Zombie: So the end has come and I just have to ask, how many tables did you flip before the end? Personally, I lost count.
Tanya: Are we talking real or metaphorical here?
Zombie: Either one will work.
Tanya: Okay, so metaphorically, I think I destroyed an entire factory. In actuality, I may have accidentally knocked over a chair when I jumped up with a “What?!”
Zombie: Well, it’s good to know I’m not the only one destroying metaphorical furniture because of this drama! I think now it’s time to talk about why.
Tanya: Let’s try really hard to go in order with this table-flipping nonsense. First of all, I’m not totally unhappy with the end, but it could have been so much better. On a scale of one to Marry Him If You Dare, it’s about a Pretty Man. Not terrible, but probably not what 99% of the viewership wanted.
Zombie: It’s certainly not what I wanted but like you said, let’s try to go in order with this crazy so how about we start with Jae Joon and his miserably failed attempt at revenge. Seriously dude, if you’re going to exact revenge, don’t revive the guy dying at your feet!
Tanya: At the same time, at least we realized he wasn’t actually a total dirt bag. He did care about Soo Hyun enough in the end that he aborted his plan. That doesn’t mean that I forgive him for anything…
Zombie: I really felt like Count Rugen from The Princess Bride watching Jae Joon waste his entire life plotting revenge only to fail at the last moment, only instead of rejoicing in Jae Joon’s failure, I was just plain irritated. I really hated the way so many characters flip-flopped in these last two episodes and Jae Joon was among those that irritated me most. He really needed to be one way or the other, either a complete scumbag or a wounded hero but the fact that they tried to make him both, didn’t jive with me.
Tanya: Somebody give that man a hug! You’re right though. I know people can have a change of heart, and often do, but for continuity of the character just, no. If it’s going to happen, it shouldn’t have been in the last two episodes. They stuck with it for that long… It should have flip-flopped in like Episode 12 if that’s where they were going to go.
Zombie: Truth. I think I could have handled Jae Joon’s flip-flopping if he were the only character to do it but he wasn’t.
Tanya: So basically you’re saying that evil Chairman should have stayed dead and/or evil?
Zombie: Yeah, that would have been better than having him lying in a hospital bed, a year after his surgery, attempting to apologize for all of his years of wrongdoings like he’s some sort of saint. Seriously? That’s where he ends up after all of this crazy? I just don’t buy it.
Tanya: I don’t buy his overachiever’s “I apologized to everyone who has had a suit against us” spiel. Honestly, how long was he in charge of that hospital? How many of the people are dead and may not even have family that’s alive anymore? Furthermore, why is he in the hospital a year later?!
Zombie: One of the many mysteries of this drama, though not quite as head-scratching as how Cha Jin Soo managed to drag himself out of that lake with a seemingly fatal gunshot wound and back into Hoon’s life at the very moment Hoon thought he was safe. Because that makes total sense! At least I was half expecting that one…
Tanya: I flipped that table too! I was just like, “This is almost as dumb as hitting Park Dong Joo with a car in the last episode of Angel Eyes.” There were so many other ways to deal with the Prime Minister and his lackeys. In fact, so many of his lackeys were trying to prevent Hoon from saving him that they honestly just should have had one of them shoot him. Not Sunglasses, but the guy the President had spying on him would have been perfect.
Zombie: It really would’ve been and he probably would have been a better shot. I will never understand how Cha Jin Soo can shoot the Prime Minister THREE TIMES in the heart at point-blank range and the man still manages to survive.
Tanya: He shouldn’t have, but then again if he would have died we would have called it as too easy. There’s no winning there.
Zombie: Honestly, I would’ve been totally okay with that.
Tanya: Speaking of ridiculous, as much as I hate Jae Hee, how many times are they going to make that poor girl hang from a bridge? I actually felt bad for her for a few seconds. And then I remembered the emotionally charged yo-yo she made Hoon and I decided that I am just going to dislike her to the end.
Zombie: You are far more benevolent than I because I never once felt sorry for that girl as she dangled from that bridge. In fact, the only thing I wondered is how she managed to survive another point-blank shot by Cha Jin Soo.
Tanya: His accuracy is comparable to a Stormtrooper apparently. Phew-phew!
Zombie: Pretty much! Too bad he’s the only character that managed to make it to that galaxy far, far away. Grrrr! I had such a huge list of bad guys I wanted to see dead by the end and Cha Jin Soo was the only one who actually managed to die (twice). What’s up with all of this bad guy redemption and/or being brought to justice? Where’s the fun in that? Am I crazy for thinking that sometimes the bad guys should just stay bad and die?
Tanya: Not at all… which actually brings us back to Jae Joon again. A year later and what is this nonsense?!
Zombie: He’s a lawyer? Really? Because it’s just that easy to become a lawyer when you’ve already got a medical degree???
Tanya: I don’t care if he actually saved the Chairman in the end. If I were Soo Hyun I definitely would not have been holding his hand on a hill. Like, “Thanks for letting me know Hoon’s alive, but you can still just go die.”
Zombie: Oh goodness! I don’t know if I’m emotionally ready to start talking about Soo Hyun yet. I’m still sobbing over the crappy way things ended for her. Because having her heart-broken by Hoon wasn’t bad enough, then he has to go and “die” and leave her mourning his death for a year. On top of all of that, she gets stuck with the token love interest who just so happens to be a jerk who played her for years in his desperate attempt to bring down her family…
Tanya: Can I just say that I love you for putting that so accurately? I have nothing to do here.
Zombie: But it doesn’t stop there! Said jerk has to reappear after a year, attempt to patch things over with her family and then drag her out to the middle of nowhere to show her that the man she’s been in tears over for over a year is actually alive and well. AND THEN, he has to make her watch Hoon and Jae Hee reunite AGAIN. ASDFJKLASDFJKSLAFLDAFDJAKLDFJSAKDLFJ Because yeah, I just can’t even… All I want to know is what did Soo Hyun ever do to deserve all of this? RAWR!
Tanya: She must have killed the emperor in a past life. Honestly. I’m happy to see Hoon’s mom is still being cared for though! And Chang Yi finally explained her deal.
Zombie: Because we didn’t already figure that one out. It was pretty obvious she was fighting to hold back her feelings for Hoon but I suppose it was nice to have it explained anyway.
Tanya: So let’s find some good points after spending 10 weeks with this show. My admiration of Lee Jong Suk’s talent has been reconfirmed.
Zombie: Seriously! I was completely blown away by his performance, it was truly fantastic. Also, I love how this drama kept me constantly guessing, trying to figure out what was going to happen next. There were many weeks when I thought things would go one way and they ended up going someplace else and, for the most part, that was a good thing (just not at the end…).
Tanya: That is true! They did well as far as keeping the story moving and unpredictable…. at least in the long run. Although there were times we had a theory for the next week that was totally wrong, so even short-term!
Zombie: Plus, we had several characters that were pretty dang awesome… Hoon, obviously. Sunglasses, for sure. Soo Hyun was probably one of the best second female leads I’ve ever come across and one of the strongest female characters in the history of K-dramas…
Tanya: I am so happy that even though her character was emotionally broken, because she was, she was still authentic. She knew she had challenges, but just didn’t care. Her “conquer everything” attitude, especially when it came to her family and work, was refreshing. I am so happy she didn’t 180 and become demonized or a monster in her own right because she could have and I don’t think anyone would have blamed her.
Zombie: I think that’s why I liked her so much. She chose to be the better person and she never let anyone get her down. Did she have moments of vulnerability? Yes but they never broke her spirit, which was a nice change of pace considering most females in a drama are damaged, almost beyond repair, before the end. It was nice to see a woman who faced her challenges and became stronger, for once and I really hope to see more characters in Drama Land follow suit in the future.
Tanya: Last order of business…. Zombie rating (in honor of another successful Hallyu Zombie Drama Review)! I’m going to go with a 4 actually. Good. Could have been a bit better, but I’m not unsatisfied overall.
Zombie: I too, have to give this one a 4. I was hooked right away, enjoyed the eight out of the ten weeks I spent watching it and would have given it a 5 in a heartbeat, had the ending not inspired the destruction of an entire furniture factory. (All the table flipping!)
Your turn readers! We want to know what you thought of Doctor Stranger’s ending. Was it what you thought it would be? What would you have done differently? Tell us everything in the comments below! Or, you know… Twitter.
You can tweet at us @Hallyu_Tanya and @TheZombieMamma or find us talking about all manner of Hallyu goodness on our blogs: HallyuKnow and ZombieMamma Catch up on all of our previous Doctor Stranger reviews here:
Episodes 1-2: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 3-4: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 5-6: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 7-8: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 9-10: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 11-12: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 13-14: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 15-16: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 17-18: [Part 1] [Part 2]
Episodes 19-20: [Part 1] [Part 2]
I really want to give less than a four, but I think you both are right. I did, in fact, enjoy the series up until the ridiculous ending. I should have stopped watching at episode 18. Anyway, I definitely would want to rewrite the ending just to satisfy my own fantasies. This drama could have been so much more, but the story line was not very deep at all, considering that it talked about all this political drama, revenge, and all these secrets. I loved watching the operations though. I think I really love medical dramas. I’ve already started “Angel Eyes” but in all honesty, I want to watch another Kang So Ra drama! She is awesome!
Well if you need someone to chat with as you work your way through Angel Eyes you know where to find me! I did a weekly review of that one too and felt like I was writing for the crickets. Ha! It’s still a cute drama and totally worth watching and I’d love to hear what you thought of it either while you’re watching it or after you’ve finished. I don’t blame you for wanting to watch another Kang So Ra drama though, she really is amazing! (Oh and btw, I’m with you on rewriting the ending for Doctor Stranger, I think we could have come up with a much better ending than the one we were given!
Oh cool – I put off Angel Eyes because I can’t stand Gu Hye Sun, but since the beginning episodes were “childhood” actors, I was able to bear it. I am in the adult story now and I think I can tolerate seeing Gu Hye Sun on screen. Ha! I will check out those reviews. People say that Dream High 2 is terrible, but Kang So Ra is in it, but I won’t watch it yet until I finish Dream High, the original series as I am still in the middle of it.
You really need to finish both Dream High series! I don’t care what anyone says about them, I absolutely loved them. (Then again, I’m a total sucker for high school dramas and musicals so, you know…) 😉
I really abandoned the Dream High series for the longest time because I couldn’t understand Suzy’s character from the beginning. I couldn’t forgive her for the way Suzy’s character treated Eunjung’s character. What kind of best friends are they? She’s too ungrateful. It’s really hard to finish a series when the heroine is unlikeable. After I got past the first few episodes (which took a lot of willpower), I started gaining interest again. Then, Eunjung seems to be the evil one now. I ~ don’t know about this series. So weird. This whole thing reminds me of summer art camp minus the love dramas and rivalries. So, I’m guessing, since you like high school dramas, you will watch “Hi! School, Love On”? Seems interesting, right?