Post by mikey on Aug 10, 2003 11:49:19 GMT -5
The final episode of “On the Green Prairie” was broadcast in Los Angeles last night. I won’t, of course, spoil anything for you Chicago fans, except to offer a few comments:
“On the Green Prairie” really left me with mixed feelings. For the longest time, I was pretty disappointed with the series. Although there were a few episodes that stood out, I thought that the storyline overall was rather shallow, and it just seemed to drag on forever (there’s no way this series can compare, plotwise, to a lurching, roller-coaster ride of a series like “Yellow Handkerchief”). Too bad: if this 52 episode series had been condensed down to, say, 30 or 35 episodes, I think it could have been really good.
I also thought that the characters, for the most part, were also pretty unremarkable. I did get a kick out of seeing the former Emperor of Koryo reduced to selling cars in Seoul, but of course that wore off pretty quickly. And his love interest (Yon-ho) – though absolutely cute as a button – was totally unbelievable as a medical doctor. By comparison, the series just prior to this (“Who’s My Love?”) had a storyline that was arguably even more shallow and obvious, but the characters in that series were all so colorful and quirky that I hardly noticed.
Having said all that, I must emphasize that “On the Green Prairie” does – finally – come alive with some serious drama towards the tail-end of the series, and I certainly recommend that anyone who’s stuck with it for this long should follow it through to the end. The last half-dozen or so episodes are really rather compelling, and I’m slightly amazed that the series I previously had so little regard for is now a series that I’m really going to miss. Too bad this kind of drama couldn’t have been sustained throughout the entire 52 episodes!
Replacing “On the Green Prairie” in Los Angeles is a new series, “Bodyguard.” From the previews, it looks marginal but of course I’ll give it a fair shot. We’ll have to wait and see if it makes it to Chicago in the weeks ahead.
Mikey
“On the Green Prairie” really left me with mixed feelings. For the longest time, I was pretty disappointed with the series. Although there were a few episodes that stood out, I thought that the storyline overall was rather shallow, and it just seemed to drag on forever (there’s no way this series can compare, plotwise, to a lurching, roller-coaster ride of a series like “Yellow Handkerchief”). Too bad: if this 52 episode series had been condensed down to, say, 30 or 35 episodes, I think it could have been really good.
I also thought that the characters, for the most part, were also pretty unremarkable. I did get a kick out of seeing the former Emperor of Koryo reduced to selling cars in Seoul, but of course that wore off pretty quickly. And his love interest (Yon-ho) – though absolutely cute as a button – was totally unbelievable as a medical doctor. By comparison, the series just prior to this (“Who’s My Love?”) had a storyline that was arguably even more shallow and obvious, but the characters in that series were all so colorful and quirky that I hardly noticed.
Having said all that, I must emphasize that “On the Green Prairie” does – finally – come alive with some serious drama towards the tail-end of the series, and I certainly recommend that anyone who’s stuck with it for this long should follow it through to the end. The last half-dozen or so episodes are really rather compelling, and I’m slightly amazed that the series I previously had so little regard for is now a series that I’m really going to miss. Too bad this kind of drama couldn’t have been sustained throughout the entire 52 episodes!
Replacing “On the Green Prairie” in Los Angeles is a new series, “Bodyguard.” From the previews, it looks marginal but of course I’ll give it a fair shot. We’ll have to wait and see if it makes it to Chicago in the weeks ahead.
Mikey