Created by ‘Viu’ and produced by ‘Samhwa Networks’, “From Now On, Showtime!” is fantasy plus romcom Kdrama which bases on horror comedy. Written by Ha Yoon Ah and jointly directed by Lee Hyung Min and Jung Sang Hee, the drama was originally broadcasted on MBC.

Cha Cha Woong (Park Hae Jin) is a handsome and popular magician who has been able to create a name for himself in the industry with the spectacular magic tricks he does. But little do the public knows about his secrets about being helped by a group of employed ghosts in performing. Upon meeting Ko Seul Hae (Jin Ki Joo), a passionate police officer, he joins the civil police unit to gain some attention but soon they fall in love. Together they try to solve a 10 years old case that involved their family members and meanwhile discovers stories of their past lives that connected them for eternity.

Choi Geum (Jung Joon Ho), Nam Sang Gun (Jung Suk Yong), Ma Dong Chul (Go Gyu Pil) and Kang Ah Reum (Park Seo Yeon) are the employees of the magic factory. Lee Yong Ryul (Kim Hee Jae) is a junior cop and Chun Ye Ji (Jang Ha Eun) is a young shaman. Other familiar actors in various supporting roles are Kim Won Hae, Lee Dong Ha, Cha Mi Kyung, Kim Jong Hoon, Ahn Chang Hwan, Jung Jae Sung and Yang Joo Ho. There are also other known faces in guest roles.

Plot development wasn’t steady though it remains constant for quite a while. Pilot episode wasn’t impressive at all and the furtherance from there didn’t improve at all. Many elements and technical aspects bugged me from the very beginning and there seemed no effort to rectify them on the maker’s part. So, I did struggle for a long time to digest whatever was happening. As a story, it wasn’t really going forward in the same acceleration, because from character introduction to establishing the base of the story, everything made sense. From 3rd, I had already decided to watch at 1.5x, but unexpectedly, I started to like the way things were turning up, midway from the 5th episode, which made me bring back the speed to normal. Honestly, it kept growing on me and I almost fell for it because of smooth and consistent growth, which which which, lasted only till the 11th episode. Introduction of typical Seora-era past life connection trope and painting it with a lousy and funny plotline, is what again ruined the show. The execution of it wasn’t really bad but then the way the current story was plotted it made the entire thing shoddy. The show becomes dragged and exaggerated a lot from 12th episode, albeit its not entirely unbearable. The finale was too rushed. The ending sequence was quite not impressive at all and the "last episode break-up followed by rushed patch-up" trope was so unnecessary, lmao. The stupidest fanatsy was the retrogressive time travel by Hae Jin.

Han Yoo Ah jakkanim had hit the spot with her debuting script “Mystic Pop-up Bar”, which wasn’t really great but had lived up to expectations and was qualitatively acknowledged. However, this show, as her 2nd work failed to keep up in the graph of consistency. I agree the low budget and poor promotion took a toll on the outcomes, but judging from the story, execution and everything else, this isn’t really worth of high results, so whatever hype it has received, it has earned it well. The plot development is average, the character arcs are unexceptional with ordinary growth curves and the elements were randomly choosen; adding to it, the 2000 yo choppy plotline.

Lee Hyung Min PDnim, who’s been working over 2 decades have created many hits and popular dramas and have also seen some of his works getting flopped. While I can’t say it’s one of his worst works, it wasn’t really anything memorable or even a decent piece, given the fact that half of it couldn’t even reach the average expectations. In FACT, It’s the direction that made the drama worse, which is very unlikely and idk what exactly went wrong. The camera work wasn’t very good and to add to the pile was the job of screen and sound editing, which was of substandard quality. The frequent face close-ups and unsuitable sound incorporation was the biggest offs.

There are 7 OSTs in total and I like 3 of them and don’t like the others. They are: “FALLIN’” by Kim Hee Jae, “DANDELION” by Zitten and “YOU YOU YOU” by Floody. The other 4 are “FREAK SHOW” by Jeon So Yeon (I like its instrumental though), “I’LL BE THERE” by An Da Eun, “TIME” by paulkyte and “EHERADIYA” by Bae Gi Sung.

What I liked…

# The way of utilizing shamanism as a tool and incorporating magic in was interesting the idea couldn’t be properly executed and presented; simply, it fell short.

# Park Hae Jin always aces the comedy roles in Kdramas and is essentially one of the best when it comes to playing a comic male lead character. Such was the case here; he simply was wonderful as Cha Cha Woong, though the name is unattractive. His real sense of humor did really reflected in his comic scenes.

# The ghosts working together during the magic showcase scenes were extremely funny. Similarly, their way of helping the leads in various face-offs or dire situations was wisely sketched. They were actually cute.

# The General’s obsession for the idol Aris was very funny and the scenes involving that were entertaining though it lasted very short.

# The casting of an actual trot star Kim Hee Jae as debutant and having scenes where he sings a trot song was very delightful for me as a fan of K-trot music.

What I didn’t like…

# Except for the concept, there is not really anything fresh. I wasn’t gonna complain about it but the fact that they forgot their own theme, turning the show into something else, made it an absolute mess. So, this is just another ghost-relieving drama with intertwined past.

# The comedy is bland for most of the parts, as the editing doesn’t contribute to the overall humor. Also, the pacing of individual scenes are inconsistent, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, though the plot progression speed is okay.

# The romance line started earlier than expected and then turned into cringey fillers which is something I hate a lot in Kdramas. It wasn’t maturely handled.

# The 2000yo old mystery plot wasn’t required in the first place, but they couldn’t even write or execute it well. This is more of personal preference, and I believe that without it, the drama could have been smoothly wrapped up within 12 episodes, or even 10.

# It seemed like the writer themselves was confused about what the direction of the story should be; for first few episodes it was only supernatural, then it turned into only romance and then to only comedy, finally tuning into some history shit and then fantasy.

Final Remarks… I won’t really recommend the drama to anyone, not even who watches everything. For me, it was below the level you call decent. I would have rated it lower if not for the things that I really liked and thought would be foolish not taking into consideration. While Park Hae Jin and the comedy elements remaina source of inspiration to watch this, all other things aren’t that noteworthy. I have loved the FL and her acting the past but she didn’t seem to be able adjust to the role even so her performance was good. Overally, the drama is moderately average, nevertheless entertaining to a limited extent. If you have time and patience, then go ahead.