Welcome to my Saturday blog post, where I give thoughts on dramas I’m watching, whether at the beginning, middle, or end. Whatever I want, because I’m petty that way.
This week, I recapped episodes 5-6 of Cinderella Closet. In these episodes, we switch from our Fairy Godmother’s yearning to our Princess realizing some truths about her fairy tale.
I also got back to My Romance Scammer with episodes 5-6. Pai and Tim make a little progress, but really, these episodes are about U realizing how to honestly pursue someone.
What did I watch this week? I had a chance to finish something and begin something. Let’s start with the new:
Wishing Upon the Shooting Stars – 向流星許願的我們 – 2026
Currently airing slice-of-island-life Taiwanese BL, I’ve watched 3 of 12 episodes.
The island’s beloved son returns home a failure, but when an impulsive wish comes true, he gets a fresh start with an old flame.
I was craving something different, and this is different
We’re on an island, and everyone is beautifully tanned. Thanks to his wish, our Sad Lead is no longer recognized by anyone on the island. Including his father and the new guy helping out at his father’s island hotel, who happens to be his high school crush.
So now he’s pretending to be a college friend of… himself. While everyone on the island wonders where the real him has gone.
The only person who still recognizes him is the local shaved ice seller, who also made an impulsive wish that night. In his case, he wished to experience a certain kind of love. And now his usually taciturn… roommate? Is declaring his love for him.
The pacing so far for this is island-slow
I love it, but it does require you to be in the mood to be patient.
Three episodes in, and we know our leads had a special connection in High School that fell apart, but we don’t know why.
We know that things recently went wrong for him and he got fired, but we don’t know why.
A mysterious comic artist connected to his recent past has shown up, but we don’t know why.
We know that things recently went wrong for his High School crush. It’s why he came to the island, but we don’t know why.
And naturally, nearly no one on the island realizes they suddenly can’t recognize this person they’ve known his whole life.
Except, High School friend is suspicious of this stranger and their familiar mannerisms.
I love the sense of place and people
(Or maybe I just enjoy shows on small Islands.)
I love it when a show makes me feel like I know a place so well that I could go there and get around on my own. There’s the hotel, the lighthouse, the sea, and the shaved ice shop.
Shot beautifully in warm tones, it creates an idyllic-looking life that is made more real by the flawed people who live there. The slow pace is spent on time with these peripheral characters, even when they aren’t with our romantic leads.
In particular, we’ve spent time with our lead’s alcoholic father, who seems worried about the son who constantly picks on him (probably because he’s worried about his father). The father has a local friend and confidant, too, who is trying to help the father-son pair stop fighting and understand one another.
And I’m very curious where this is all going
As I mentioned above, so far, the plot of this show is only generating questions. We’ve also barely spent any time with our second couple.
I’m good to stick around for the answers while enjoying the sun, sand, and sea. If this ends up just being a story of hot, tanned beach boys getting together, I don’t think I’ll feel my time is wasted.
If you’re in the mood for something different, maybe give it a try.
And now for something mostly the same:
Yesterday – รอยรัก วันวาน – 2026
Recently aired rich-people-behaving-badly BL with 10 episodes.
A confident young investor meets the saddest rich guy ever, falls for him, and eventually ends up trapped in a basement by him.
Because of my horrible tastes in things, I enjoyed this show quite a bit, but I’m clear-headed enough to know not to recommend this widely.
It’s toxic, it’s problematic, and it’s not romantic, even in a dark romance way. Also, the plot is a mess.
So why on earth did I enjoy it?
I think I’ll have to blame our leads, Fort and Peat. I don’t generally follow actors as I’m more interested in characters than the people who play them. But I’ve managed to watch every show that all our Love In The Air Leads have starred in, and for these two, it’s a total of three shows.
Recently, Fort and Peat split with their original production company. According to the always-reliable info of strangers on the internet, this may have been so they could act in more exciting, plot-driven stories. I can see how they tried to do that here.
But as far as characters go, we’re still pretty much still in Love in the Air and Love Sea territory.
Peat again plays a character with a sad past that caused him to develop some sharp edges as a coping mechanism.
Fort again plays a happy, well-adjusted guy, despite whatever his background is, who is wildly attracted to the hottest mess he can find.
Fort’s love and love-making will heal Peat, and since Fort has great smiles, I’ll go along with it.
They’re good at playing these characters, and I enjoy seeing them play them.
But, we’ve got problems
The biggest problem is that Peat’s character is terrible. In the last two shows, those sharp edges were to protect a deeply vulnerable and good person. Here, he’s deeply vulnerable and awful.
Which I wouldn’t mind so much, but Fort’s character is level-headed enough to realize what he’s seeing and get judgy. IRL, this is entirely reasonable. But in the fantasy world of romance, I find “a good boy meets a bad boy, and judges him into changing his ways,” not particularly compelling but unfortunately common.
What I want is “good boy meets bad boy and joins in the fun,” of which the most successful for me might be Word of Honor. Admittedly, the fantasy setting makes murderous bad boys easier to stomach.
Part of what made that show work is that, as bad as our bad boy was, he was a devoted and protective lover. Peat’s character did change and evolve, but not enough. He protected Fort’s character in small ways, but never had the big, redemptive moment he needed.
So Fort’s character came off as removed from reality as Peat’s because of how he responded to the immoral characters (not just Peat’s) around him. Or maybe that was just his coping mechanism for living in this horrible drama reality.
It doesn’t help that the plot is jumbled and incomplete
First, they decide to go non-linear, making it difficult to follow what happened. Then things just stop making any sense. Characters have secret plans, secret back-up secret plans, new plans, the plan seems to be one thing, but now it’s another, and I have no idea what really happened.
It feels like a complicated book condensed into a drama, and I think that may be what it is.
Top this off with a lame villain who was very stupid and constantly easily thwarted, and it wasn’t a thrilling watch.
The only reason it didn’t ruin the watch for me was that I didn’t really care and stopped trying to understand it. It definitely became a “okay, what nonsense will happen next?” kind of watch.
I do want to give some extra credit to our GL couple, a rich, capable heiress and her bodyguard-assistant-something-with-a-secret-motive. Nothing about their romance made much sense, but they had very good chemistry.
Additionally, the heiress gets credit for being the only character who really did anything. From what I could make of the nonsense plot, she was the best judge of character, the most level-headed, and did the most to pursue her goals.
So no, you probably don’t need to watch this show
Especially if you were hoping for something new and different from the leads.
If you’re like me and can’t stop watching the leads, this review doesn’t matter anyway. Go watch it!
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