First Impression: Voice 4 (Judgement Hour)

I haven’t done a first impressions post in a while, and it’s fitting that it’s Voice 4. While this first impression will only cover the first two episodes of the season (which is all that is currently out), I will probably be spoiling the previous seasons in some capacity. This is your warning.

Native Title: 보이스4: 심판의 시간
Release Date: June 18, 2021 (Fridays/Saturdays)
Episode #: 14
Platform: tvN (Viki)
Director: Shin Yong Hwi (Faith, Tunnel)
Writer: Ma Jin Won (Previous seasons)
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Starring: Lee Ha Na, Song Seung Heon. Rest of the cast can be found here.

Not going to lie to you all, this one was going to have a hard time winning me over. Probably to its detriment, I have just come off of a massive binge of the past three seasons, and let’s just say it didn’t go well. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first a brief run down of the drama and the synopsis.

If you haven’t watched any of the other seasons, I do think you can watch this season without them and still be able to enjoy the series. However, there are spoilers for the previous seasons not only in a recap at the start of the season, but also in some of the dialogue referencing the past. Voice follows Kwon Joo (Ha Na), an emergency operator who has exceptional hearing abilities. Because of her ability, she’s able to help the police find clues to catch serial killers and help investigate higher priority crimes. She is in charge of a dedicated crew, The Golden Time Team, who help with the cases in other aspects. While there are some changes in cast, there are several that are reoccurring - even some that have been on since the first season. The drama follows a close procedural format, much like you’d see in a show like Bones, with each season centering around one central serial killer who’s taunting the team (again, like Bones). In this season she is joined by LAPD officer Derek Jo (Seung Heon), who had been helping with a joint operation. He is added to the team when his sister is killed by a serial killer targeting Kwon Joo. The killer is like Kwon Joo in appearance and also has the same hearing abilities.

One thing you have to know going into Voice is that it’s one of those dramas that toes the line of going off the rails completely. It very much is influenced by Western crime procedurals in which the main team is out of this world the best (her hearing abilities is almost superhero levels, but it’s never really explained why she has such an ability), they touch and disrupt evidence without gloves 100% of the time, and the serial killers are good at everything. While it wasn’t my favorite in crime dramas, the first season of the drama was pretty solid. The next two seasons were pretty hard for me to get through, as the second season had a terrible big evil, and the main male lead in both seasons 2 & 3 was pretty unbearable. But this isn’t a review of those seasons, this is my first thoughts on these episodes.

I was hoping that this season 4 would mirror God’s Quiz Season 4 in that it would pick itself back up to the same enjoyment equivalent to the first season. While I did like these first two episodes much more than the previous seasons, it had some major flaws that might snowball into a harder watch for me in the future. I think one of the major flaws in general with the Voice series is that it doesn’t trust itself to do different things. It recycles a lot of its content, and these episodes weren’t immune to this. The setup of Derek Jo’s introduction into the team is a mirror of the first season’s detective. The play on the evil potentially being a lead character, that we saw all of last season, is back recycled into Kwon Joo’s character. Now, this doesn’t mean that it’s not entirely enjoyable, but when a crime show doesn’t valuable unpredictability it falls flat. And that’s what could very well happen with this series and has proven to do in the past. But despite all of that, there is only one thing about this drama that is a big red flag for me, and that’s the LAPD officer, Chad.

I absolutely can’t stand Chad. Chad is the worst. Not only is his character shaping up to be the overused “friend who actually helps the bad guy” trope, but…the actor is just not good. At all. I really try not to harp on these types of things, because a lot of time it’s not really talent that’s wrong but direction. But it’s kind of past the point of a personal preference and is ruining the watching enjoyment of the drama. His English scenes are terrible - equally as bad as the Korean. I mean, on a whole the English senes are not good for anyone in the cast (except that one LAPD computer guy that confirmed Kwan Joo wasn’t in the video. Shout out to him. He was awesome and in the show like for two lines. Can we have more of him?) Chad’s so bad that you immediately catch on that he may not be a good guy and a red herring because of his cartoonish tells. I guess this is par for the course with this show as it loves to do the makjang-not-makjang thing, but it’s exhausting. I was really hoping that he wasn’t going to be in this past the first scenes, but he hasn’t left…and is in a lot of behind-the-scenes and promo. And an episode number isn’t listed by his name. So we’re stuck with him.

I kind of wish I had held off on this review till I watched four episodes of the drama so that I could really get a sense of what I liked and didn’t. While there was a lot of action and a lot of death, there was also a lot of setup between introducing the new characters and also recapping the other seasons. So there just wasn’t a lot to talk about. I did enjoy a lot of what was happening and found the episodes were mostly enjoyable. I really like the big evil this season. It’s still mysterious, but I love the fact that there is an actual trio doing everything and seeing how they are accomplishing it. I haven’t felt this connection since the first season with Kim Jae Wook’s serial killer. The trio is creepy and unnerving and add a nice level of horror to the drama. The snow falling with the three hooded figures coming upon the already disturbing scene of the son attacking the parents is where this drama actually shines. The drama starting off immediately on the murder was a great setup and was a great way to get me hooked immediately. And the big evil being female? Yes. Sign me up.

We don’t get a case until the second episode, and the way that the episodes are structured the case is always the cliffhanger for the week. While it was intriguing, it’s too early to tell if that portion of the drama will land or keep up in speed. Am I going to continue watching? Yes. I feel like I invested a lot into getting here that I have to stick through it and have a fairly small watching load. I really do want to see how the murder trio evolve and I do like the level of darkness that the drama has.

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