Romance

As suspected, Episode 10 of The Potato Lab is indeed the obligatory one where problems between the leads threaten to upend their entire relationship.

How a show navigates its pesky middle episodes usually says a lot about it. You expect a captivating opening, and you expect an ending to provide all the payoff you’re looking for. But it’s rare that your average show has a really stand-out Episode 9.

Fundamentally, The Potato Lab continues to work in Episodes 7 & 8 about as well as it has worked up to this point, and in largely the same way.

I’m assuming that I know what the end of The Potato Lab is going to be already because it’s an enemies-to-lovers rom-com and they all tend to work the same in a macro sense.

Sometimes a show like The Potato Lab comes along and works almost in spite of itself. It’s an odd phenomenon.

There’s an easy charm to The Potato Lab that feels like alchemy; narrative gold from leaden rom-com tropes.

I get it. I get why The Potato Lab works, and it’s a surprisingly obvious realization, highlighted really capably by Episode 3.

Picture This has all the traits of a failed romantic comedy, but some elements hold it up at times, making it a decent option for...

Oddly, my concern with The Potato Lab is now that the weirdness of it might put people off. And that’s an interesting position to be in as early as Episode 2, since I’m still making a few assumptions about where it might all be heading.

Look, it was virtually a given that When the Stars Gossip was going to have a lackluster ending given how increasingly bad it has become...

Like many people, I can’t wait for When the Stars Gossip to end. And while that might sound a little harsh, don’t worry about it, since I firmly believe that the show itself can’t wait to end either.

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.

I’m not exactly a soothsayer, but as soon as When the Stars Gossip returned to Earth, I just knew it had nowhere else to really go.

To my surprise, at least four movie titles are titled The Most Beautiful Girl in the World. So, I want to clarify that I’m talking...

Now and again, a romantic comedy movie is released where it’s not necessarily bad, but nothing is going for it. That can be applied to...

Given I’m professionally obligated to persist with shows long beyond their expiration dates, it isn’t a new feeling to be almost resentful of the time I spend with When the Stars Gossip.

Remarkably, as of Episode 11, there are still five episodes of When the Stars Gossip remaining. What on earth are they going to be about?

I admit that I was apprehensive before watching Season 4 of Sweet Magnolias. I loved seasons 1 and 2 but wasn’t amazed by Season 3....

As of Episode 9, When the Stars Gossip has pretty much lost me. It’s a shame, really, since there have been so many glimmers of potential that the fact the K-Drama doesn’t seem to be cohering into anything feels like a waste.

Well, Ryong’s extraterrestrial isolation didn’t last long, did it? There I was thinking that When the Stars Gossip might improve a little after taking a fairly major swerve.