16, 2020 [1 favorite]