So Not Worth It (내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어) Review — Drama
A review of the Korean drama So Not Worth It (내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어).
This yet another one of my “I’m bored, let me look through Netflix” finds. This is a Netflix original, which I found to be completely and utterly fascinating, especially considering the cast.
As for K-pop idols it has Choi Young-jae (who I highkey didn’t realize was Young-jae until I looked up the cast and then I facepalmed majorly) from GOT7 and Minnie from (G)I-dle. It also has the model Han Hyun-min and Park Se-wan (I immediately recognized her somehow from her minor role in Goblin).
I went into this blind, and so I didn’t know it was a sitcom until the laugh tracks started playing alone with the exaggerated acting and jokes. It grew on me eventually, I will say that, and I quite appreciated the diversity in this cast. It takes place in an international student dorm in Korea, and our main cast is largely foreigners.
We have two Americans, a guy from Trinidad, Han Hyun-min the fake foreigner, and a guy from Sweden. Then we have Young-jae pretending to be Australian. More on this all later, since I have some mixed feelings about the foreign cast with the storyline.
Content / Plot
The driving force to start this story is the arrival of Jamie, a mysterious American who has arrived at the dorms. Everyone thinks he’s handsome, but then he breaks Se-wan’s phone and she forces him into a life of indentured servitude (it only lasts an episode, don’t worry!).
The show then follows this specific friend group and their antics in the dorm and in their lives in Korea, but we don’t really get to see the city of Seoul that they’re in, or even the college they’re at. The majority of the scenes tend to take place in the dorm that they’re living in.
Many of the actors in this were rookies, so the acting honestly is a mixed bag. I also didn’t like how they implemented laugh tracks throughout the show; laugh tracks are the bane of my existence in television. We then have a forced romance between two of the main characters, which I thought the show could’ve done without. It could’ve focused on their friendships and experiences in Korea instead, which I thought were more valuable insights in the long run.
What I thought to be interesting about this show was that every foreigner seemed to be very Korean-ized. In the short term, this show is a really good representation of the good ol’ waegukins in Korea, because it shows that foreigners can learn Korean and Korean culture very well.
However, this doesn’t make as good a story as the producers probably think. I think Itaewon Class did a good job of this in the end, but here in this show the foreigners seem too Korean. Carson, one of the Americans, only eats and loves Korean food. She’s dating a sergeant in the Korean army.
The guy from Trinidad then is also dating a Korean, and no one really speaks their native language outside of the first couple of episodes. It feels kind of like a prop to me? Like look at the diversity, look at these wonderful amazing foreigners who basically exist to serve the role of a foreigner who has perfectly assimilated.
Like yeah, it’s good for diversity in Korean television, I just start to wonder where the line is drawn between using people for a narrative plot of being different when they’re not so different. Or, perhaps, there’s just a greater meaning that I’m missing, since it is just a sitcom at the end of the day.
Overall Thoughts
I recommend this only if you’re bored and looking for something quick to watch. It’s only twelve episodes, but I honestly didn’t find the comedy to be too funny and the characters are often reduced to archetypes of who they are (e.g. the American speaks like an old woman in Korean, and then we don’t really see her character developed much outside of that).
It got old after a bit, but I was really bored, so this tended to be a quick entertainment fix. Many of the actors also don’t have much experience, which is kind of obvious the more you watch the show. I wish them the best though! I hope they get better at acting if this is what they choose to do.
