K-drama midseason recap: Snowdrop –Disney+ drama starring Blackpink’s Jisoo takes several baffling turns
- As the series has unfolded, it has become ever more fantastical, reliant on absurd coincidences, while its storytelling is stilted and tedious
- The makers of Snowdrop earlier faced controversy over its portrayal of a sensitive period in history, with 300,000 Koreans signing a petition to end the series
This article contains spoilers.
An eventful 2021 for the K-drama industry ended on an ignominious note in December with the launch of Snowdrop, the highly controversial Disney+/JTBC drama which sparked a furiously negative reaction among Korean viewers, over 300,000 of whom signed a petition requesting its cancellation.
Though many skittish advertisers jumped ship almost immediately, JTBC stood firm, issuing a statement to the effect that claims of historical distortion amounted to misunderstandings, which would be cleared up naturally in the coming episodes.
It is true that the show airing now – nine episodes into its 16-episode run – has changed a lot since the first pair of episodes aired before Christmas. When Snowdrop began, there were the makings of a halfway decent show beneath its political missteps.
However, if scriptwriters were guilty of historical misjudgment early on it is nothing compared to what followed; as the series has unfolded it has become egregiously tedious as it quickly boxes itself into a narrow and repetitive storyline.