Voice 4 [tvN]

For sure there will be a Voice 5, going by how Voice 4 ended with Lee Ha-Na's character walked to a waiting car seemingly in a daze.

At 14 episodes, Voice 4 is 2 episodes shorter than the usual tvN 16-episode dramas, cutting out 2 episodes of perhaps unnecessary dragging out of the plot.  Yet, Voice 4 is once again one of those korean dramas where shooting starts before the entire script is completed, giving rise once again to story lines and character arcs that develop into incomplete arghness.   Though I must say that the gaps and inconsistencies in Voice 4 feels a lot less than that in Mouse.    

The Voice series started in 2017 on OCN and relocated to tvN in 2021 for the 4th season.  While I did not watch the previous 3 seasons, Voice 4 started cleanly enough for me to watch and enjoy it as a completely standalone drama.  Kudos to the scripting that didn't leave me feeling helpless that storylines from the previous 3 seasons had to be a must-know for me to follow the storyline in Voice 4.

Song Seung-heon is a new addition to the Voice cast, and I can't appreciate the know-it-all character arc that he was scripted for.  Lee Ha-na's character appears to have been relegated to a backend role at the call centre.  I haven't watch the previous 3 seasons, so I can't be sure if Lee Ha-na's character was equally so backend previously, or is because Song Seung-heon is a big name in korean entertainment so his screentime must be milked for all it is worth?

Again the minus point of starting to shoot with an incomplete script shows up in where the mystery of the circus man suddenly takes a backseat to the psychotic Dongbang Min.  At the beginning of the episode 1, the teenagers who tortured their families appear to see the different identities of Dongbang Min at the same time, which is logically impossible.  The script also didn't delve sufficiently into why the 3 identities decided on a circus team, before the full-blown effects of Dongbang Min's personalities were revealed.  

All the cases in Voice 4 kept going back to the same theme of familial abuse.  Yet none of the cases seem to delve deep enough to examine the motives and background and the horrors that resulted in Dongbang Min's condition.

I thought the actor Lee Kyu-hyung, who acted as Dongbang Min was a new actor to me.  As I googled about him, I realised he had appeared in perhaps bit parts in Guardian: The Lonely and Great God and Doctor John.  I have absolutely no recollection of him in both these dramas I watched.  I supposed his performance in Voice 4 stood out a lot, compared to the other actors/actresses due to the character.

Despite the flaws, Voice 4 is a more enjoyable drama than the overly convoluted Mouse, and I think Voice 5 may be worth waiting for.  Well, here's hoping that the gap between Voice 4 and Voice 5 would be shorter than the 3-year gap between Voice 3 and Voice 4.