[cue laughter]

Characters:

• Kim Dong-joon
• Park Se-mi
• Ken
• Jo Hyun-young

Details:

• Korean
• 12 episodes
• Original run: Sept. 22, 2014 – ???

Quick Rundown:

During the days of his youth, the owner of the boarding house produced a child with one of his lovers. Now 24 years later he is hoping to find this child. Who could it be? He gathers the possible candidates under one roof and plots to eliminate the choices one by one.

Estelle’s Take

Between the canned 80s laugh tracks and the truly mediocre acting, I don’t really know which is worse. I quickly lost interest in the middle of episode 1, but my sense of duty to this blog pushed me to finish it. Despite my every effort to like it, from convincing myself that the idols are worth a watch to trying to justify the quirky storyline to making believe that this would be Roommates meet Reply series, I still could not gather enough reason and desire to click on episode 2. Yes, it was really that bad.

I don’t know if the laugh track is what really ruined it for me, but I couldn’t concentrate on the story or the acting because of its ever-presence in the background hinting at me that this scene right here is super funny when it clearly was not. It’s not like That 70’s Show where things were actually stupidly funny – Boarding House No. 24 was just stupid without the funny. The characters meet each other through various webs of misunderstandings and whatnots apparently plotted by the boarding house owner, but it felt so contrived (and not in a good way) that I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was one of those obviously staged shorts on Saturday Night Live and again, without the funny.

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh with this show, but here are just my two cents. Regardless, the idols in this show will garner enough attention and viewers so no worries there. But any breakout roles or Baeksang awards? Maybe in another lifetime.

This & That:

• Kim Dong-joon is the maknae (youngest) and lead vocalist of nine piece boyband, ZE:A. This is his first main role in a TV series.
• Park Se-mi is of the longest running girl group in Korea, Jewelry.
• Ken is of six member boyband, VIXX, which recently released their comeback album, Eternity.
• Jo Hyun-young is of the seven member girl group, Rainbow.