Yes, I quoted your post. I also just edited it to include
“dramas left that I have not seen”
Here’s one family, of mostly males, Plus Nine Boys, you’ll likely find pretty entertaining. Viki really wiped off a lot of shows from it’s line up. One of the brothers is a PD. 
I was trying to find this one, and couldn’t, but here it is, You Are The Only One, just wanted to include it in this thread. (人*❛‿❛) Here is the actress that helped me find it 
Kim HaeSook, or from on Viki Kim HaeSook
Trailer 1, and Trailer 2
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I forgot this one!!! They were a really lovely family!
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They have to be watched in a different way… these are the type of dramas you shouldn’t binge. One or two episodes a week, use it to relax, something like that. It won’t be fast-paced, more like you’re sitting down with the family and watching them go through life. It’s not the same as those 50+ episode cdramas.
I’m a little used to such dramas because we always used to sit down with my grand-aunt to watch her Kannada melodramas when we went to our native place for vacation. I picked up a lot of bad Kannada watching that 
but they were half an hour long episodes which would drag and drag and dragggg so much that if I left in January and came back in May for summer holidays, I could piece the story together because not all that much had changed 
These weekend dramas might be better because they’re weekly, not daily, like the ones I watched.
Thanks for giving details on those shows!
I finally decided
What Happens to my Family is
- in my region. most of the others aren’t. I’m most comfortable watching stuff on Viki.
- i recognize and know the younger actors (Nam Ji Hyun! Park Hyung Sik! Seo Kang Joon! Yoon Park!)
- It has a 9.6 rating
- I am not sensible at all
Thank you, every body, for helping me choose! I’m ready to start on a new genre!
PS: Never Twice looks pretty interesting… I’ll start plaguing the request form for that one and Five Enough after I’m done with WHTMF
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What? I’m so jealous right now because this one is NOT in my region, and those are two of my boys! 
I don’t mind binging a slow and steady drama, as long as there is some ‘steady’ progress. I just finished up a 43-episode drama that I had to claw and scratch my way through in very small increments because they just kept swimming in circles with the same nonsense happening over and over. As long as the story is moving forward, I don’t worry too much about pace.
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Family dramas of 50 episodes usually have both comedy and very serious events happening. The best ones take the opportunity to make valuable social commentary, and you get to learn a lot about Korean culture, much more so than the usual 16-episode k-dramas geared towards a modern, younger, urbanized group of viewers.
They usually have a happy ending - even if not for everyone, but they take the time to explore many substories of the family members. By the end, you feel they are people you know. Usually the romance is not the main dish, although there are a couple romance sub-plots.
No, family dramas are not usually makjang but they have another problem. Since they are for all the family, including grandmas, they tend to promote traditional family values. But since they also want to cater to the younger members of the family, they walk carefully, trying to present the arguments for modernity as well. For instance, in Father Is Strange, we see an independent, smart lady lawyer, who still has to get her father’s approval in going out of the house and live alone.
And that’s true for all situations in those dramas. Couples are expected to go and live with the in-laws, although the mother-in-law hates her daughter-in-law with all her heart. The daughter-in-law willingly goes there in order to coax the mother-in-law and gently bring her to like her through her kindness and patience in catering to all her whims and enduring all the bad treatment. Things like that that will irk you.
HOWEVER, they also make the traditional folks eventually apologize for their foolishness when they’ve been foolish, harsh, unjust. They make them initially resist modern concepts like their child marrying a divorcee/orphan/older woman or accepting an adopted female child instead of the male heir that they wished for, but then they are gradually won over. So in that sense the writers try to give a lesson in humanity to the old-fashioned viewers. They don’t want to oppose their views from the start and alienate them, because they would most probably stop watching. So they present their point of view first (voiced by the drama character), and then win them over making them (hopefully) more open to change, just as the drama character.
All in all, they promote family unity and reconciliation, compromise on all parts (rather than opposition/revolution against injustice) to achieve harmony.
There are four I really couldn’t get enough of
Yu Na’s Street. I cannot even start saying how much I loved that one. Almost not a sign of a k-drama trope there. Well-written, flawed characters portrayed with kindness and lack of judgement, giving everyone, their chance to prove their humanity.
Five Children: Extremely well-written. You’ll love it!
All about my Mom: Very good show, with a terrific actress. I binge-watched that one.
Once Again. I thoroughly enjoyed that one, although some parts of it were infuriating. The actors were really top-notch here.
My Father Is Strange: That one is also good, although not as much as the previous ones (and I disliked the main love story of the actor with the clown girl, which spoiled it for me somehow).
And they all have the concept of “accidental family” the OP asked for.
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I haven’t seen the other ones yet, but I agree. This one was really good
Cheer Up, Mr. Kim is at #1 and #2 and #3 and #4 and… I tell you, there is no other drama that so perfectly captures the highs and lows of a struggling family of both relatives and friends, Mr. Kim being not just the dad, but also the mom and the uncle and breadwinner and the most depressed yet most dependable person on this planet. I will forever love you, Mr. Kim. You are the embodiment of the ”perfect guy”
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So I started What Happens to My Family… I was surprised that I was comfortable with it even though it’s from 2014 (I usually can’t watch stuff older than 2016). The camerawork is, understandably, not very interesting. I can’t seem to get interested in the sister’s work plot, even though her bickering with that director guy is kinda funny. Park Hyung Sik and Nam Ji Hyun overact to the next level, but I love them so I find it funny. They’re adorable.
It caught my interest and I want to know what happens and how it happens. But, as lots of you said, it’s a little slow… so I’ll have to spreadddddd and watch or leave it all together. Or grow older and then watch. I don’t know.
for @ninjas_with_onions: you can see some of the scenes are sets. But the funniest thing I noticed was that Hyung Sik’s voice echoed on certain sets if he shouted too loudly😂 I wonder if they did it in a hall or something.
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I loved this drama! It was my favorite for a long time.
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Thanks for the thorough analysis. I have not ventured into this territory, but this thread may have convinced me to give one a go.
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I know, I re-watched it at least 3-4 times. I loved aunt and grandpa. I think it was my first weekend family drama.
It wasn’t the longest because one of my first encounters was a drama called Yellow Handkerchief, 169 eps (35 mins) Mo-Fr morning airing, so the real ahjumma stuff.
Is a Mo-Fr drama too, but aired after 8 pm. So that is why there is more romance and the other in the morning has more pain, jealousy, vengeance and what not …
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Yes, that is very noticeable when you see them standing outside before their house/store and on the street in their cute little neighbourhood. That’s just too obvious a set to be missed
But this one I actually didn’t notice in the series. Maybe I am more aware of what I see than what I hear 
I’ll pay attention to it if I watch the series again
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I also loved
What I like about this type of drama is that you can see the meeting of a couple, the dating period, their wedding and their married life.
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It’s like opening Pandora’s Box and see how many longer dramas I have watched so far, and there are some:
(Many of them were on Viki but now no longer.)
Dear Heaven, watched somewhere in the yt universe when laws about copyrights weren’t as fierce as they are now. This was the first drama I saw a bullring in, and I don’t think there was any other. But even so, … This one has a complicated plot, even by K-drama standard. The FL gets abandoned by her mom. Her mom marries a rich guy, who has a little son, so the FL’s mom raises the boy with a lot of care, there is a daughter too, and I think she is the birth mom, but I am not sure, oh my brain, well, and thanks to her bad conscience because of her own child, who doesn’t lead a nice life. It’s a lot of story to tell, 85 episodes, for the main couple to become lovers. The FL’s mother does some work to get her back into her life, by wanting to marry the FL to her “son”. Even not blood related to her “son”, this is kind of a big no no, in Korean society. So she tries very hard to keep her secret. Another hard “earned” happy end, but well, who wants to sit on the edge for 85 episodes and then not being rewarded?
Gloria, no longer on Viki, I mentioned this one before, it is lacking in some points, but I will never forget halmoni’s place, she rented out all her rooms. Gloria, or also known as Jin Jin lived there with her sister Jin Joo, who has a childlike mind after suffering a brain injury. Jin Jin really wants to find out how her sister got injured years ago, but she doesn’t have the power too, but when she gets discovered and makes a career as a singer, she can finally find out the truth.
Golden Bride, an older drama from 2007, many do not know. It was a rare case where mental problems were addressed. The mother of the ML kind of “buys” the bride from Vietnam. Both have an interest for her to come to Korea, the bride wants to look for her missing Korean dad, and the mom wants to bring her highly depressed son back to normal. One can argue, if this is really a way to handle depression, but since it isn’t a short drama, 64 episodes, the development between the leads is coming on slowly, and you see while they get to know each other, they learn to respect and care for one another. It has one of the most “earned” happy ends ever.
House of Bluebird, still at Viki, no I was wrong, no longer - I think at a certain point I only watched for Lee Sang Yeob …
Just Between Lovers, still at Viki, I love Gang Doo’s/Kang Doo’s “family”, from his “landlady mom” and her son, his “brother” of heart, to the halmoni, who is giving him painkiller (or not), even his “older sister”, who tries to make ends meet, not the ordinary way. It shows that I like this drama a lot, doesn’t it, and I do have a soft spot for dramas like this.
Kimcheed Radish Cubes, was probably my first encounter with the actor Joo Sang Wook, and he was kind of cute there, CEO of a big hotel, but what an innocent core with such a mother on top. It would have deserved another ending, I seldom say so, but in this case - yes.
Life is Beautiful, no longer on Viki, for already a long time. It is still a novum on a Korean drama even more so, that it managed to be a weekend drama, 63 episodes. And the main couple, two gays!
It was surprising, and I think not without risk for the main MLs to take on this role, but the drama family was just too nice, it’s not that they took the confession of their son, about him being gay, easy. It’s that the drama took the time for him to come to terms about his own sexuality and how he wants to live his life, but it took the time for the other characters to accept the fact as well. I remember this one dearly, and how there was always a character to fall down at the end of an episode … I feel somewhat sorry, that this drama did not manage to stay longer at Viki, but then you get so many BL stories and such who are far from real life, and this drama gets unnoticed.
Lovers in Bloom - nice watch, nothing too strenuous. A female ex-boxer, now trying to make ends meet being a police officer after the death of her husband. She has a little daughter to raise, so even there is a romance, the fight for survival and giving her daughter a nice life comes first.
My Daughter Flower, I am sure pretty unknown, not at Viki, 131 episodes, I could say it was all thanks to Choi Jin Hyuk, but that is only part of the truth. It might sound a bit familiar that we do have a mother-daughter-pairing, that is not related by blood, but all the hardships they go through, after losing the husband and father, makes them a unit. The mother however has a past, when she was very young she fell in love with a “son of a good family”, but the soon to be MIL didn’t find her to be a good match for her son, so she married her son off to a “good girl”, they adopted a boy (yes, there is a secret MIL, halmoni knows but no one else in the family knows, guess what?) and they had another boy, who is handicapped as his mind is childlike. Kkot Nim the daughter, the name means “flower”, after some heavy disputes with her new mom, finally comes around and grows into a responsible young woman. She is working in a rehabilitation center, yes K-dramaland found a different profession for a FL, I was so thankful. Anyway, she catches the attention of the eldest “son” of “the son from the good family” (he is now widowed) and the drama starts. When Kkot Nim’s mother finds out to which family the ML belongs to, she is all against the relationship. Not only doesn’t she want her daughter to marry into that family, but the old generation met again, and rekindled the flames, they wanted to marry but a certain situation, keeps them from doing so. Society and halmoni. Thanks to Z and her blog I was able not only to understand more about the context but also the sub-context, I am very thankful for that experience. Watching along with others and having exchange on opinions.
My Love Madame Butterfly, once at Viki - I guess not liked by too many, because the FL comes out as arrogant, selfish and shallow. But we get to know that she cares a lot about the people around her and, even more, if she likes them. As an actress with minor acting skills, but I guess good connections, she is making a good living, she had a tough way to there, but not too many know about that fact. She married a dreamlike guy, and all her defenses are down, his acting skills are far superior to hers, so one day she wakes up from her dream, robbed of her money deserted by her dreamlike husband finding herself being harassed by people, who want their money back. Still her glasses are pink, her husband must have met the wrong people and surely will be back in no time to save her. Then she runs to her husbands’ family to stay there, because there is no other place to run to. To her surprise her husband left this family long ago, because he didn’t like their humble style, he wanted to make it big. She adapts to the family’s way of life, even learning the skills of making shoes from her FIL and starting a new career. Other people think she is changing, but she thinks she is as true to herself as she always has been, but she is less careless this time. There are more events with her husband and his death, and a new romance and some other discoveries. I liked, but even I had to bite my way through the first episodes. I can say this much there will be a happy end, not for the husband though.
My Only One, at Viki not for all accessible - Was pretty good in the storyline department, suffered a bit from the writing advice, if your main leads suffer, let them suffer even more, also known as add drama to the drama. Anyway, nicely delivered by the cast, I won’t go too much in detail, because, this drama is pretty much in reach to watch, so I will keep it simple. Even ahjussi will find a girl in the end.
… more to come …
Body is limited to 10.000 … Did you know that?
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… and here we go, as long as the pencil is sharp …
My Too Perfect Sons/Sons of Sol Pharmacy House, once at Viki, maybe I should stretch on the fact that it has Ji Chang Wook, as the youngest son in it. Why don’t the Wookie-Fans flood Viki about this drama? I know, I know, it has his ups and downs and he has 3 other bros there Son Hyun Joo, Lee Pil Mo and Han Sang Jin, so maybe not enough eye candy to offer here? Mom is trying hard to get her 4 sons married. Her eldest is the pharmacist in the family taking on the business being nice to everyone, but falling in love not that easy. The 2nd son, a doctor, but what a guy, he has one thing, ego, ego, ego … And a true assistant, who is in love with him, but he is treating her really harsh. Okay, we know deep down inside he is, … But who wants to do all the digging? Only his assistant it seems, until she is throwing the towel … And suddenly things start to revers, since he can’t handle his practice on his own, and he is missing her dearly, so he starts going after her. The 3rd one has a career in another field and if I am not wrong marries the daughter of his boss, if it’s only for his ambition or if he likes her even a bit, sometimes doesn’t seem too clear. (That is if my memory doesn’t fail me here.) Now, attention - Wookie fans, the maknae is the one who brings home a little girl in diapers into the family, and his mom is so furious, that his other brothers are busy not to let him be beaten to death. Mom had high ambitions with her youngest, since in looks and character he seemed most promising, but now, who will marry a guy with a kid and to top it he seems to enjoy being a home alone dad. So, all the dynamics are there and more, it is lively drama and goes more into the comedy field.
New Tales of Gisaeng, how I loved this one my guilty pleasure to go at that time and yes another one, once at Viki - Sung Hoon’s and Im Soo Hyang’s debut and a lot of other young actors in the drama. I loved it even more for the arrogant CEO’s son, waiting for his chance in the company, while his parents are eager to get him married. Setting one Blinddate after the other, but the young man is chosy. On the other hand when he sees the FL the first time he is smitten by her, and she is interested too, but turned of by his arrogant side. So he gets to pursue his love the hard way, yes she doesn’t play hard to get, she is hard to get. Living with as a stepdaugther to her new mom, as her dad remarried has scared her, but she likes her stepsister. There are many events until they finally can tie the knot and live isn’t all roses even after marriage, since his father is still against the marriage and his mother most of the times submits to her husband. Still there is a happy end.
Sunny Again Tommorrow - never lose your optimism, the keep on going girl … Nice and most of the time easy watch. A Mo-Fr drama so 121 eps of 30 mins.
The Promise, on the original broadcasters yt channel, if your region permits it - Something I watched when I was lying sick in bed, normally I might have avoided it, since there is a lot of jeaulosy and a childs death involved over a family feud, if you can name it that way. Twin girls one gets adopted because she has a heart condition and her mother was alone and didn’t have the money for surgery. Okay, she finds a nice home and gets all the care she needs. The other twin stays with her mom, but her mom gets killed in an accident, so she is adopted and raised by a friend of her mom. When the two are grown adults they get to meet eachother, because of an unpredictable event, the twin with the heartcondition dies and her other twin finds out that someone wanted to kill her and takes on her identity. So far, so good, but at times jealousy can get really tiresome, as well as the drama, you need to love it, or at least want to kill time watching it. And yeah, you guest it, only one part of the drama has heartwarming interactions, the others are …
Wonderful Days - okay, no longer at Viki on the original broadcasters yt channel, if your region permits it - this family has it all, the estranged parents, the dad left the house, while his ex-lover stayed in the family with her son, that is a not that well kept secret, but he is raised be the family’ head the mother of the bunch. At the start we have grandpa as well, bedridden. The uncles, twins, not resembling eachother at all, and therefor always good for a joke and not married yet. We have another pair of twins, young school kids, an outcome or the “maknae’s” first passionate love, but for the time being I think they were officially his “mom’s”. Who else do we have in the household, ah the twin sister of the ML, amicable girl, but unfortunatly a bit on the childlike side suffered from oxygen lack while birth. (I am not sure about that point, but I think that was the cause.)
Then we have the ML left home became a successful prosecutor, was always at odds about his family’s circumstances, which made him kind of lose his first love. However his first love, the FL’s family went from the top to the bottom and she works as a debt collector a bit shady and no longer that you lady he once knew. A case makes him come back to the family. This drama is not for everyone given all the circumstances. The ML needs a lot of time to come to terms with his family and his family however starts to change slowly after his return not only he falls in love. So does everyone around him it seems.
You Don’t Know Women - no longer on Viki, it was a blast and a fan channel like many other, but this one had a fan base here that was one of a kind. Really had a rough start, since the FL as a dutyful DIL kept working on getting pregnant, with taking shots and all, while her husband already had another playmate. Said playmate was deadset on getting the guy as a husband, so when she got pregnant the FL was thrown out of the house, basicly to land right in front of the ML car. Only a little later she found out she was actually pregnant from her former husband, so she shyd away from the ML, because she didn’t want to complicate his life, but this guy had a true heart and still pursueded her and they lived happily ever after, and after some more or less harsh events. Rocker and Wifey, they all got their nicknames from the fanbase, but I do not recall them all. 109 episodes of 40 mins each.
That should be it, with breaks inbetween it still feels like I wrote for hours. LOL
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Goodness me, you put in a lot of time and effort, and to show my appreciation, I read every last word. Too bad some of those aren’t available on Viki anymore.
Some probably have read this from me before, but this is my all-time, most favorite, re-watch-it-every-few-months drama, and Lee Kang Doo is my absolute, most favorite Kdrama character of all time, so I will always take the time to sing its/his praises whenever an opportunity presents itself. His ‘found family’ is so precious. (I’m not sure why I’ve always written his name as Kang Doo when even in the subtitles it is written as Gang Doo. 
)
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I feel the same and I am already watching dramas for such a long time. LOL Gang Doo, it sounds like a K to us, that is why our brain is tricking us.
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Actually, I was just looking at the homepage for the drama, and the synopsis has it written as Kang Doo, too, so that’s probably where I got it. Not that it matters - I love him to infinity either way.
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Great dramas! 
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