Monday, April 20, 2015

The Lover


Title: The Lover (더 러버)
Network: Mnet
Episodes: 12
Starring: Oh Jung-Se, Ryu Hyun-Kyung, Jung Joon-Young, Choi Yoe-jin, Park Jong-Hwan, Ha Eun-Seol, Takuya Terada, and Lee Jae-Joon
Aired: Started April 2, 2015

The Lover is a new series being broadcast by cable company MNET, which from what I can tell used to be a music television station that broadened their programing a few years ago, kinda like MTV.  The Lover is only the third drama broadcast by the company following Monstar and Persevere, Goo Hae-Ra, neither of which I have watched.  It being a cable company it seems, at least with this series, that MNET is willing to take more risks with what it is willing to broadcast.
The Lover is an omnibus series that takes place inside a rundown apartment building.  Here there live four couples none of which are married. Each of these couples are at different stages of their relationships, and for now it seems that the series is focused on how they each deal with living together outside of marriage.
The first couple have been dating for five years and living together for two.  They are the veterans of the series.  One of them is a voice actor while the other runs a blog. And, they are hilarious.

Oh Do-Si and Ryoo Doo-Ri have been together the longest.  They decided that living together was better than marriage.  They fight and make up on the daily.  Their fights are often over the most ridiculous of things like how much of the spice packet to use when making instant ramen. 
The second couple have beein living together for a year and their is a twelve year age difference between them.

Choi Jin-nyeo is twelve years older than her boyfriend, Jeong Yeong-joon.  They are very different because of this age difference.  Jin-nyeo operates her own side dish catering business out of their apartment while Yeong-joon pretends to be a rock start carrying around a guitar and composing badly written and misspelled songs.  The difference between the two can mostly clearly been seen when Yeong-joon's sister visits the couple and Jin-nyeo is completely lost when trying to follow and be part of the conversation. 
So far, two episodes in, little has been seen of the third couple who are trying out living together before they get married.

Ha Seol-un and Park Hwan-jong just recently moved in together after knowing each other for only a couple of months.  They are the only couple in the series that have their eyes set on marriage.  They seem very uncomfortable around each other.  Seol-un is trying to keep all her bad habits hidden wanting Hwan-jong to believe that she is the epitome of ladylike.  She goes so far as binging on food late at night so Hwan-jong doesn't realize how much she actually eats.  They don't communicate effectively making their relationship really awkward for both of them
The final couple is a burgeoning bromance, or is it?
Lee Joon-jae is a loner just scraping by that needs a roommate in order to be able to pay his rent.  Takuya is Japanese and traveling around the world.  He is the roommate that Joon-jae thinks would be perfect.  Short term and with the language barrier he might not have to really communicate with him, but Takuya has different ideas.  Their relationship is set to be the bromance of the series, but there is definitely tension between the two.  They have some of the best chemistry of all the couples.  One only hopes that MNet has the balls to let their relationship develop the way that the first two episodes are hinting at.

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