[2023 Year in Review] Side plots, supporting characters & spin-offs

by Unit

I’m somewhat of an Oliver Twist, so even after I spend 16 hours of my life on a drama, I sometimes still want more. But I’m not just pulling my greed out of nowhere. Some dramas are rich enough to have side plots that intrigue me enough to want to watch a fleshed-out version, while others are so bad that if they’d expounded on a portion of the plot and abandoned others, the drama would have been better for it.

Generally, I think a deeper insight or a fresh perspective on some of the side stories in dramas would be nice to explore — which leads me to my 2023 top six side plots that I’d totally watch a spin-off of. Although with dramaland’s track record of second seasons and spin-offs, I wonder if I’m jinxing these storylines by putting them out there…

The star-crossed romance of Aeng-cho and Mu-jin (Destined With You)

I tend to be wary of the past life plot in dramas, but Destined With You’ was surprisingly better than I expected. It did its job and did not overstay its welcome — which is more than I can say about the past life portions in other dramas. The past life scenes in Destined With You captivated me with the cinematography (those snowy plains where Aeng-cho breathed her last will always get me), the star-crossed romance, and most importantly, Aeng-cho herself.

Aeng-cho was much smarter, quick-witted, and definitely more compelling than her present-day reincarnation. And if you give me 16 episodes of the civil servant whose biggest problem was that no one wants to eat with her, I think I deserve another 16 (or 12) episodes of the “lowly” shaman who confronted the king at the risk of death and ended up dying.

If there’s any subplot ripe for a spin-off, it’s the Joseon portion of Destined With You. It has all the ingredients for a decent sageuk: childhood connection, forbidden romance, palace politics, noble idiocy, angst, you name it! I want to watch the full love story of Aeng-cho and Mu-jin in all its tear-jerking glory. But since I’m Team Happy Endings, in my version of the spin-off, Aeng-cho will survive Mu-jin’s stabbing via a convenient plot twist, and they’ll live happily ever after under new identities — and very far away from Hanyang.

CheongChan’s college life (Twinkling Watermelon)

When it comes to Twinkling Watermelon, there’s a clear separation of the timelines in my head. Adult Yi-chan and Cheong-ah are technically the same people as high school Yi-chan and Cheong-ah, but I see them as two different sets of individuals. And while I know marriage and kids were in their future, I think we deserved more moments with the young Cheongchan after they became canon.

I love the drama to pieces and there’s not much I can complain about. But I was a bit bummed that we didn’t get to see Yi-chan navigating his deafness, Cheong-ah as a support system for him, and both of them exploring college together. I see potential in the college arc because it was kinda like a thing in the drama already. When we met Yi-chan, he had no college plans. He only changed his mind towards the ending because of his grandmother and Eun-gyeol’s influence.

Then we saw from his resume in the changed present timeline that Yi-chan went to the same university as Cheong-ah. But last we saw of Cheong-ah in the past timeline, her dad said she wasn’t returning to Korea — and she didn’t even know that Yi-chan had lost his hearing. So now I wonder. How did she find out about his hearing loss? How did they end up going abroad together? What was their college life like? What was her dad’s reaction to all of this? So many questions that can only be answered by a spin-off — because this is not a story I want to piece together in my head as a theory, it’s something I want to see play out step by step.

The Maeng sisters’ story (The Matchmakers)

The Matchmakers is an amazing show with a number of potential spin-off plots. And while I love Sam-soon-gu to pieces (and will totally watch a spin-off solely based on them), I’m more inclined to explore the story of the three “old maidens” of Joseon.

Ha-na, Du-ri, and Sam-soon are as different as could be, but their sisterly bond is a delight to watch, and it’d be nice to dive into their story. I want to see how the sisters grew up with a father who loved being a scholar over being a family man, and a mother whose job was looked down upon. I’m curious to see how the family dynamics changed when their mother went blind, and how the experience forged the sisters into being the characters they currently are.

Of course, we cannot leave their respective romantic partners out of the spin-off. But I basically just want to see the Maeng sisters living their best lives as the stars of their own show. I want to see Ha-na being a smart and supportive crown princess (and eventually queen), Du-ri expanding her needlework business, and Sam-soon finally releasing her romance novels under her own name. She still owes me that story about the soldier and the female assassin, anyway.

Little miss Mo-rae (Castaway Diva)

Castaway Diva was the Seo Mok-ha story — and rightly so (when we weren’t playing the Ki-ho guessing game). But if there was one character who drew my attention, it was lil miss second place: Eun Mo-rae. While the drama (and Ran-joo unnie) set Mo-rae up to be Mok-ha’s rival, I did not see her as that. All she did was enter the competition as a fellow Ran-joo fan and place second. She did not ask for Mok-ha to be stuck on the island and she definitely did not force Ran-joo to sign her on as a replacement. In a way, Mo-rae was a victim because it seemed like Ran-joo resented and blamed her for Mok-ha’s predicament.

Replacement Diva My Mo-rae spin-off is the story of an idol fangirl who was thrilled to “win” a competition, only to learn — from her idol — that she was a replacement winner. We’ll see resentment build as she goes from a wide-eyed trainee to an idol singer who battles with self-esteem issues. We’ll watch her grapple with the weight of “second place” and push herself to be the best — not for her sake, but to prove a point.

We’ll journey with her as she pushes herself to the brink and eventually comes to the realization that she is indeed deserving of her place irrespective of who the original winner of the competition was. And no, she no longer needs to spell the F word with peanut shells because she is worthy. She is enough.

The untamed Wild Animal (The Heavenly Idol)

I want to pretend that this drama did not exist, but the more I think about it, the more it annoys me. How can we have a drama about an idol group and we barely got to see them idol-ing? There were no remarkable songs, not enough stage performances, and definitely not enough opportunities for Kim Min-kyu to show off his dimples. Instead we got an evil spirit chasing the male lead from heaven to earth, a multiverse of madness, a weird cult, and a seaweed. Ugh!

I need… no, I deserve a spin-off that features Wild Animal as just that: a failing idol group that works its way to success. Insert catchy songs, the shenanigans in a testosterone-filled dorm, the secret dating life of idols, and their journey to rank number one on the music charts. And if the spin-off insists on inserting a fantasy element like in the original, I can manage to include the handsome grim reaper moonlighting as their road manager. There! Doesn’t this sound much better than the idol drama we got?

The adventures of Kim Jae-won (Perfect Marriage Revenge)

This might be my favorite one yet, because it is as unhinged as the thought process behind it. Do I need a spin-off about the quiet secretary who was secretly plotting his boss’s downfall because he believed she was responsible for his father’s death? No. But do I want it? Hell yeah!

Jae-won was conveniently hovering around the plot until he was activated to side with the heroine, and that’s when I started to pay attention to him. After the makjang reveal that artist Sun Jin was his father, my interest in him reached an all-time high, and now I want to watch the drama from his point of view. I’m so curious about his pipeline from orphanage to secretary. Did he stalk Lee Jung-hye to know when she was hiring? How did he present himself at the interview that got him the job? Was it his extensive knowledge about artist Sun Jin’s work? It must have hurt to leverage on his daddy issues to get the job.

What was it like working for the enemy? Did he spit in her coffee when no one was looking? Did he trip her over on occasion? Switch her pizza order and blame it on the delivery guy? I want to know, because he totally gives off petty vibes behind the cover of his glasses. And now that he’s the star of the show, we should definitely pair him with a nice lady who’s just as in love with Sun Jin’s paintings as he is. Maybe that nice lady who dodged the Se-hyuk bullet will do if we don’t want to source a character outside the drama. Okay, I really should stop theorizing at this point.

 
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