It really started out great. The first ep was good enough to catch my attention. Frankly, the first ep gave an impression that this will be a different Kdrama, that it will be a intellectual sci-fi drama. Something I haven't seen in Kdramaland. Well, this is definitely NOT a sci-fi drama. It wished it was a sci-fi drama but it didn't even come close. Towards the end of the drama when they can no longer scientifically or logically explain all the time and parallel universe jumping they just threw all explanations in a basket called Manpashikjeok, the magic bamboo flute. So in the end, after all the use scientific words and phrases such as doppleganger, quantum theory, relativity theory and after using lines like " your universe is still flat" ; " the X and Y axis meets at this place and that" and all the mathematical solution to the square root of the prime number mumbo-jumbo it all comes down to the magic flute being the one and only reason they are time-space traveling. No science there. So you'd think that for all the power of this magic flute at least a single episode, or even half an episode will be dedicated to tell us about the background of this flute. Instead we have a less than 5 sentences in ep 1 that tells us that it was passed down from previous kings and has been in their possession as a symbol from "Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms " for who knows how long.

And what's with the overuse of this editing technique where they leave out a scene from a prior episodes to be revealed in the beginning or early part of the next episode? I've seen a lot of Kdramas that used this technique effectively but not in TKEM. First, you can't use the same strategy in more than 2 consecutive episodes and/or more than twice in the drama because it loses it's shock value when you do. Second, the scene you are trying to hide from the previous episode MUST be vital to the development of the ensuing episodes. Sadly, this is not the case in TKEM. They can omit those scenes entirely and nothing would have changed in the story. I can deal with too product placements in this drama because I understand that quite a huge amount of money was spent in the making of this drama, but of course the producers will do everything to recover the money and more if possible. But the editing technique and the story telling - I just can't.

I don't find the romance between the 2 ML believable. Up until the time the female lead went to Kingdom of Corea she was being rude to Lee Gon (the King). Sure there were moments when she seems to worry about him but the overwhelming emotions that was conveyed was more of curiosity rather than developing love. Then she went to the Kingdom of Corea where she was treated lavishly and personally by Lee Gon. They shared a ride on a private plane where they flirted a little, the king himself cooked food for her and even picked her up somewhere in the Kingdom ( I forgot where it was but it was from a tall building, chatted in the bedroom and that was that. But apparently this is enough to convince us that she suddenly became hopelessly "in love" with him to the point she confessed it first? There was a lack of emotional development there. There was also a lack of character development with the main villain - the King's uncle. I mean was he just evil incarnate that the writer forgot to bother us with his background or his motivation for all the bad things he did? Just for power? to live eternally? I mean I've seen a lot of Kdrama about fight for corporate and real power (in historical dramas), the villains - as bad as a person and hungry for power as they were, they always had a justification for their actions. The villains always have someone or something they want to protect and so they act the way they do. So as disgusted as we are with them , we know where they are coming from. But the villain in this drama has no solid ground to stand on in terms of justification. The other villain - the woman prime minister role started as a really strong character. Like at par with the King's evil-incarnate uncle but she ended with just a puff. Defeated by a mere voice recording which will not even stand in court. Such a waste of character when she was the one with the right justification to be the real badass in this drama.
And all this confusion with the parallel universe traveling and then time traveling in a universe that Lee Gon don't even originally belonged to is soooo unnecessary and soooo distracting. it was hard to enjoy this drama with all the unnecessary plot twist and characters. In the end all that confusion about time-space travelling was just meant to make us believe that Lee Gon will travel in all universes in different timelines just to be with the FL. So Ok, we get it you're in love but must it really be that complicated?

The Acting:
Lee Min Ho for sure was an eye candy. BUT, a big part of me wishes that he could act as well. There literally is little to no difference in his acting from The Heirs, Legend of the blue sea, BOF, City hunter from his acting in TKEM. It's the same facial expression, the same monotonous delivery of lines. I can't help but sigh. He sure is lucky he is that handsome.
The only actor that stood out in this drama is Woo Do-Hwan, thanks for the double roles he played. It also helped that the roles he played was so different from each other in personality even when they looked the same. It gave him a lot of leeway to play around in terms of acting.

What I like about this drama? one word. MAXIMUS.

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I love the characters in this drama. though some scenes veered away from the novel it still was able to deliver the main idea. love the musical scoring as it invokes the right emotion from each scenes to the audience. the cinematography was great and so are the fight scenes. the casts gave the best they can so I really can't complain. will rewatch. The relationship between NQ and SS may seem awkward at first but as the story developed it just made more sense that they be together as they already shared a life together and knew each other deeply in a way different from a bro-sis relationship. their relationship and feelings for each other were made clearer in the novel than in the TV adaptation, but I guess its hard to put everything on the screen.

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