Bullet Point Review: Descendents of The Sun & Goblin

As Baradwaj Rangan has stated in the first two points in his review of the Malayalam movie Premam, it does sometimes become tiresome to write a detailed review of a show or a movie; especially when you are an architecture student and finding time for your blog can be troublesome. Hence, I thought of putting forward my thoughts and opinions in this format.

I recently concluded watching Goblin, the highest rated drama of 2016, beating out Descendants of the Sun, which had aired just months ago. And though I didn't enjoy either of the shows, I wanted to share how similar both the shows were, and how they could be paving a new way for the upcoming dramas.

• Did I enjoy them both?
  Not really, but at least I sat through the Goblin and finished the whole season.
• Both shows have a great start. They both have lead actors returning to the small screens after a long hiatus, and both establish a solid storyline within the first few episodes, which could have led the drama in a more tighter version of what we saw.
• Both the leads are together by the second episode; and why I emphasis this is, is because in dramaland, it usually takes half a season for the pair to get together, but is then followed by a long strenuous process of breaking up and patching up. Here, no time is wasted in getting the characters to meet, and express their feelings towards one another, so that we can concentrate more on the main plot.
• The lead's love story in both shows are influenced by external factors, things beyond their control. In Descendants of the Sun, it was the war that brought them back together, and also kept them apart from each other, while in Goblin, it was fate, destiny (unmyeong), grim reapers, and Lee El (in her bright red suit and lips) that control the proceedings of the story. 
• The contradictions of the lead characters was interesting to see it play out. Song Joon Ki's character is a soldier, and as he says so himself, his job is to kill, while Song Hye Kyo plays a doctor, a job entitled to save lives. Throughout the story, both characters come across various situations that gives them moments of indecision in choosing the right thing to do, because clearly it is different for both of them.
  In Goblin, Ji Eun Tak has to fulfil her destiny of taking Kim Shin's life, or has to end her own. A contradiction, which should have evoked all the tension and suspense in the drama, but this issue only rose periodically, with a lot going on in between. So when the moment of choice does come, it is too fast to register that it has already happened, and to feel anything about it.
• Not much family background is given to many characters in both the dramas. In Goblin, we do get Ji Eun Tak's mother, aunt and cousins, and Kim Shin's sister, and in Descendants of the Sun, Yoon Myeong-Joo's father, but eventually in the story, it is all about what is happening amongst the set group of characters. 
• Bromance. Enough said.
• No school bullies and gossiping ahjummas.
• A rehash of the stories set in the same genre. Descendants of the Sun could have been set in Korea as well, but by sending them off to a foreign land, the Korean characters are alienated, but brings them (and us) closer to one and another. Goblin is similar to 'My love from the Stars', in terms of both leads being thousand year old, and meeting the same faced lover both in the past and present. In Goblin, the rules are already set in the first episode. There is no mystery to why this prophecy came out, and shows rolls out on how this was achieved.