Letter #22: My Love from Another Star
Good
afternoon, Erin.
April
is the cruelest month.
…is
something I totally should have said in my last letter, but—to that point—it
had been so long since I’d had cause to remember this that I simply forgot to
worry about the toils of April. (It’s a line from T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, but I’ve found my Aprils
generally suck.) And it would have been appropriate, given my reaction to 100 Days My Prince, too. But, alas, ‘tis
May, now. So I can’t use it.
Woe
be unto us all.
In
other news: I spontaneously decided to finally watch The Batman in the midst of a weekend marathon of this show. Which
was an appropriate choice, I think, because, in many ways, My Love from Another Star is a superhero story.
It
was an inappropriate choice, though,
because I started it at midnight, and it’s apparently a three-hour movie. Oof.
Anyway,
the subject of today’s letter is, of course, My Love from Another Star. So, without further ado:
1.
Did you know this show has, like, 15 different titles? DramaCool was trying to
get me to watch a Thai version of it, when I looked for this specific title. But
I eventually found it. (That’s right—because I’m the world’s greatest
detective. High five for remembering!)
2.
This was a pretty good show, I gotta say. You’re right that the “old TV” nature
of it that makes it way more melodrama-y and clonky footsteps-y soap opera are
sometimes hard to get past, but it wasn’t so bad that it spoiled any of my fun.
(Though, if I’m honest, it probably contributed to some of why I couldn’t watch
more than three episodes in a row.)
3.
Part of what I thought was so fun about this was, in addition to being
frequently like a superhero story, how much like Goblin this show was. Which, fine, is probably less unique a story
concept/structure than I might have realized—but, like, this show didn’t have
Eun-tak. So…0/10.
4.
Handful of folks I recognized, in this:
· Main Guy from It’s Okay… as Prof. Alien.
5.
Y’know, I can’t say that I have a favorite character or even a real candidate
for #BestGirl. I guess Lead Girl was the most amusing, in those moments when
the actress was allowed to flex her comedy chops. BUT…I’m gonna say it was
Sunny. Because, at this point, it feels like coming home, every time she shows
up in something. (Which is funny, in a way, because the our first “glimpse” of
her is other characters talking about her, and I had this thought that,
whomever they were talking about, I’d wind up liking her best.)
5A.
Actually, wait—I quite like Lead Girl’s little brother. For some reason. And
Sunny’s brother was pretty good. I was always happy to see his part of the
story pop up. (And not just because his name is Yoo-suk.)
6.
Relatedly, I kinda love how overly scummy they make the Evil Brother. The gross
hairstyle, the constant exaggerated glowering. He’s like a proper telenovela
villain. Well, minus the mustache. But also a scheming comic book supervillain
type, in a lot of ways. Again, minus the mustache.
7.
Speaking of scum, though…gotta love that portrayal of the press. (And, again,
“some people have said” is not a legitimate premise for news coverage, you
soulless jackals.)
8.
Just getting my obligatory “I love ye olde poofy dresses so so so much!!!”
comment out of the way.
9.
PROF. ALIEN: “Men, when upset or grieving, drift to self-destructive
habits.”
DARYL: “Pfft—sure, pal. Now, lemme just pause this while I force-feed myself an entire pizza and then pass out on the floor.”
10.
Y’know, I saw a UFO, once. When I was a kid. My sister and I were playing
wiffle ball in the backyard, and there was a spinning, silvery disc hovering in
the sky. It looked there were portholes, sort of, on one side but not the
other, which is how we could tell it was spinning. And, as I say, my sister saw
it, too, so I didn’t imagine it. Now, whether it was one of theirs (aliens) or
one of ours (secret military space program), who’s to say. But it definitely
didn’t send down a handsome man to save me from falling off a cliff, if that’s
any indication of anything.
11.
I mentioned Suzy, before, because she makes an appearance, but I actually had
her down in my notes well before that, because this show—and it’s not the only
one—likes to default to her as an example of a hot celebrity. I just thought
that was worth noting. Apparently she’s quite the deal.
11A.
If I remember correctly, I wasn’t bowled over by her in Start-Up, so I’ve basically just assumed that this is one of those
scenarios where I’m just not part of the crowd, when it comes to who’s hot or
whatever. Which, y’know, whatever. But when I saw her in this (and didn’t know
it was her), I was like, “Wait, who’s this random pretty girl?” Now, I dunno if
it’s the seven-ish years of aging between the two shows, my immediate
smittenness with Big Sister pushing her aside, or just that she had a different
haircut in Start-Up, but I dug her,
here. I mean, I went back after I found out it was her, and I could see all the
little things that I guess I didn’t find attractive about her, but I kinda
found them…cute, I guess, here. Like the “imperfections” were part of what made
her pretty. Or…maybe it really is just the haircut thing. She had bangs in Start-Up. Maybe I have a thing for
foreheads. I dunno.
11B.
…yeah, I don’t know why I felt the need to go into that. But clearly I didn’t
feel the need to delete it.
11C.
Oh, but the reason the show brings her up initially is because she’s referenced
in someone’s screenname in the comment section of a news article that Prof.
Alien is reading. And, because he wants to leave a comment himself, he has to
pick a screenname…which he interprets as just having to write down your
favorite singer. Which I thought was hilarious.
12.
After Sunny’s brother is attacked and ends up in the
hospital, there’s a scene that starts with Sunny’s mom sitting outside the
operating rooms and then Sunny joins her. Except I thought the mom was Sunny,
at first. As in, because I thought she looked like Sunny. Just maybe a little
bit older than I thought she looked in the other scenes, but I legitimately
thought we were seeing her shooting a scene for her drama that required her to
age up a bit. So, hey, good casting choice there. (...though, if MyDramaList is
to be believed, the actress who plays the mom is only 10 years older than
Sunny!)
13.
Y’know, I totally forget Bookstore Friend is even a character until she walks
into a scene. BUT...she’s the star of one of my favorite scenes, which is in
the final episode when the show gives a canonical reason for why her hair's so
short: she keeps having to do the “I've been rejected by a boy!” hair-cutting
ritual every time one of her impossible crushes “rejects” her. Which is hilarious.
14.
Actually, speaking of Bookstore Friend and rejections…the section where she’s
telling Lead Girl that Prof. Alien’s “we can’t be together—I’m an alien!” is the
lamest rejection excuse she’s ever heard reminded me of another story from my
childhood: in 5th grade, I accidentally stumbled into telling people
I was from the future. I’m not, of course, nor was I at the time, but…look, 5th-grade Daryl was not as quick
on his feet as I would eventually become. (Yes—I was once worse than this.)
Once that door was opened, there was no biding time until I could diffuse the
mistake with a joke, just a lot of really unsuccessful attempts to play it cool
so as not to embarrass myself further. Not a fond memory.
15.
I’m kind of shocked to find out that this wasn’t a case of reincarnation, when
it comes to Lead Girl looking just like the girl from the Joseon period. It was
just...a coincidence? Then why have it at all? Did he need to have saved the
girl 400 years ago for it to be believable that he would have saved Lead Girl
as a teen (...tween? wait, how old are they supposed to be?)? He had no reason
to save the girl back then, so why couldn’t that just be the case this time
around? Or was it just that the show needed a series of events to happen that
prevented him from being able to go back to his home planet and settled on all
of that? It just seems like a lot of effort for excuses that don’t really need
to be made, in my opinion. (Though, of course, I’m down for any reason to bring
back the poofy dresses.)
15A.
...son of a gun—I just realized, having typed that out, that this is roughly
the setup for E.T., which is probably (most of) why they overtly reference
the movie. I mean, it’s also about aliens, so it works regardless, but him
getting stranded is the same setup.
15B.
By the way, I like that Lead Girl smacks her brother for watching E.T., ‘cus
I hate that movie. Or, more accurately, adults made us watch it ALL THE TIME,
when I was a little kid, because they were convinced that it was a kid-friendly
film. And I dunno if you've seen it, but it’s harrowing as all get-out for a
little kid. (To say nothing of how hard it was to understand why mentioning the
planet Uranus was supposed to be so funny. “Is it ‘cus it’s not as cool as
Saturn?” I wondered to myself.)
15C.
Also: I liked their sibling dynamic. Specifically, that she frequently kicks
him as a response. Just like my littler little sister does. (I have two younger
sisters. I don’t think I've mentioned that.)
16.
Speaking of the girl from 400 years ago, I like how her parents immediately
assume “he saved me!” must be some kind of hipster slang for “he totally popped
my cherry!” and decide that she and Prof. Alien both have to be killed.
17.
Sunny looks good, here. And also maybe the worst I've ever seen her look? It
mostly varies from scene to scene, early on. (Having seen her in a few things,
now, I think she gets better looking with age, if I'm honest.) But she often
looks good, here, so it made me frown when the show kept insisting that she
wasn’t as pretty as Lead Girl. ‘Cus she totally is. Prettier, even, I would
say.
17A.
...okay, she’s probably not, which gets more apparent as the show goes on and
Lead Girl has moments to smile and let the actress’s natural charisma shine
through. Plus, y’know, all those giant artsy photos at her management’s office.
But I’d still pick you, Sunny!
17B.
Heh, y’know, I read an article about how Sunny said the reason she hasn’t
gotten married is because of IU. Like, you probably already know this, but
apparently (since they’re best friends) IU keeps swaying back and forth saying
that they should totally get married (...not to each other) and then changing a
couple of days later to say pfft—who needs it, and Sunny’s always like, “O-Okay...yeah,
I guess you’re right.” Which made me chuckle.
17C.
Of course you already know that. Why did
I even mention…
18.
You know who else looked pretty good, though? Your guy, Mr. Man x Man.
(When he wasn’t wearing that oversized turtleneck abomination that looked like
a discarded costume from Dune. It’s when he gets out of the hospital. I
don’t know what he was thinking, wearing that. And I don’t care how in-style
turtlenecks are, in Korea. Just...no.)
19.
I’m a little miffed that we never really get context for what class Prof. Alien
is teaching, ‘cus it is weird. I know he’s often just talking about
whatever the show deems thematically relevant, but it’s a pretty eclectic
combination of stuff, from what we see. At least, to me it is.
20.
Similarly: what in the heck are those talking-to-the-camera sections of the
show about? Like, who are they talking to? Why are they doing it? I know it’s
to relay information to the audience without having to incorporate it into the
story proper, but...what’s the conceit, here? I mean, they never explain it. I
don’t like it—and I wouldn’t, even if they did explain it, probably, because I
think it’s kinda lazy as a writing technique (I scolded Our Beloved Summer for
it, too—and it was plot-relevant for them to do it!)...but at least let us know
why it’s happening! Like, there are times when it’s clear that he
or she is answering someone else’s question. I just...what’s up with
that???
21.
Somewhere in the middle of the show’s run, I started laughing about how often
Lead Girl ends up in the hospital. And then, when she ends up there again after
being poisoned, they actually have her mother give an exasperated, “What? She's
in the hospital again?!” which I thought was hilarious.
22.
For a show that was, again, shot very much in that old, almost soap opera-y
way, it had two moments in it that I thought were rad as hell:
24.
There’s a fun moment (for me), in the earlier episodes, where Man x Man takes
Lead Girl up on the Ferris wheel (...which is not the fun part—you know my
stance on Ferris wheels) and basically asks her to marry him. And Prof. Alien,
not wanting to hear the answer she gives him, freezes time. Which made me
laugh, because that’s basically how I handle things I watch that I know are
going to give me second-hand embarrassment. Pause, walk away for a while
(usually to pace in a circle), then cover myself in a blanket so only my eyes
are showing before I hit play. And then pause again almost immediately to walk
in a circle, again.
25.
Just to say...I totally didn’t trust that giant teddy bear. And I was right: it
had a camera in it. Can’t fool the world’s greatest detective!
26.
Oh, I also liked how, when Sunny tells Man x Man to just give up on
Lead Girl (‘cus she keeps rejecting him), he immediately counters by asking if she could do it. Cut to the chase,
there. Very good.
27.
I’m not a fan of the flashbacks that show Prof. Alien influencing famous historical
figures. Stuff like that seems clever, on paper, but I always feel like it
undercuts what the person accomplished. And I don’t like that.
27A.
I’m also not a fan of that scene in Follow That Bird (the ooooold
theatrically-released Sesame Street movie in which Big Bird has to
flee a foster family to return to his friends) where Ernie flies the plane
upside down and causes Bert to lose all the bottle caps in his bottle
cap collection. It’s supposed to be funny. And it is not.
28.
It’s really fortunate that Prof. Alien’s superpowers never go on the fritz
when he needs to use them at important times (like when saving Lead
Girl).
29.
...though I’ll give the show this: the erectile dysfunction analogy they were making
with his inability to use his superpowers when Lead Actress was, um, in the
mood for him to use them was probably the politest iteration of that joke I’ve
ever seen.
30.
Speaking of skills that come and go at convenient times, Lead Girl’s driving is
initially horrendous, but then she’s a professional stunt driver when Prof.
Alien is sick and she wants to get him home.
31.
Y’know what's scary? For as much as they focus on Evil Brother’s one lackey for
carrying out the orders to kill...a lot of people, there are DOZENS of people
who work for him who are absolutely aware that they are doing some small part of something
reeeeeeeaaaally bad for him at various points across the story. Just
framing Prof. Alien for staying at the family vacation home took something like
20 people to pull off. And it wasn’t a matter of only one dude wandering in
after the rest of the folks were innocently cleaning the linens.
32.
The scene where Sunny tries to confront Lead Girl about Prof. Alien being the
dude who saved her in the past is interesting—for two reasons:
33A.
Semi-relatedly: Barnes & Noble totally changed where the manga section of
their store is, and I was very thrown by it, when I went in there to get the
newest volume of Rent-a-Girlfriend. The jerks.
34.
Speaking of: I love that Lead Girl pretty much exclusively reads sexytime
comics.
35.
Continuing on with some stuff about Lead Girl...I loved how tortured her
pronunciation of “sorry” was, every time she said it.
36.
And I want to take a moment to acknowledge perhaps the funniest thing she did,
which was to drunkenly scold her hair for falling in her face and making it
hard to see the number pad to the door lock.
37.
Here’s a detail: Lead Girl’s throw pillows in her living room are these big
gold and black lamé things with
Bible quotes on them. In English. Which I mention because...well, because I
thought it was an unexpected choice for her character, but also because the
sculpture of the Bible quote in front of Hee-do’s house in Twenty-Five
Twenty-One was also in English. And I was wondering if there’s a
particular reason for that.
38. I’m kinda disappointed that Sunny didn’t get
her man, in the end. I mean, she was also kind of awful—kind of understandably,
perhaps—so maybe it was more appropriate that she didn’t. Though, if we’re
honest, the thematic elements that go into that are literally nowhere else in
the story. Everyone else clings to their impossible/”impossible”
dreams.
38A. And, like, can we just consider how bad Man x Man must
feel? He had an uphill battle for the better part of 20 years, and then the
story just drops him from the story the moment Prof. Alien finds a way to come
back to Earth after disappearing. Sheesh.
39. Here’s a fun bit of detail continuity: when evaluating Sunny’s
first episode as the lead of the drama she’s just been kicked off of, Lead Girl
points out that she’s using fake tears, which you can tell by how perfect they
look when they fall. She then talks about where real tears fall from your eyes,
how messy and snotty your nose gets, all that kind of stuff—which, if you skip
ahead to when Prof. Alien rejects her at the lake when he’s ice fishing, is exactly how
she cries: tears from the correct places and a mess of snot running from her
nose.
40. Speaking of: I was genuinely bummed for Lead Girl, when
Prof. Alien kept refusing to accept her affections. That hurt to watch.
41. ...though not as much as it hurt to watch Lead Girl begging
her friends to tell her any stories they had about interacting with Prof.
Alien, after he disappears. That was...oof. Heartbreaking. (And an instance of
both great writing and great acting. Well done, everyone.)
42. Slightly less heartbreaking, though, was Lead Girl’s line about
how the worst kind of love triangle involves competing against a guy’s memory of
another girl. Because you can’t directly compete with someone who isn’t there.
Which is brilliant.
43. I like that everyone on this show had brass door knockers.
Classy stuff.
44. Oh! I don’t know if you noticed, but, when Prof. Alien gets
hit by that car (so the guy can steal the flashdrive he’s carrying), the people
who stop to help him are driving a Hyundai. BOOM.
45. I looooove the “my physiology makes it so that we
can’t really do anything more than cuddle or it will kill me” conceit. In that
I think it’s such a funny way to keep things demure. BUT...when he returns at
the end, do those rules still apply, or...can they...y’know...?
46. LEAD GIRL’S BROTHER: “Hey, Mom! I discovered an
asteroid! And I get to name it!
And approval for the name will take the exact length of a typical K-drama time jump!”
DARYL: “Oh f*** you—what?!”
Aaaaaaand—scene.
I
had a pretty good time with this one. Certainly much better than 100 Days My Snooty Face, which I realize
doesn’t take much, but still—I thought it was pretty fun. I wish Lead Girl had
been given a little more opportunity to be a bit zany, since the glimpses of
that that we got were great, but nothing’s perfect.
Anyway.
I’m sure your sister is dying to hear what I thought, since this is her
favorite show and all. I hope this passes muster.
I
also hope you’re back at work, today, and doing all right. I’m crossing all my
fingers. Which, I admit, has made this slightly harder to type, but it’s worth
it, if you’re back and okay.
…okay,
maybe the “being back” part is more a me thing than a you thing, since I can’t
imagine you relish being here, but…hey, you’re still getting the “doing all
right” part, so it all balances out.
--Daryl
PS
– Well, I finally changed my phone’s wallpaper to Eun-tak. It had been Chae-ran,
for the last couple of months, but…it just felt like time. I mean, at some
point, these two are going to have to fight it out for the #1 spot on my
k-drama girlfriends list. Just not today.
· Main Guy from It’s Okay… as Prof. Alien.
DARYL: “Pfft—sure, pal. Now, lemme just pause this while I force-feed myself an entire pizza and then pass out on the floor.”
- the bit where Lead Girl is barreling towards the cliff because the brakes on her car have been cut and Prof. Alien drops in from the sky to physically stop the car with his bare hands. I frikkin’ loved this shot. It looked fantastic. They showed it a lot, in subsequent episodes—as they darn well shoulda. ‘Cus it was super-duper cool. (Bonus points for saving her from the cliff that he saved the girl from 400 years ago from. Nice callback. Not as nice as if she’d been the reincarnation of the same girl, but...whatever, it was still good.)
- the section after Evil Brother has tried to kill Lead Girl by having her fall from her stunt harness, where Prof. Alien bursts into his office and grabs him by the collar, lifting him up against the wall. After some antagonistic banter, Prof. Alien is done listening to Evil Brother’s evil speak, and he moves as if to angrily fling the dude across the room...except they use this motion to transition the scene to the roof so he can toss the guy off the top of the building. And not only was I not expecting the transition to the roof, I thought it looked great.
- one is in a red jacket and the other is in a blue jacket.
- It's sooooooo soap opera-y—maybe the most soap opera-y scene in the whole series.
And approval for the name will take the exact length of a typical K-drama time jump!”
DARYL: “Oh f*** you—what?!”
--Daryl
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