‘Love Alarm’…Super cool concept makes for an entertaining first season but dull characters turn season two into a snooze fest.

This review is for both Season 1 & 2.

Spoilers Ahead…

I am not hesitant to say that I am not (yet) on board with the idea of K-dramas having multiple seasons. A crucial aspect of my attraction towards them, I have always loved K-dramas’ concept of a finite runtime. It lets me watch a variety of stories and lets its actors dabble in multiple projects across a range of genres. More importantly, in today’s overstuffed world of content, it makes it easier to drop uninteresting shows without the guilt of ‘what if it gets better next season?’.
But, of course, this is my personal opinion. As they say, change is the only constant, and changes such as this, gives writers and producers more leeway to experiment with new ideas. Netflix’s latest offering, Love Alarm, is one such experiment.

Love Alarm revolves around the titular app, and its growing dominance on people’s love lives, particularly our lead trio, Kim Jo Jo (Kim So Hyun), Hwang Sun Oh (Song Kang), and Lee Hye Young (Jung Ga Ram). In a typical K-drama fashion, the writers use a formulaic high school love triangle to lure us in, only to reveal a story about our extreme dependency on technology.

We don’t get the exact details of how the app works (I think it is synced to the user’s heartbeat or heart rate) but the focal point is the bell, the alarm, that goes off whenever someone in a 10 m radius likes you. It doesn’t tell you who this person is, and if there are multiple people within this radius, it just gives you a number.
This non-specificity gives the writers ample scope to illustrate the different ways in which the app infiltrates into our lives, and the power we grant it to do so.

For example, the app would tell you that someone likes you but it doesn’t specify whether this ‘like’ is love, a physical attraction or simply an interest in the other person. We see this in Sun Oh’s parents relationship, as his father (Kim Young Pil), despite cheating on his wife, rings her love alarm everyday, while his mother (Song Seon Mi) doesn’t ring his.

In some instances, people would download the app, only to avoid the person they like, so that they don’t ring their love alarm. For people who are yet to come out the closet, ringing the bell of their crush can invariably out them causing them much distress and embarrassment.
Yet, despite these inconsistencies, within a span of four years, the app is everywhere.

Fans use it to show idols their love, books are being written about it and movies, around it. At the end of a wedding ceremony, it is now customary for the newlyweds to ring each other’s love alarm. People with the most likes are granted access to an exclusive members only club, and soon enough, the company plans to launch an update that can predict who you will fall in love with.

But, there are downsides too. The increased dependency on the app, causes an increase in the number of people suffering from an inferiority complex and depression (the app when inactive always reads, ‘No one in the 10 m radius loves you’). There is even a case of mass suicide, committed by people whose love alarm had never been rung even once. Simultaneously, there is an increase in number of crimes against women, like stalking, sexual harassment and murder, even.
People become obsessed with the app, relying on it to tell others and themselves, how they feel. As Jo Jo reminiscences, ‘People don’t say I love you any more, they just ring each others love alarm’.

Through such detailed depiction of the uses and misuses of the app, the writers and the production team have done a great job of making this app a very believable part of this world. You can see how seamlessly it becomes a part of the day to day consciousness, that uninstalling the app is no longer an option.

But while technology might be straightforward, humans rarely are, especially when it comes to the matters of the heart. So, while the broad strokes does wonders for the social commentary, it curbs characterisation and leaves us with many unexplained character motivations.
Why does Sun Oh pursue Jo Jo when he knows how much Hye Young, (his best and only friend), likes her? This one single action goes against everything he expresses (and we witness) about his relationship with Hye Young. And neither does this act of his, cause any repercussion in their relationship. Instances like these then only seem to exist, to create some episodic tension.

Regardless, the first season even with this issue is still immensely entertaining. Season two is where things turn dull. By failing to set up a central conflict, or answer the unresolved questions from season one, season two is simply put, boring.

Things happen — Jo Jo and Hye Young start dating. Hye Young gets a backstory. Park Gul Mi (Go Min Si, was the only one who delivered some energy and excitement in this season) runs her online store. Sun Oh goes from one promotional event to the next. In the midst, there is also a murder, a police investigation, a point about data breach and privacy invasion. But all these things happen in isolation with no effect on one another, making the season feel very rootless.

For instance, with Hye Young’s job at Love Alarm, wouldn’t it have been more effective to involve him in finding out about the company’s illegal collection and use of the users’ data, rather than the issue just being a conversation between two employees? Or how does he feel about the app being used to stalk and harass women, considering that even Jo Jo was once a victim of this?
His job at the company doesn’t result him in engaging with any of these problems, and neither does Jo Jo use Hye Young’s job or his connections to find the app developer. So then why make it a point to show where he works?

These discrepancies and the lack of cohesiveness between the storylines for the characters and the app, could be an outcome of having two different writers and directors for both seasons (something Queen of Mystery also suffered from). As a consequence, it becomes difficult to understand the changes in characterisation (like Jo Jo running a social commentary art page or Gul Mi having her own online store), especially considering that season two takes off right from where season one ends.

In the past month alone, multiple dramas have announced a second season. But as these shows weren’t written with a continuing season in mind, it would be interesting to see how this affects future projects. Would K-dramas now have more open endings or only popular shows will be renewed?
We will have to wait and watch, till then I am sticking to the finite.