Summary
When the Stars Gossip is still idling in Episode 14 and trying its very best to introduce last-minute drama, but nothing is really landing as it should.
The weekly death of When the Stars Gossip is becoming quite a thing to behold, with Episode 14 hammering yet another nail into the coffin of a woeful drama that has, through sheer force of its ineptitude, begun tanking the South Korean TV market altogether. It’s unsurprising though. The whole thing was terribly misguided even at its best and has become in the last few weeks a shadow even of that. The previous episode was dreadfully inert, and this one’s no better.
But the same problems persist in a slightly adjusted form. The show’s so determined to conjure late drama out of thin air that it isn’t concerned about whether things make sense. I’ve been mentioning for weeks that Ryong’s phone has been looming around as a guaranteed form of conflict without even realizing that this isn’t the way phones work. I was too busy moaning about everything else.
I don’t care about realism, by the way, or I wouldn’t have made it this far, but I do care about basic common sense and structural coherency, and it really does feel at this stage that things are happening just because there’s an episode quota to fill. Again, it isn’t so much about the particulars as it is the underlying thought process. If no attention is being paid to the basic logic of how things work, it likely isn’t being paid to more complicated character motivations and relationship dynamics either.
I say “probably” like it’s up for debate – we already know that the show isn’t paying attention to these things. The subplot about Eve’s parentage was proof of that. Nobody cares. This is why Episode 14 of When the Stars Gossip opens with a mouse funeral. And it’s why there’s even a bit more of the goddamn lottery ticket subplot. What else is there to be doing?
I feel a bit bad for Eve since this is the human drama where I think a better show would have probably excelled, but the whole thing feels so last-minute and needlessly contrived given its connection to Ryong that nothing really takes. Eve is due to leave for space again in three days so there’s a countdown feeling when it comes to whether she’ll manage to resolve her personal subplots, but you never really feel that urgency.
Anyway, the bigger deal is Ryong’s phone and the obviously incriminating message on it being discovered, which looks set to cause a major scandal if word about the illegally created embryo gets out. There’s no good explanation either, though Ryong tries to give one, claiming that he just created another embryo on Earth. Given how easy this is to disprove it was barely worth the effort, but the key dramatic hook here isn’t what happens to Ryong’s reputation, but the fact he’s willing to personally and solely shoulder the blame for everything, protecting both Eve – who was genuinely oblivious anyway – and the MZ Group – who weren’t – at the expense of himself.
If you squint a little you can see how this would be a powerful move for a character to make, but we’re so far past the point of caring that none of it lands in the manner it’s supposed to – plus it isn’t the first time we’ve seen Ryong do something similar.
When the Stars Gossip Episode 14 ends with Eve being put in a position where she has to weigh up her loyalty to Ryong versus the integrity of South Korea’s space program, and seemingly chooses the latter. Again, you can see a world in which this would be engaging. But this isn’t that world – and more to the point, does anyone really think it’ll stick?
