K-drama Review: The Girl Who Sees Scents

The Girl Who Sees Scents has an intriguing premise but, unfortunately, it cannot quite decide what type of story it wants to be, nor does the execution deliver on the initial promise.

English Title: The Girl Who Sees Scents (2015)

Writer: Lee Hee-myung

Director: Oh Chung-hwan and Baek Soo-chan

Length: 16 Episodes

Tropes: Murder mystery with a slight paranormal twist, serial killer, amnesia, Action, RomCom

My Score: 3/5

Description: Aspiring comedienne Choi Eun-seol (Shin Se-kyung) is able to see scents as colours and shapes. Her path crosses that of police detective Choi Moo-gak (Park Yoo-chun), who is unable to smell, taste or feel pain, and they team up to solve the mystery of the Barcode Killer - a case that turns out to be deeply personal for them both.

If you enjoyed this show, then watch: Suspicious Partner, and While You Were Sleeping and My Love From the Stars (both by the same director, Oh Chung-hwan)

I watched The Girl Who Sees Scents as it was about to leave Netflix. (Spoiler alert - it didn't actually leave Netflix so you can still watch it.)

The show started with promise, with an intriguing concept, and an interesting opening. So far so good! However, the plot quickly grew confusing, before shifting gears and suddenly dropping us into a theatre company's contest with a bunch of characters we don't know and could care less about. The female lead's ability to see scents was also largely ignored, then the focus shifted again, to a police station where, once again, we met a bunch of new characters without being properly introduced to them. The first episode quickly turned into a hot mess, and forty minutes in, I still hadn't formed a bond with either of the main characters. As a result, I didn't really care about what was happening to them. Fortunately, by the end of the first episode the various story strands came together and started to make sense - which is the only reason I kept watching.

While there's a lot in this show that's worth watching, especially if you're looking for a light-hearted watch, here's a rundown of all the reasons why, for me, The Girl Who Sees Scents only warranted three stars (and very nearly got downgraded to two!)

• This show can't quite decide what genre it wants to be. Episode one has all the elements of a slapstick comedy with some perky romance thrown in, but then the show becomes a thriller, then a melodrama, and finally a murder mystery. Other K-dramas mash up genres, but the overall feel usually remains consistent and they don't change genre from episode to episode, as this one does.
• Some of the "science" isn't logical, and the story has more plot holes than a South African road has potholes! There are too many inconsistencies, unanswered questions and plot holes to mention them all here. (Like, what happened to the ML's aquarium job and the FL's dream of becoming a comedienne? Where did her father go for a whole year?) Some of these plot holes are so obvious they're laughable, like when the female lead (FL) walks into the killer's house, which she has already visited several times with him, knowing that he's now coming after her - and then she is surprised that this is his house. Did anyone actually read the final script before they filmed this?! (I did have a good laugh, though, over the continuity error in the final episode that had the leads going on a picnic together on the same bicycle, then they suddenly have two bikes during the picnic, before they go back to sharing the same bike again.)
• The killer's identity is revealed to viewers very early (in episode six, before even the halfway mark) which takes some of the tension and suspense out of the story. From then on it becomes a simple cat-and-mouse game until he is finally brought to justice. (On the plus side, the actor playing the villain, Min Nam-koong, is one of the best things about this show.)
• The female lead (FL) is very badly written. In romance novel terms she is what we would call TSTL (Too Stupid To Live.) She constantly puts herself into dangerous situations, knowing full well that they're dangerous, and with no credible motivation for doing so. (Though she's not the only character that does this!) Perhaps one of the worst instances is when she enters the killer's house to retrieve a hidden camera - and doesn't take her phone despite knowing she needs to be contactable. I began to think that she had a death wish and actually wanted the villain to kill her!
• There are multiple instances of author manipulation like this in the story. Author manipulation is when the writer manipulates the characters into doing things that are illogical in an effort to stir up drama. It feels ham-fisted and inconsistent with how real people would behave. Just one example: With a very clever serial killer after her, the FL decides to go home alone to her known address and, despite her being their sole witness, the police don't even think to offer her any protection. Would a real witness make herself a target like that - and would the police just let her?
• The police in this show are so inept and ridiculous that they lose all credibility. They're no doubt intended to provide comic relief in the story, but instead their over-the-top incompetence feels unbelievable and grows frustrating. As with the FL, they feel like characters manipulated by a writer rather than like real people. On an undercover stake-out, they sit around playing with their guns and gossiping about the case, making it painfully obvious why they're there - just so that the writer can have the villain overhear their plans. Later, at the story's climax, the detectives are searching a site, under urgent time pressure as lives on the line, when it starts to rain... so they just give up the search and retreat to a local coffee shop, delaying the discovery of the crucial trapdoor they're looking for. In a real life investigation, with lives at stake, would the police really just walk away to stay dry? Nope, but since this writer wants to delay the discovery, they're made to act in unrealistic ways.
• Unlike most Kdramas I've seen, the internal conflicts in this one are thin and superficial. The writer could have dug deeper instead of making the characters TSTL. This lack of depth was especially noticeable with the villain; the reason for why he became a serial killer was only superficially explored and we never learned where his enormous wealth came from. 
• Slow pacing: The last few episodes really drag. Around episodes 13 - 14 the story starts to feel repetitive, with characters acting rashly for no apparent reason other than to create plot conflict. The FL repeatedly goes back to meet the killer (knowing that he's the killer) and every time her supposed protection is nowhere to be found. No matter how much action there is on screen, if it's just more of what we've already seen before, it grows boring for viewers and the pacing slows.
• A dragged-out ending: The central storyline is pretty much wrapped up at the start of episode 15, with the FL very suddenly regaining her memory after three years of amnesia (all it took was one nightmare and her memory is suddenly intact!) but the writer clearly still needed to fill the remaining airtime so we're given some slapstick comedy, a series of dream sequences, a completely inept attempt to propose, and then there's an entirely new case for the leads to work on, which is quickly solved. All of this just felt like padding, rather than necessary to the story.
• The leads had very weak chemistry. They felt more like friends than lovers.
• And finally, though unrelated to this story, I was very disappointed to discover after I'd watched the whole show that the cute, seemingly boy-next-door ML actor was accused of sexual assault and also involved with drugs. His career ended quite soon after this drama, and in recent pictures he really looks terrible, so I can only assume the drugs have taken a big toll.

One of the best things about this show: the villain, played by Min Nam-koong

The Girl Who Sees Scents suffers in comparison with While You Were Sleeping (another romantic mystery with a paranormal twist) and Suspicious Partner, but it's still worth watching. Yes, it has issues, but it's still an interesting story (though admittedly the twists are a little too obvious for this to be classified as a Suspense) and it's still a light-hearted, unserious watch that's quite fun if your bar is not set too high.

Notes for writers:

• This show is a masterclass is how NOT to introduce characters. We meet too many characters all at once, and many of them appear random when they're first introduced. Only later do we find out who they are or why they matter. This script is also by far the worst I've seen so far in making us care quickly about characters when they're introduced - which is highly unusual for K-dramas, as they usually excel at making the viewer care.
• Another thing that (most) K-dramas do well is flashbacks. Usually, if flashbacks are repeated (which is sometimes necessary over a 16-episode drama) they usually make each flashback sufficiently different, adding new information or a new perspective each time, to keep the viewer interested. Not so with this one. The same flashback of the male lead's sister's death was repeated ad nauseam with no change. In your own novel, if you repeat parts of the story to remind the reader of past events, ensure that each reprise adds something new for the reader.
• Watch both this show and While You Were Sleeping to see the contrast between how their internal conflicts are developed. Note how much more emotional impact a show has when the characters' actions are well-motivated and organic rather than manipulated by the author.

Have you watched The Girl Who Sees Scents - if so, what were your thoughts? Have I been too harsh? If you haven't yet watched it, here's the trailer: