The "Warm and Cozy" Still 17 Review

After watching Goblin, I needed a show that was mostly light and happy but with a good tight plot. Still 17/Thirty but Seventeen turned out to be just that show I needed.

The strength of this show is the non-related family that was created, the "found" family. Everyone who lived in that house needed to be emotionally healed in some way. The way they wrote them leaning on each other, gradually learning to trust was a beautiful thing to see. There wasn't one single main character that I didn't like. Even Chan's two high school buddies were embroidered into this family seamlessly. I was particularly happy Fang, the dog, made it to the end! I liked there that was no jealousy, no back stabbing, no triangles really. Even Chan's crush on Seo Ri was handled well and appropriately for the 19 year old he was.

(Sidenote: What is it with the "I like you but know you don't like me but I'm gonna confess it anyway to make myself feel better so I can move on" trope?? It's my number one pet peeve for dramas. Stop it! It's selfish and secretly I think most characters do it to make the person that doesn't love them feel guilty and miserable.)

The relationship between Seo Ri and Woo Jin could have been really, really complicated and messy but the writer choose not to reveal a major secret of her identity until almost the end of the series and I think that was the right decision. They were allowed the freedom to heal from the past, come to love and trust each other and then find out this secret and be able to handle it with the foundation of love and trust they had built.

I did feel a couple of areas needed some criticism. First, it was the mystery of what happened to the uncle/aunt. I felt like that plot line was kinda dropped mid way for a while, then at the end it was warp speed to resolve it. Seo Ri deserved to have the reaction she did but it needed to be earlier in the drama because in the end the emotional bits were too rushed in the final hour. Also, the doctor friend that Seo Ri knew as a child and his belief that she would have stayed by his side when she woke up was unrealistic. Just because he went to med school for her doesn't automatically grant you the right to claim her dibs on her. And since they didn't really seem to be BFF in high school, the resoluteness he had towards her seemed false. Kudos though for allowing Woo Jin to handle it respectfully without any fists being thrown which unfortunately happens a bit too much in dramaland.

This was my second show with Yang Se-Jong and seeing him go from an isolated, broken man to a warm and loving individual who lights up a room with his smile was such a switch from his Dr. Romantic character. Shin Hye-Sun was fairly new to me. I had seen her in Legend of the Blue Sea previously. She played the confusion of a 17 year old waking up in a new body really well. Ahn Hyo-Seop I didn't realize unti several episodes in this was the same actor in Dr. Romantic 2! He definitely had grown up a lot between these two projects.

This isn't a ground breaking drama but I described it early on as a warm and cozy blanket and I still felt that way at the end.

My rating 4/5 which is interpreted as "Loved it but there were just one or two things that really stuck out as needing to be done better."