i feel like itaewon class looks worse in the rearview, and re-watching strongest deliveryman is really reminding me how it does itaewon class's best plot beats better and then some. so yeah, i recommend strongest deliveryman though not right away.
other than that, notable dramas for me this year:
A Piece of Your Mind
incredibly my jam (serene, poetic, has chae soo bin), which makes it extra regrettable that they cut the episode count due to ratings which i think fucked with the pacing towards the end, but i love it still.
My Unfamiliar Family
some sharp melodrama. a ridiculous amount of secrets for a regular family, but not sensationalized and grounded in character dynamics.
Extracurricular
mentioned this long ago. i'll just add that kim dong hee is very talented, and i hope he continues to get interesting, challenging roles (watch a-teen as well imo)
Romance Talking
my favourite webdrama of the year. the pitch sounds like misery for zoomers, but it's actually a pretty thoughtful approach to the idea of parasociality.
18 Again
good in a way that i don't have much more to say. there's one duff subplot, but otherwise it's well-paced and satisfying. actually no, i think the ending could have been better, but still mostly very good on just a basic storytelling level.
Flower of Evil
it's like they wrote some very smart and perceptive characters for a cat-and-mouse thriller, but then couldn't figure out where complications come from so some real dumb shit happens. still, the characters play off each other well and it's a fun time.
The World of My 17
not great exactly, but p. cute and funny, and worth watching for kim do ah.
oh yeah, they're not done yet, but:
Live On
i feel sorry for anyone who dropped it when it was being criticized for the acting, because every other aspect of the production props it up and even the acting is fine away from all the exposition of the first ep. 8 hour-long episode written by someone who works in webdramas turns out to be a good hybrid format for scope and pacing, so i hope it's here to stay.
True Beauty
early days and it feels like i have to turn my brain off more than usual for some of this, but it's a lot of fun so far.
Let Me Off the Earth
great initial premise, that has weekly become a weird crapshoot of 'is this going to have anything to do with the timeloop?' often it's 'no' and 'no, but it taking place in a timeloop recontextualizes it in an intriguing way kind of and look they're going somewhere with this i think/hope'. then sometimes it's about the timeloop and yaaay.