Dream High

Season 1: The drama started off mostly alright for the first 3 episodes or so, but once they confined everything into the school settings, problems started to seep from every corner. Imagine all of the school related tired tropes and cliches amplified by cringe to create the cheesiest abomination. Jason as a character, actor, story and writing was easily the worst aspect of this drama. Which created one of the worst memorable dynamics with his love interest. From the outset, the plot followed a predictable trajectory but things got a lot worse around the last 1/3 of its run. During which the story became static, the characters fell apart and the drama started to shove empty scenes of side characters. They reduced Sam Dong screen time significantly as well. They also isolated Pil Sook and Jason despite being main characters and had little to no interactions with others later on. All of this led to a below average last episode and a lukewarm ending. Despite its flaws and problems, somehow it worked, to a certain degree.

In comparison, season 2 was an obvious downgrade in all regards, it's just plain worse. The empty scenes I mentioned earlier turned into amateurish random musical performances here. I noticed they were mostly using Korean songs in this season, compared to season 1 which had more western/global songs. In season 2, no one had any chemistry with anyone, all pairings were as incompatible and dry as they could get. It also had the same ending as season 1. I think the cast also had more idols than actors? Anyway, changing the directors and writers made its sequel DOA.