FRIDAY NIGHT DRAMA: The Greatest Marriage

I’m probably gonna take a lot of crap for this week’s FND post but you know what? Sometimes a drama is so bad I can’t help but warn my fellow drama watchers to run as far away from a stinker as possible. That being said, The Greatest Marriage is one of the stinkiest dramas I’ve watched in a long, LONG time and I’m telling you now, just run away!

Airing on CSTV from September – December, 2014, The Greatest Marriage is the story of Cha Ki Young (Park Si Yeon), the top news anchor for Channel Korea who, after a whirlwind fling with spoiled rich brat of a chef, Park Tae Yeon (No Min Woo) finds herself pregnant and facing a marriage that would mean the end of both life as she’s known it and her career. Unwilling to give in to the demands of Park Tae Yeon’s ridiculous family, Cha Ki Young decides to brave the world of single-motherhood and quickly finds that this path she’s chosen is anything but easy. Things are made worse when her co-anchor, the slimy Jo Eun Cha (Bae Soo Bin) does everything in his power to oust Ki Young from her position and then, years later, decides to use her to gain favor as he runs for the position of an assemblyman. Used and abused by every man in her live, Cha Ki Young struggles to protect her son from the world of crazy they find themselves trapped in but not even her best efforts can keep things from falling completely to pieces.

You know, the first episode of The Greatest Marriage was kinda cute, kinda funny and I was like, “Okay, this might turn out to be an okay drama” but after the second week I had some serious doubts. From there, things quickly tumbled downhill, so much so that now, at the end of it all, I can look back and say with completely confidence that this drama is nothing short of absolutely awful. In fact, it just plain sucks. Never, in all my life, have I watched a drama where the characters are so obstinate in their refusal to learn from their mistakes. I mean it’s not uncommon for a character or even characters in a drama to make mistakes as they make their journey through life, but at some point they have a moment of enlightenment when they realize they are at least in part to blame for their current misery and they then take the steps needed to correct the situation and become a better person. However, in The Greatest Marriage, that’s not the case. On the contrary, every single character in this drama (with the exception of the adorable Pedro (Chang Ki Yong)) spends the entire show blaming other people for all of their problems and no one does anything to better their situations. The worst part of this is, they all are more than capable of changing their stars, they just choose not to. Why? I have no idea but this fact made this entire drama so flipping painful to watch, there were days when I questioned why I felt compelled to finish it. (Honestly, I would have dropped it at the beginning if I hadn’t been reviewing it with some friends.)

I wish I could say something positive about this drama but there isn’t a single redeeming factor in this one. None of the characters change or learn or grow, the situations they all find themselves in are beyond ridiculous, and the ending is so crappy, you have to wonder what the heck the writers were thinking. I mean seriously! Did any of the writers even know what an ending is supposed to entail because there was certainly nothing in the last episode to bring any sort of a conclusion to the story. Everything just seems like it’s going to continue on in the most frustrating and confusing ways possible and I’m not okay with that! If I’ve invested so many hours into a drama, I’d like to walk away with at least a hope that things will be better for these characters in the future but I can’t do that with this one and I hate it! I just want to tell every single one of these characters to grow up, get over yourselves and move on with your lives but I can’t. Grrr!

I really can’t recommend this drama to anyone because it’s just plain awful but I can tell you to stay as far away from it as possible. Seriously. Just run away! That being said, I’m sure there are those out there who think I’m off my rocker by a mile and a half and they just love this drama but I’m obviously not one of them, nor will I ever be. This drama scarred me for life and not even the token No Min Woo shower scenes can make it better. (I think they actually made things worse as I hated his character so much, I wished for Park Tae Yeon’s death on a weekly basis. Yes, I’m a terrible person.) Of course we’re all entitled to our own opinion and I’d love to hear yours so let me know what you thought of this drama by leaving me a comment below.