I’m a bit of cynic when it comes to “short” shows. I know that it’s wrong and trust me when I say that often my initial thoughts on shorter shows have been proven false, but often because of limited budgets, time frames and rushed writing (etc.), I can often find myself expecting the same old flukes and errors. Dear .M wasn’t entirely perfect but I would like to talk a bit about what I really liked and didn’t like with this series.

What I Really Liked;

I have my peeves with the setup but I can’t deny that main actors Park Hye Soo and Jeong Jae Hyun were really good here. Their chemistry was surprisingly dynamic and you could feel a certain impassioned expression of affections between the leads which made their onscreen chemistry feel alive.

Another thing that I really liked about the show was the topics tackled. It was a simple plot and it didn’t exactly take a lot of mental strain to follow, but that didn’t mean it was entirely absent from thought either. A lot of the subjects weren’t brilliantly detailed but it was still pretty surprising for a fairly lighthearted romance series to bring in topics such as ethics as well as psychological, physical and financial toils on students also.

I also really liked the fact that the characters weren’t entirely one-dimensional either. We saw a lot of problems faced by the main leads as well as the side characters without the plot feeling really draggy by the halfway point either. ( The writing made a point also of showing the leads and side characters for the most part as actual students. A lot of drama fall into the honey trap of making them feel like they are hitching a free ride through studies whereas here the fact that a lot of characters actually had to deal with work, assignments and campus life helped to make them feel a bit more fleshed out.)

What I didn’t like;

I’m used to a lot of cliches with characters and in all honesty I don’t mind them but I like to see where shows can diverge these stereotypes early on. Here, the show followed a typical cookie cutter approach to its main leads and side characters. I won’t go into this too much but I will say that it does become a bit tiresome as a drama watcher to see drama with characters reinforcing the same old roles and stereotypes. ( Especially the jealous and envious female leads, as well as catty conflicts and miscommunication .)

I will say that the second-half did tone down this approach but it felt as though because the drama was so obsessed with trying to present final obstacles for our main couple as well as tie up events, it was lost to the fact of featuring our side characters with more prevalence in the second-half, often making them feel out of place aside from dragging out moments of tension and drama.

Personally I felt that the ending could’ve been a little better with helping to tie up loose ends a bit more and bringing key characters to the front and smoothing out the resolution but I didn’t feel there was much to really improve on here.

Maybe my only remaining pet peeve came through the OST. It wasn’t bad by any stretch but it wasn’t entirely define as particularly memorable. Yes, there were a few songs which were sort of fun to tap your fingers to or helped to define a few scenes but it felt as though it could’ve been a little less generic at times or varied with tracks. Maybe that’s just me but I can’t really say that a lot of chosen music was my personal taste in music.

Overall thoughts; Dear.M was pretty much what it said on the tin. I think if you’re going into this drama expecting tales of woe and joy and flawless presentation then you might be a bit disappointed. Though I do think if you accept that its a lighthearted romance drama with its rough edges and fun moments then you’ll probably like this one. I have my own personal annoyances with the series but for the most part, it was pretty fun. Overall I’m going to give this one a definite 7.5/10.