If you want an easy laugh, an abundance of twists and don’t care too much about credibility or depth, this show may well suit you. But if you are looking for something more sophisticated, challenging and suspenseful it will disappoint.

Okay let’s start with some of the good stuff before weighing in with the problems.

Such a cool sound track. I think this is my favourite soundtrack so far from all the dramas I’ve watched. The opening credits track really remind me of “The The”. The vocalist has a similar vocal style. Even the title font and colour felt like a graphic nod in that direction. Is this just me? Overall, the rest of the OST has got some great voices, with gritty undertones and pulsing instrumentals.

The military setting was a strong point, allowing for the investigation of a number of scenarios around the abuse of power and authority which offered a different slant from the more normal political or business environment. It examined some really good issues that had a lot of potential.

Do Bae Man was a quirky character well executed by Ahn Bo Hyun, although in the later stages I think he lacked subtlety. Jo Bo Ah as Cha Woo In also made a sound job of the action scenes. Oh Yeon Soo was less persuasive as their arch nemesis, Noh Hwa Young, for me she didn’t quite convince in the steely coldness that the role demanded. I thought that Kim Woo Seok gave the best performance as the damaged and unstable Noh Tae Nam and his screen time made for compulsive viewing.

This is a show of two halves. The first half is much lighter and quirkier than the second half. At first, there was a great mixture of the believable and the ridiculously unbelievable. I liked the way the writer managed to keep you clinging to the edge of credibility before tipping you over the edge. However, on a number of occasions, ridiculously unbelievable was not the writer’s intent and it really cast a shadow of stupidity and incompetence over the protagonists. That they would not properly protect vulnerable, mission-critical witnesses for instance. This is short-cut, sloppy plotting that requires manipulating the integrity of the characters. Of all writing faults, for me, this is the one that is absolutely unforgivable. Your characters are your connection to your audience, undermine them at your peril.

The one thing that this writer excels at is twists and there are some absolutely classic ones, along with a few oh-dear-whoops moments that completely cracked me up. The one at the end of Episode 7 was brilliant and showcased the vein of black humour running through this production.

However, a primary fault is its inability, particularly in the early stages to build sufficient tension. The blame can partially be laid at the door of cheap tricks to grab the attention, rather than systematically building suspense that carries the viewer with it. Particularly in the first half the writer allowed himself to get distracted by making a joke or trying to look cool, rather than making a point and again character integrity was compromised for the sake of a passing punchline.

Throughout there was all too frequent use of flash forwards and flash backs often at the start of an episode to try to peak interest. The fault might be laid at the writer’s door or maybe the director in the editing suite, but whoever did it the result is not persuasive. It’s a cheap way to get attention and smacks of covering up weak plot planning.

The mode of choice is to show the action and then tell the twist afterwards, as in a “gotcha”. This can be effective sometimes, but it is used too often here so that the viewer soon learns not to trust anything they are seeing. Instead of drawing the viewer in, it serves to alienate them, as though they are not part of the inner circle in the know. This technique is something to be used sparingly when it’s a huge twist that comes like a slap in the face. The cost for frequently using it is losing the building of suspense that the viewer does for themselves in anticipation of what might come.

Overall the plot lacked drive and coherence, jumping from scenario to scenario, with way too many plot threads. This meant that some of the serious issues aired in the second half of the drama were explored in less depth than they really deserved. Whereas more minor ones were left dangling for long periods only to be picked up again as a convenience. There was an awful lot to try and pack into the drama, a more in-depth exploration of either the corruption or the social issues would have made a full length drama and I felt that trying to do both meant that neither was fully done justice. The resulting shortage of time lead to a naive, fantasy land treatment of many of the complex issues, for instance, the development of a new weapon.

It’s a necessary skill for a writer to work out how to dump info without requiring the actors to do it for them in unrealistic and clumsy conversations. This is a skill not yet mastered by Yoon Hyun Ho and there are way too many pedestrian lines for the actors to say that slow the pace and muddy the credibility. Later on, there is a shortage of sophistication in the playing out of scenarios, including the legal ones, and the script is amateurish. That injuries on someone’s back from a beating could somehow be construed and accepted as self-harm is ludicrous.

The script was not helped by the lacklustre directing and the choices in the editing suite, which served only to disjoint further, rather than unify the disparate pieces of the plot.

The FL, Cha Woo In, says at the end of Episode 1 “A world where justice and truth have been reversed. Only from upside down can you see it properly.” Which has echoes of the twist in perspective of this writer’s previous offering, “Lawless Lawyer”. I like the sideways approach that he takes, he has good ideas and themes worthy to be explored, it’s just the execution of them that is sadly lacking.

What my rating means: 7+ A watchable drama, but nothing exceptional. Good enough to qualify for the race, but finished with the pack. The sort of thing that promises more than it delivers.