Shows I could not finish – the music-themed ones

Do You Like Brahms? (2020)

 

poco a poco, getting to know each other little by little

I was excited about watching Park Eun-bin in another show, as well as its classical music theme.  However, there were too few proper music scenes in the first part and I stopped after four sad episodes.  It was not so much because of the missing music but more because I didn’t have the patience to wait for Song-ah (Eun-bin) and Joon-young (Kim Min-jae) to extricate themselves from separate love triangles and get together.  A few episodes plus another few, I assumed it would take, and that would be too many episodes of having to endure the show’s moodiness and misery, especially in Joon-young’s life (but my goodness, Kim Min-jae as a rapper 😲).  Also, the other four main characters did not engage me at all.  The violin repair guy was the best of the lot but that wasn’t enough. 

– Do you like Brahms? – No… 

I liked how the episode titles had musical terms but it was over for me at episode 4 – Non troppo, not too much. 

poor Song-ah is unfairly sent home by the conductor,
Joon-young crashes his music score to stop the humiliation... when it all starts 💜

Pity to miss the performance scenes but I found Song-ah’s graduation recital and real prodigy Ko So-hyun’s part on YouTube and also enjoyed TwoSetViolin’s review of episodes 1 and 2.

 

16 episodes, SBS

 

Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol (2020)

 

Another music-themed show I was excited to start but there was even less music in this one in its early stages – just a little tinkling on the piano and Go Ara’s rendition of Do do sol sol la la sol, not the most captivating of piano performances and in fact, rather pretentious, I thought.  

 

The show didn’t seem to have its own spin on the rich-doting-daddy’s-business-has-collapsed storyline.  Ra-ra’s trials didn’t evoke that much empathy and Go Ara’s portrayal didn’t engage me either.  I thought Lee Jae-wook (playing Sunwoo Joon) did well but here again, there didn’t appear to be much of a spin on the rich-boy-tired-of-his-family’s-shenanigans theme.  Special mention for Shin Eun-soo, playing Ha-young, the teenage girl who had a crush on him.  She was more interesting and more strongly portrayed than Ra-ra.

 

While both Joon and the doctor Eun-seok (Kim Joo-hun) were inexplicably drawn to Ra-ra, I wasn’t and after about two and a half episodes, I could not continue.

 

16 episodes, KBS

 

Soundtrack #1 (2022)

I fared far worse here.  I liked Seon-woo (Park Hyung-sik), his photography, his studio, his friend’s apartment, the café, and so on BUT I couldn’t care less about Eun-soo writing her lyrics, and it appeared that she lacked the talent for the job anyway.  The way Han So-hee played the character annoyed me no end.  She isn’t very natural and came across as trying too hard.  Also, she has this smirk-y look, and if she plays the character more convincingly, we might forget about her naturally occurring smug look, irrelevant as it is to most scenes, but she doesn’t.  I thought I could make it through four episodes of visually appealing scenes but I couldn’t.

4 episodes, on Disney+

 

Still on the lookout for music-themed shows!