Splash Splash LOVE Review

Splash Splash LOVE was just light, cute fun. If you’re a devoted fan of time-travel love stories (I am not, but I definitely can see the charm) then you might be left a little unsatisfied by the length, but you should still totally check this out. Instead of viewing it as a drama, I would watch these two episodes as you would a movie and evaluate it based on that. I think you’ll be happier with it that way.

If you’re wanting some fluffy girl-as-boy, fish-out-of-water romcom-ness and you don’t want the commitment of a full-length drama or if *gasp* you’re trying to hook your friends on dramas, this is a really good snack sized outing that is pretty representative of the time-travel romance genre that is so popular in Dramaland.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself here. Thanks to the-unholy-love for the rec. The first episode especially was really strong. The main couple had sweet chemistry and the king character was really funny and endearing.

A couple things I wasn’t crazy about: It was weird to me how young the MFC behaved at times. She was supposed to be 19 but some of her behaviors felt a lot younger than that, making the age difference between her and the king seem larger than I think it was actually supposed to be. It would also have been really nice to get further development of the queen and the secondary male lead (the musician) but there’s only so much you can expect with 2 episodes to work with. I get the impression that a lot of this stuff was supposed to be filled in by the audience being familiar with the historical figures and context. In that way, I probably miss quite a few references that would have rounded things out.

The other thing that bothered me–and this is going to be a minor spoiler, so skip down to w here it says End of Spoilers if you don’t want them

–and knocked this showdown a couple of pegs in my estimation was the handling of the MFC pretending to be a boy and how the king found out she was a girl. For pretty much the entirety of first episode it seems like he pretty firmly believes she is a boy, and is falling in love with her in spite of that which I personally like a lot. It was important to me that they were handling that way. And honestly, I think they wussed-out at the last minute and decided to say “oh no, I’ve totally known all along” in order to retroactively spread “no homo” over the king’s actions. That’s disappointing. Also, I don’t think it’s super consistent. His confession, the way he looked and interacted with her, none of that indicated that he’d already made her as a girl. Based on his personality (he’s exuberant, a little arrogant, teasing) I think if he had figured it out when the show claims he did, he would have said something about it right away. Personal headcanon says he started catching wise when she took her hair down, and not before.

Also, they went with a “past lives” cliché for the ending that I never find very satisfying in these sorts of things. I don’t personally liked the fated-lovers across time thing, when it means you don’t end up with the guy you fell in love with, you end up with the person he was reincarnated as. Sorry, writer. He’s not the same person! I don’t care if they look alike. He’s still the store-brand equivalent and he’ll never taste quite right. Innuendo entirely intended. It’s a cheap means to give closure and I would prefer it if they were separated but never forgot each other. Okay, End of Spoilers.

It’s gonna seem like I have a lot of complaints about such a little drama, and I don’t want it to. This show was really fun and overall enjoyable. There were just little things that threw me out, when I wanted to be taken further in.

As much as the second episode didn’t have the pay off that such a strong set up rightfully deserved, I’m still super glad I watched this and I still totally recommend it. On the strength of the main couple alone it’s worth a watch. It was well written and cute. I laughed many times and I even got a little choked up. 8/10