Sadly, I have to admit that I caught Hospital Playlist mucch later than I like. This is because I am familiar with heavy-laden and dramatic paced medical dramas. Initially, i brushed off Hospital Playlist as a mockery and joke to all the Korean medical dramas I've watched. But, one day, I decided to give it a go, and I have no regrets. It is one of the K-dramas that I always put on the repeat mode, whenever I am in a K-drama slump or in need of something to cheer me up after a long, tired and stressful day.

I don't watch many dramas live, so I am late to the party for most dramas. Community watch/rewatch is a great way to connect with other drama fans.
Baksa lives!!!

Flower of evil. Watched 2 years after it aired and was burning from wanting to gush.

I’m more a binge-watcher than a live-watcher so I’m almost always late. I don’t know which beanie came up with the idea but Community Watch is the most wonderful initiative on DB, and I thank you for that 🩵

I don’t think I would enjoy a drama as much without reading beanies’ comments and different takes. Before knowing of the existence of this community, I used to read other blogs for shows I enjoyed during my lone-watch.

I started watching drama live during the second half of 2021, with a few exceptions (TONT, Mr Queen, Vincenzo, Law School). So, for the dramas airing before that, I mostly binge watch them. But it is really sad having no one to share your thoughts with since people might be watching something else.
Some examples
Moon Lovers (I am with the few who liked the first 12 eps but I agree that both FL and ending needed some tweaks.)
Chicago Typewriter (such a hidden gem)
Defendant (Ji Sung is my favorite actor for a reason)

Paksa adeul! My favorite character of Jung Kyung-ho!

Now, I watch mainly in live and if I didn't choose a drama, I rarely watch it later.

Since I only properly started watching K-Dramas in summer 2023, this applies to nearly everything for me LMAO!

I have mentioned this multiple Dramabeans comments for the past week. I have just watched Hotelier, a 2001 drama, and was hooked despite a very simple plot in today's eyes. And finally understanding Bae Yong Jun's appeal back in the days.

As I'm also back in my k drama era, I have been catching on dramas that were aired in the past two/three years. Through the darkness is really great, the most realistic interrogation scenes I have seen, and Kim Nam Gil is just *chef's kiss*. Also watched his "Island", weak plot but oh my, his swoony eyes 😍😍😍.

I felt that I have watched Korean dramas that I wanted to watch from 2005 to 2018 and those that I didn't watch are dramas that I'm really not interested in. Was trying to find The Last Scandal of My Life and Sandglass but was unable to find one with decent quality. But I always welcome recommendations!

I only really started watching Korean dramas live in the beginning of this year, but I'm still constantly watching shows that have already aired as well, so this happens all the time.

Usually, like now with Hospital Playlist or Reply 1988, I just skim through the comments of the Dramabeans recap to see what people were thinking.

But aside from my ramblings on the weekly "what we're watching", I mostly end up keeping my thoughts to myself. Usually I just end up discussing things with myself. Is that weird? Maybe, but I do it anyway.

A time? It happens to me all the time 😅 I'm usually VERY late to the party.
I'm mainly a binge-watcher. My list of old shows to watch is huge. In these 2'5 years in Dramaland I have watched many more older shows than new dramas which were on air in that moment. I think my first live-watches were Bora Deborah and Secret Romantic Guesthouse (from March to May 2023) 🤔

When I was watching my favorite dramas (many of them now in my Top 10 list) they had already finished several years ago. But I used to read lots of comments on YouTube edits, and visit forums, and recaps on different web pages, and that's how by chance I found Dramabeans. When I finished watching The Best Hit I read all the recaps and comments here. And then I signed up because I wanted to give "likes" to many of those comments and be part of this community 😊

A group of UK based and those happy to do UK timezone beanies set up a Watch and Discuss K-drama club for this very reason. We choose which older drama we want to watch each month. We watch independently and then have a live Zoom discussion. It really did help to deal with the frustration of needing to share when watching good and bad dramas from back in the day.

I'm almost always a year late to the discussion but the fun thing of What We're Watching is that there is always someone with an urge to discuss these past events. On occassion, I've read the old recaps and also made a comment I haven't been able to resist.

Soundtrack #2. I struggled with watching it past the first few minutes but I later jumped in and I liked what I watched. But to the point of feeling like I missed something? Clearly no. I'm yet to watch the last two episodes and there's no ginger whatsoever to do so.

Most recently, it is The Crowned Clown and 100 Days My Prince for the ones I finished.

And, I really don't understand the conditions attached to this chats cause there are dramas I was unaware of but I watched way after it aired. And there are ones that I knew they were airing but I didn't watch until later. And there are the ones I knew aired but didn't watch till it became available in my region.

For the third category which I majorly fall into, Marriage Contract, Go Back Couple, Birthcare Centre, Hospital Playlist 1, Penthouse 1,, The Crowned Clown and 100 Days My Prince. For some of these, I had followed via the recaps either when it aired(HP 1) or I was just stumbled upon it(Marriage Contract and Go Back Couple). Still, the watching experience was as good as new.

I'm always late to the party 😄 Sometimes weeks, sometimes years. I don't mind.

Until recently, I didn't even write that much about what I was watching. I satisfied my urge to gush by rewatching and rewatching again.

I have been writing more these past maybe 2 or 3 years? And loving how there is always somebody popping in to say they also loved the show.

I'm an unrepentant live-watcher. Binging just doesn't give me the same level of engagement and enjoyment, sorry - when I watch something I like, I always have a lot to say about it and hate when there's no one to share my thoughts.

The only exception would be dreaded love triangle dramas - I LOATHE shipping wars in any capacity, so the farther I'm staying away from such mess happening live, the better.

This happened with me with Misaeng, 100 Days My Prince and others. I deal with it with posting in the fanwall or talking about it on the weekly WWWW threads. I am lucky if there are others who discuss it with me. But it does not take away frm my enjoyment of the drama itself.
I agree that live watching is better since you can talk about it with other beanies. But lets be realistic, there is just too many dramas and so little time to watch/discuss it that there will always be that drama that will be left behind or set aside for later.

I think I have three scenarios:

1. My own private party: Some shows have this perfect timing and vibe that make them a special watch. And this special watch is "shows that I don't really need to discuss."
I was probably having a hard time so I binged the show and, luckily, I found great comfort in it. That means that I wasn't late for anything, I have no regrets for watching it later. They were there for me when I needed them and that's all I could ask from them.

2. Friendly attack: If I like something a lot, I get obsessed, when I get obsessed I start sharing that obsession with everyone. So if I find an old show that I like, I will probably annoy my mom or a friend by talking nonstop about it.
I actually have a designated friend to talk about these things (dramas, movies, webtoons, books, music, wtv) with.
But if the obsession is really big I'll just talk about it with everyone until they tell me to shut up.

In this scenario I'm usually kind of sad for being late to the party, and I feel like I need to catch up, and that's why I won't shut up. LOL

3. Internet dive: I go everywhere in the internet to see the reactions to it. I will dig every corner to know all the opinions about it. Especially with old underrated gems.

This first happened to me with Boys Over Flowers because I didn’t—and still don’t— like to watch dramas that are suuuuuuuper hyped. This also happened for me with A Piece of Your Mind, Do You Like Brahms?, and then Extraordinary Attorney Woo but for the last one, it wasn’t necessarily hype that drove me away from live-watching/watching with everyone else, but it was more so because of the topic of choice— having the central story about a differently abled person— because I am the same (a differently abled person) and due to that, I am suuuuper sensitive when topics like these are made the centre of attention because it will go one of 2 ways for me: I will either cringe really hard because of how trope-rific (not the good kind) it is or I will be super annoyed and offended because of how poorly and insulting it is, but thankfully—and to my surprise— Extraordinary Attorney Woo was beautiful and very respectfully made, and it’s no wonder why Park Eun Bin isn’t the most enthusiastic if there is to be a Season 2, because I can understand the level of pressure it brings her to do it right and to do it justice 💜

Hometown Cha cha cha, Extraordinary Woo,, Twinkling Watermelon
I watch it long after it end and I regret not watching it when it's aired and missed the hype

Under the Queen’s umbrella was a recent one I knew I wanted to see, but couldn’t do it live. I loved it. I wished I saw it with someone else to be able to really unpack all the emotional beats that I was going through while watching it.

I’m a late comer to kdramas, so missed the Gong Yoo/Coffee Prince boat entirely. Still on my top 10 dramas, I can’t even describe how much I loved this show, but glad I was able to at least write about it a little thanks to the Dramabeans guest writer monthly themes that were popular a few years ago so that I could gush with people writing on my commenting page.

Having discovered kdramas only in 2023, I am late to the party for everything LOL Just a handful of the shows I've seen are recent.

I only intermittently subscribe to kdrama channels so I'm always catching up on shows, and even when I first started watching there was a decade or so of shows to discover. What really added to my enjoyment was finding recaps of a show here on dramabeans so I could read them after each episode and see everyone's reactions as if it was airing live. So even for old shows, don't add any spoilers!

I don't watch live, and I watch a lot of shows from the back catalogue—which means I almost always miss the boat on participating in the discussions here on Dramabeans. When available, I read the recaps after watching each episode. I find them really helpful in pointing out things I may not have picked up on, and I love reading what others had to say about the show. I admit it's frustrating at times when I feel like I have something to add to the conversation when the parade has long since passed by.

For a while, I was posting long-ish comments in the weekly "What We're Watching," but I seem to keep falling farther and farther behind. Most recently, I finished slogging through King 2 Hearts after having given up on it after about four episodes a few years ago. Based on the recaps and comments, it appears that I'm in the minority in not liking the show, so maybe it's better that I wasn't part of that conversation.

Thank you for this thread. I have only been watching kdramas for 2 years now. I was introduced to kdramas with it's ok not to be ok. My friend kept on talking about it for years and finally, in an act of boredom inspired by the pandemic, I watched it. The first couple episodes were thoughtful and enthralling.

But, it wasn't until I watched 25 21, that I was completely impressed by the thoughtfulness of the writing and the plot, which seemed to have fully realized secondary characters that sometimes acted as foils to the main protagonists, but had their own separate interesting character arcs. There were also main characters who were weak or flawed. Sometimes they developed and sometimes they didn't. The whole experience sold me on kdramas.

I am usually Always Late to the most loved / talked about / hated dramas. But even if i’m in sync, i’m more prone to observe/read other’s discussion. It’s still fun though so missing the live atmosphere is a bummer. I think it was Last year that i watched Blind - not a great drama but i commented on every single recap as a token of support for Taecyeon. Judging by the lack of comments per recap, i just felt weirdly determined to add something for the show, even if no one reads it. Oh the things that a fangirl does 😂