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Episode 3 – 9 August 2025
Episode 4 – 16 August 2025
Episode 5 – 23 August 2025
Episode 6 – 30 August 2025
Episode 7 – 6 September 2025
Episode 8 – 13 September 2025
Episode 9 – 20 September 2025
Episode 10 – 27 September 2025
Episode 11 – 4 October 2025
Episode 12 – 11 October 2025
Episode 13 – 18 October 2025
Episode 14 – 25 October 2025
Episode 15 – 1 November 2025
Episode 16 – 8 November 2025
Enjoy the show!
I’m sharing my solitary journey as a K-drama writer. I just finished Ep50, which is totally monstrous. But as I go through the episodes, I notice some things. For example, the first 13 episodes were 25 minutes long (though some might be 30). Then I switched to a 40-45 minute format on purpose. (no full image per dialogue anymore)
But since maybe episode 37, my episodes have increased in length, to 50 or 55 minutes. It turns out like that because I structure the episode around the cliffhanger. And I make quite a few misjudgments. And around Ep42 and after, it gets even worse—I think I’m beyond an hour. For episode 50, maybe even 70 minutes.
I’m glad I’m not a pro, because that would be problematic for a channel wanting fixed-length episodes, even if nowadays there’s some leeway and channels produce episodes of varying durations (but respect to all the greats who produced screenplays of exactly one hour before).
Where does it come from? Well, I rewrite and spot a weak scene (long but indispensable). I redo it better and drastically shorten it, and then I tell myself “damn, this episode will be too short,” then I spot scenes from the next episode and tell myself “hell yeah, in fact the cliffhanger should end on this to be ten times better.” And I pull that content forward, except that in the meantime, I rewrite the good scenes too and realize they were rushed in the previous draft, so now they take more screentime, AND with the magic of the latest ideas, I also have other new scenes that rock. And ultimately, I find myself with the total screentime exceeding again. There, I don’t blame myself too much anymore since it’s been like this since episode 37.
Hi @WE! I read you last week but didn’t have time to reply.
I understand your process of writing and then editing yourself. I find it a fun and yet painful process of pruning.
I rewatched today’s episode and found it quite funny with a great cliff hanger!
Hi GB.
I ended Ep51, I’m on 52. Ending should be 54.
@WE, you mean you aim to end at Episode 54? Or you edited it from 54 to 51 episodes?
We start our party NOW!!!
Hi @WE, @GB, we start.
This episode has the dream that seems to be shared by 3 persons. Suddenly Hong Ju is no longer alone dreaming those dreams.
@GB, I think last episode will be Ep54.
I made an error when I started the last part, thinking it would be 14-16 episodes. In real, it will be 12, but quite long ones.
Now we go in So-Hyun situation and should get the famous dream needed for this drama to be “While you were sleeping”.
Kim So-Hyun is so cute in this drama, I totally crraaaaaaaack. Plus, she’s excellent actress too, I think more experienced than Suzy at this time.
Hi @WE, @GB. I didn’t read this until this morning (here). Thanks for sharing. I struggle with revisions. Poetry, other than finding the right word, seems to be a process of elimination, but what to get rid of. It’s usually non-linear (at least my poems seldom have a narrative structure). I am thinking of expanding my repertoire and trying some other forms (essays?), but am struggling with that too.
We are in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm here, so I may unexpectedly drop off.
Hi @FF! I’m at the part where Seung Won is with Soo Yeon.
@WE @GB @FF I am at 7 minutes
Im here
@WE yes the dream…. now HJ and JC can compare their dreams… from her dream they can even locate where Seong Won and Soo Yeon were.
Hi @SD
We have feathers falling rather than snowflakes.
Hi FF.
Did I made an error? The dream was previous episode?
Not the one of HS, because we see it now. It was probably hidden.
The directing is so punchy in the fight scene.
+ close-up on the musical thing mesuring tempo, to get the idea that the lifetime of the bad father is now stopped.
@MM you’re ahead of me!!!
They found the 2 moons and managed to locate the kids just from that!!! What if they had got the wrong apartment?!?!?
I am at the part where the one cop asks YT what is keeping him awake at night that he is dozing on the job.
Hi SD, MM, IF.
Trepidant vrvrvrmmvrrm music.
Hi @IB, glad you can join us!
We’re at timestamp 7 minutes now.
sequence. she tries to change the future, ep1. he tries, ep 2, they both get together to change future, and then number 3 will try again on his own first.
are we at 10mn?
Oh nice catch @WE, the lifeline of the bad father now stopped. I got a late start. Stopped to check the amount of water running down the hill.
I love the pacing in this episode, the light feathers, the broken glass and then the sudden, fractured scenes where nothing is quite clear but the ending where the younger brother stares down from the balcony in dismay.
The fat cop need to poopoo.
I must say, this comedy situation didn’t make me laugh. I’m not sure if it helps for better or worse.
@MM it’s because the police stopped the car that Woo Tak sees JC running across the street and it bugs him enough to turn around.
A lot of funny scenes with police partner needing the loo and thinking that WT is responding to his need when he’s thinking about his dream and about helping JC, who had once saved him.
And hello @MM, @FF, @IB
@IB I’m at the fire alarm going off.
Poor Sunbaenim, having a bad stomach while on patrol.
Call me stupid watcher and fan-boy, but Kim So-Hyun is the actress I could watch in any drama, even bad ones, and by the way she did bad ones among the whole.
Hi @SD! I saw that you finally noticed that we responded to your poem. LOL.
I like that here, Woo Tak saves HJ from being (rightly) accused of setting off the fire alarm. He knew that her move had saved a man’s life and a boy’s future.
The title of this episode is secretly greatly. I wonder if this is a translated Korean expression. It was also th name of a movie. I will take a look when I have a moment.
Mildly funny that HJ is blind in her dreams and cannot see the advertisements (only seems them as ‘moons’)
@FF there are these funny policeman scenes… To stuff that the others say about where to go … he says he wants the toilet but no one hears or cares … in the car WT says he’s alright that HJ forgot him but it’s his poor partner man who is responding: “I’m not alright!”
I wonder if it would be just better to go to then end of the joke, going trashy and make the guy shit in the car. With a bad smell for everyone here.
@WE, I’ve watched Kim So Hyun in many shows, but never noticed if they were all that bad. She played the ‘bad’ person in one sageuk-modern fusion series, Rooftop Prince, I think it was.
So-Hyun is so nitpicking, annoying princess. lol. Expecting her every whim satisfied.
@GB, yes funny scene and WT just completely disregard the agony of his sunbaenim. I am surprised that he can hold it in for so long.
@WE, you are a super fan of Kim So Hyun. She is an experienced actress, has been acting since young and she turn out so pretty as an adult.
@MM I wanted to mention the names of the episodes too. So far the names are plays on the names of other shows or movies. I think I watched Secretly, Greatly (with the guy actor Kim Soo Hyun in it) before.
Last week’s episode it was “The Good, the Bad and the Weird” LOL.
Is there a pun with”accident so that the mom covers the daughters ears in the patrol car? Something to do with dating?
@GB, yeah, but had more screentime in Moon embrace the sun, as the bad girl in Sageuk, 6 episodes of childhood.
Love alarm and Radio romance were quite bad dramas.
@WE, Soo Yeon or So Hyun here is just a bratty kid, not wanting to appear needy when she’s really in need. Not wanting to be grateful when maybe in her heart she really is grateful. Possibly secretly and greatly grateful!!!
@IB, I think ‘accident’ probably refers to a couple getting intimate when they shouldn’t or getting pregnant out of wedlock. So mum covered her innocent daughter’s ears!!!
@GB, yeah, but you can’t help when you fall in love with a girl like this, like JC brother. Hey hey, he’s doomed! 😀
@WE @FF, now we get the literal ‘shit’ joke LOLOL.
HJ’s mum comes out with a curler in her hair while JC clips back his fringe when making breakfast. All is not going well with JC as he gets hurt making breakfast.
Mystery here: who is the cow who dropped the big shit in the toilet?? 😀
@IF The accident initially referred to is about having s**. That is what the mom was thinking when she covered her daughter’s ears.
@WE I know who the cow is LOL but I’m not going to tell you.
Intersting detail there is aphoto of the moom on the wall in JC’s room
moon
@MM did you notice the nice scene transitions? The outside moon merges with the moon on JC’s wall.
I’m at the part where instead of 2 moons, the fogged up 2 round lenses of the glasses HJ wears stop her from seeing where JC is in the cafe.
pink pj HJ arguing with daughtewr — two efforts to reestablish authority “huh!…Huh!” very loudly and then the real kicker “Yah!” but niether works (humor, shes just a girl, and in pink pjs) and daughter is no pushover.
It’s interesting that JC already bought and applied medication on his wounds but submits to HJ’s ministrations anyway. It’s a first proper step towards friendship and he starts to really notice her now.
Scene transition from outside to rainy day to the rainy day in the past. We see the young JC and his father.
@GB, so much talk about sh** in this episode, I enjoyed Lee Jong Suk in this drama. I think he really tall, taller than WT and YB
Poorly timed comment from JC when his mother is threatening to kill them all. Lawyer logic not right for the emotion of the scene.
@FF I’m at the place where HJ tells JC the lotto numbers.
Young JC had decided to make change, starting with his hair colour but was that the last encounter with his father?
Is the charcoal briquette a foreshadowing? I cannot remember how JCs mom dies.
@GB, JC went to buy the Lotto numbers but tore the ticket when HJ told him that it is a lie. It turns out that the lotto numbers are real.
2 grim realities interrupted by HJ. 1, The cycle of no escape from domestic violence while man holds the financial power backed up by reputational tyranny. 2. the truth that our guy cannot go against his boss and department practice unless he is very ingenious, which he is not. So HJ makes up (or not?) the lottery ticket number and drags the little family back to the restaurant.
@FF, yes young JC changed his hair colour. I wonder if he and his father entered the convenience store to buy an umbrella because JC was without one that day.
@MM I was wondering about the mother’s death too. I don’t seem to remember how she died too.
@IF: yeah, the loto ticket, turned to be a fake from HS. But… luck? Coincidence? We don’t know, but in a further episode, the numbers are the good one! Only… no one care. 🙂
getting splashed by fluid from a frying pan is a likely experience for everyone. Great detail
YB nerves break, not to the point to raze his table yet, but I think it will come! Kim Soon-Ok’s dramas like.
Gossip spread at speed of light, we can’t even see the end of a scene, that there is a Gossip insert. lol. 🙂
Yay! Pro Shin says to go to the centre of the ring of thorns(.), i.e. to change the future by changing your mental fencing. From within yourself, to see it a different way or at least see avenues of choice. Neither JC nor HJ really are there yet…the fearless 3 keep battering away at reality with blunt instruments.
The 2 girls have it out about the law around domestic abuse cases.
Here in Canada it was changed a few years ago so the police can lay charges.
WT is actually way more the most subtle of the group of dream chasers. He thinks about it and tries just one small change. Is he the more poweerful dreamer or is this the first foreshadow…
The disaster spreads to the car sellers, asking to buy an expensive phone for his kid. Ayaaa. 🙂
The umbrella, oh @GB very clever, backwards and forwards. You are the split screen.
We get the backstory of JC and his dad. Father buys him an umbrella for the rain and gets him to leave the store. He should have called for police backup instead of trying to handle the soldier by himself.
We have now another link between JC and HS (previous one, Ep2, in the funeral room). Now it’s worst: the same military guy who killed HS father also killed JC father. Well, it’s what we call a STRONG link.
Umbrella dropped in slow motion…
@WE, “NO ONE CARES” bec we are just blown away by intervening events visually or plotwise…poor JC, he is really buffeted around. He isnt as much of a dolt as the teenage Nam Da Reum, but he really didnt move past his dad’s death very well…
and now his dad’s columbarium.
@IB many falling things like feathers and rain to denote things falling apart in reality or a dream.
I like that this Writer brings up the question of how the same situation is viewed differently. JC does not see his dad as a hero and resents his heroic death, while everyone else approves what the dad did to save lives.
Similarly JC’s view of So Hyun’s father’s case is not the same as sunbae Hee Min’s view.
@WE we get a powerful gathering of all the characters in the restaurant now.
Woo Tak is able to engineer a change in a situation that would turn tragic, and sits back to watch if it could change the dream he had.
Strong Link. The death of the two dads and the angry soldier. Now WT is only linked by his non-death at YB’s hands. Zombie life.
like how he i using th lotery number as an incantation
The cop plays alone, and I think his method is dangerous. Lack of awarness for preventing danger. He just want to coldly see the scene and check if his dream changed that. The guy’s not as good as we think.
@IB the great cliff hanger ending leaves us wondering what WT’s dream was.
The ending of showing Jung Il Song’s columbarium is a nice parallel to how we saw HJ’s father’s columbarium too. The photos JC took of his report card (without fabricating the grade), he and his brother together, and his success in reaching his aim to be a prosecutor show us what he’s telling his dad. That he’s doing well and keeping his promises. (Similar to what the photos in HJ’s dad’s niche also showed.)
Strong Link. The deaths of the two dads linked by the angry soldier, and by the baseball while kids are at the adjacent funerals.
But WT is only linked by his non-death at YB’s hands on the wheel. Zombie life? The first foreshadowing…Or, he still must meet an end by the logic of everything must come true…
@IB we will find out later why WT also gets to dream those dreams.
oops posted twice bec of lack of trust and not seeing that intervening comments put it earlier…..
Today otherwise am happier in using the mechanics of this interchange.
Yet, why cant I autofill my name and gmail — anyone have a clever way to do this?
@IB I think there’s a setting in the browser to retain or enable a drop down to select from. I just have to click on the name and email and select from the auto-fill.
See you all next week 🙂
Now it is abvious to me that WT shows up to ask JC for dinner because he has an agenda
Pun of 3 flying dragone-trend to use names of dramas and movies @GB as you said
Great cliff hanger!
I just realized that Actor Lee Sang Yeob was the serial killer in Signal! I did not recognize him, relied on mydramalist. He is a better actor than is apparent from this drama thus far.
Getting near the time I have to leave for a short day trip. Enjoyed reading everyone’s comments although I did not comment much myself today. I kept stopping to check on the effects of the storm.
Heavy rain finally stopped. The neighborhood has large ponds everywhere since the drainage has backed up.
Bye @FF, @IB, @MM, @SD… see you next week!
@GB I noticed the moon on his wall when he entered the room and then noticed it again at the scene transition but did not observe carefully. TY for drawing my atteention to that.
She looks so nerdy with her steamed up glasses.
By @WE, @GB, @MM, @FF, @IB. Loved the music at the end of the scene in the restaurant. Really ratcheted up the tension. Then as seems to be typical with this drama, a scene with sweet gentle music (the opening music is upbeat, at least in my version with the opening credits) — as we see the columbarium for JC’s father and we understand that JC’s selfies are notes to his father and not narcissism–very sweet.
TY @GB
I’ve to go. Bye everybody!