May I personally nominate: the Mystic and Sell Your Haunted House writers? lmao (I think they may have beef with the HOngs :P)

@sicarius: I fear that the Mystic Pop-up Bar writer has fallen into the “shows must be 16 eps” trap judging by Showtime Begins!. But still, a good choice.

Totally down with the writers for Sell Your Haunted House, even if *hides from crowd*…I didn’t love it nearly as much as most people. Look I know the show’s like objectively awesome. Jang Nara is eternally perfect and the fantasy elements were good for once! Sorry I just can’t help having bad taste.

Yes but that's only partially her fault haha. I don't think writer's have much say over show length unfortunately. And so few can write to a longer ep count and make it work in general. Sigh.
On the other hand Showtime is significantly weaker than Mystic overall, something I'm resigned to at this point but disappointed by. I'm not ready to give up on the writer yet though because there's a lot of good potential there still.

HAHAHA 😂 no worries your secret is safe with me (despite being in a public thread pfft). I actually didn't love the ending either- it let me down in a way I can't shake. Still, it was a lot of fun and had better thematic writing than the average Hong show pfft.

But I still think they'd both do a better job with a Hong concept than the Hongs themselves 🤭
And they'll do as a good nomination starting list hehe

@sicarius: I actually wasn’t aware that writers have little say in the episode count of their shows. Although in hindsight, that does make sense with what I do know. Huh. You learn something new everyday I guess.

But yes, Showtime Begins! is definitely a lot weaker than Mystic in most ways. That said, I still think the writer has done a better job in both coming up with a fun concept and then executing it with thematic and narrative coherence.

The ending to Sell Your Haunted House was just…not it. I would’ve forgiven the show for a lot of (my subjective) misgivings if only they had stuck the landing. However, that still assumes that the drama up until then was overall competent and watchable. Therefore, the writers have already out-honged the Hongs in the fantasy/writing department. Solid nominations indeed.

I think both run time and episode count are most likely determined by the studio and/or the station.
But it's also probably a bit dependent on the writer/studio and possibly even writer/director relationship, as well as a writer's rep. Something like the Sky Castle Team probably might go "here I have a 20 ep script", and then gets the airtime they want, but I think equally likely is that often the writer is just given a certain episode slot to write for. I think this is why you get so many shows with pacing issues and filler and stories dragged to fit runtime. Because, that's the expected length and slot.

A really good writer would ideally be able to write a story that doesn't need any of the latter padding, and can write just a good 16 episoder right off, but they're harder to find than I'd like haha.
In part because, and as an additional layer to all this, I think a lot of kdrama writers are so used to the formula of x episode shows, and the style of writing kdramas have "always had" as it were, that they don't really break out and go "hold on, what does my story NEED, in the time I have".

Re. Showtime - I think what's frustrating me most rn is that all the pieces are correct, but I'm just not sold on how I've been given them. It's another execution issue again. Like, Mystic just flowed so naturally in its story beats, but Showtime feels so much clunkier and jerkier, more piecemeal. I do think a lot of this is to do with the director - who I've decided I really do not like haha- but also since it's the writer's first show without a prior adapted source material she's probably still working out her kinks.
Which I can give her grace for. It's thematically coherent but there's something missing for me in the technicalities. Ofc, still better than the Hongs or I'd be spitting a lot more fire at it, rather than it just losing my interest haha (I also... Am eeally not feeling much for the OTP at this late stage in the show which is a shame)

SYHH- I liked how they resolved her arc with her mother but I HATED how they resolved the villain arc lmao. But yes, absolutely up until that point it was great.
Out-Honged the Hongs!!!! What a great turn of phrase - I love it hahaha

@dncingemma: Warm and Cozy was my first Yoo Yeon-seok project post all that Reply 1994 angst. Let’s just be polite and say that no amount of enraged swearing could fully express my equal parts disappointment and anger.

Yeahp, yeahp! I'm the same!
Writer-bias for lyfe haha.
You still have to write the story first, and know how to tell a story at that.
Alas scriptwriters are generally overlooked and under appreciated throughout the entire film/TV industry worldwide.
You're smarter than I lmao- I'm being dumb even considering this 😅😅

@sicarius hahaha. I too often display this kind of dumbness. For instance considering watching popular romcoms that I very well know I won't like. Sigh

I didn't enjoy HDLL at all, in fact I outright detested it and do not think it's good, as I think tension between a director and writer leads to an overall incohesiveness and lack of communication between the script and the screen which for me was blatantly obvious and frustrating to watch.
On top of that he had to direct over a script that was fundamentally flawed in its worldbuilding from the beginning, which the directing did not atone for.
So I can only partially agre with you but that's ok. 😅