A veterinarian must run an animal hospital for a relative who is on vacation. There, he meets a cute woman who is a cop and loves to help everyone in town. But she’s disappointed when it turns out that he doesn’t remember her from when they were young. And another man is in love with her, seeing the veterinarian as a rival.
Once Upon a Small Town consists of 12 episodes. I wanted to watch something lighter than the darker South Korean TV series I’ve seen lately, so I chose Once Upon a Small Town.
I have to say that even though this is a short series with short episodes, I felt like I was wasting my time watching it. But I had to finish it, and in the end, it felt like a more childish TV series made for young girls. There’s no depth to the story. It’s all cutesy and silly, rooted in fantasy romance.
The problem is, I expected the cop to investigate and solve crimes, but that’s not the case here. The main focus is on romance, from the first to the last episode. So if you think this is going to be a TV series where the female cop is an up-and-coming and smart cop solving cases, this isn’t for you.
It’s all about romance and watching the female cop and the veterinarian get closer and closer, dragging on because they don’t tell each other what they feel and all that stuff. And in the middle, we have the creepy man who’s in love with the female cop. He’s more direct, while she doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. That becomes boring and childish. The only things she does at work are helping locals change light bulbs, walking around, and using her bicycle. She and the other cops are clowns—and why are there three of them? Nothing happens in this small town. It’s like they’re on a long vacation, except for the female cop who’s busy training her cardio.
There’s not much to see in Once Upon a Small Town. Each episode is about 30 minutes, and it’s a short series, but it still suffers from pacing issues because it keeps repeating the same things over and over. And another disappointment is that it isn’t funny. It tries to be charming, cute, and funny, but the humor is so bad. It has that small-town charm, but when the old aunts start talking—and they never stop—they’re not charming at all. They’re just irritating old hags.