When the Stars Gossip: A Disastrous Love Story Lost in Space

If you are interested in messy storylines and character arcs that go nowhere, then When the Stars Gossip might be the one for you. While this K-drama has some great actors like Lee Min-ho and Kong Hyo-jin, there is no saving this romance set in outer space. When the Stars Gossip fails to deliver a compelling romance or meaningful character development, as its convoluted plot and reliance on convenient coincidences ultimately undermine its potential, leaving viewers with a disappointing and unearned conclusion.

From the get-go, our two main leads are already in relationships, but somehow, the little time they have together in space is reason enough to pursue each other. The bigger theme of the series surrounds the concept of mothers and what they are willing, or not willing, to do to have a child. However, that theme is muddied by the multiple crazy love triangles and annoying coincidences that leave viewers scratching their heads.

Usually in a K-drama you want to root for the main couple, but there are too many characters who become entangled with the main leads who spend little time with each other. The female lead, Eve Kim (Kong Hyo-jin), is dating a coworker, Park Dong-a (Kim Ju-hun), and Gong Ryong (Lee Min-ho) is technically engaged to Choi Go-eun (Han Ji-eun). The reason why Gong, who is an obstetrician-gynecologist, trains to go to space to conduct an illegal fertilization so that he and his partner can finally be married. Somehow, despite making such a major sacrifice – it can take up to a year to train to go to space – and after only a couple of days with Eve, Ryong is willing to throw away his original relationship. It is hard not to be sympathetic towards Go-eun, who is loyal to Ryong despite his infidelity. Even after he breaks up with her, she offers emotional, financial, and legal support throughout the rest of the show.

For Eve, the situation is less complicated, which somehow makes it worse, despite the writer’s effort to set up conflict. Dong-a is cheating on Eve with her friend and coworker, Kang Tae-hui (Lee El). The love triangle with Eve and her coworkers proves to be completely unnecessary when the whole issue is swept under the rug, and the three of them just move on as coworkers. Neither Even or Tae-hui call out Dong-a for his betrayal, but also Eve never confesses her affair to him. The two never even officially break up, although he just naturally stops pursuing Eve once he realizes she is in love with Ryong.

Like Eve’s love triangle, many of the plot points lead to nothing that adds to the main plot of the drama. Ryong is in outer space for the sake of his patient, Na Min-jeong (Baek Eun-hye), to be able to have a baby with her deceased husbands via in vitro fertilization. He is willing to break the law and possibly endanger the jobs of the other astronauts for this cause. Regardless of his reasoning, we follow his character through extreme measures and create that sympathy for Min-jeong only to have it all fail. All that build-up leads to disappointment, and Min-jeong’s character just moves on with her life and disappears from the rest of the show. Maybe this all might seem realistic if not for the fact that so many miracles happen in this show – for instance, Eve’s own pregnancy.

Eve was the one who thwarted Ryong’s attempts to help his patient, but when it came to her situation, she was unable to do what was best for her. Her decision to potentially die giving birth conflicts with her character throughout the series. She disposed of the morulae because she said it was unethical to test on humans. However, she was willing to have her child be the first to be born in space, knowing there could be serious complications. Not to mention, there is the whole issue of how to bring the child back to earth. Additionally, there was never any talk about desperately wanting a child from Eve’s or Ryong’s characters, so it seems unusual that they became parents.

In addition to poor characterization, series relies on too many convenient coincidences to drive its plot. Kang (Oh Jung-se) is Go-eun’s ex-boyfriend who just happens to be a scientist as well and on the same original spacecraft as her current boyfriend. Ryong happens to be a fertility doctor, which is convenient for Go-eun’s father’s goal to have an heir. Then, Kang-su happens to win the lottery and starts a fertility clinic in space to Ryong’s benefit. The baby born to Ryong and Eve in space has a heart condition that is resolved by the lack of gravity, so his birth in space is justified. It seems like the writers were too lazy to flesh out the plot and just created what they needed for the moment to make sense of the actions of the characters.

All in all, if you are looking for a romantic love story, When the Stars Gossip is not recommended. It relies on conflict and shocking turns of events that do not align with the previously established personalities of the characters. While there are great actors in this show, they do their best to carry the story, but ultimately, there is not much to work with. Additionally, with all the convenient coincidences of the story, they could have at least given Min-jeong the child she so desperately wanted. Unfortunately, they gave the child to the least deserving characters, which led to a disappointing ending.  

(Youtube. Images via Netflix.)