I hate to say this because I've loved the lead actress Gong Hyo Jin and lead actor Lee Min Ho for two decades, and I have loved the scriptwriter Seo Sook Hyang's impressive other drama works, such as Rebirth - Next and Jealousy Incarnate, but their latest drama When The Stars Gossip (2025) was one of the worst Korean dramas I've ever watched! I really thought it should have been titled When The Stars Flopped because it was abysmal from beginning to end. It just goes to show that even if a studio hires the very best actors for a drama if the screenplay stinks then it will end up being a bomb in any case. The two stars actually had some nice chemistry together but that alone can't make me recommend a badly written science-fiction themed romance.

The money must have been very lucrative for these two fine actors to agree to do such an implausible, ridiculous script. I hope these two beloved actors pick better scripts in the future! Ratings were only in the 1 to 2 percent range in Korea and if you start watching it you'll soon see why. I lost track of how many times I cried out while watching this: "You have GOT to be kidding me!" LOL Especially as the daughter of an aerospace engineer who helped design the lunar module that landed on the moon in the Apollo years I was extremely critical of the space "science" displayed in this series. For instance, two people in space get very cold and take off their spacesuits and become naked together in a cubicle, to ostensibly get warmer, and the female astronaut says to the male, "That's protocol."??? ROFL!!!

The Story:

OB-GYN Gong Ryong (Lee Min Ho, Personal Taste, City Hunter, Faith, Heirs, The Legend of The Blue Sea, Pachinko, Boys Over Flowers, Mackerel Run) is an attractive bachelor but about to become the anointed son-in-law of the largest family conglomerate in Korea, called the MZ Group. The domineering CEO and patriarch of this wealthy family company is Choi Jae Ryong (veteran actor Kim Eung Soo, Snow Queen, Chuno, Bridal Mask) and he is determined to use Gong Ryong's scientific obstetric talents to help two infertile women in his family become pregnant through IVF: his daughter-in-law Na Min Jeong (Baek Eun Hye, Black Dog), the wife of his dead son, and his own daughter Choi Go Eun (Han Ji Eun, 100 Days My Prince), Gong Ryong's fiance. This patriarch badly wants grandchildren and he will do anything to accomplish that goal.

It's obvious that Choi Go Eun has deeper feelings for Gong Ryong than he does for her. She has another, much more dedicated man in love with her, a wealthy astronaut named Kang Kang Su (Oh Jung Se, When The Camellia Blooms, It's Okay To Not Be Okay), but she shuns him mercilessly. She only has eyes for Gong Ryong.  

 

Amazingly (or maybe not so amazingly, as it turns out), Gong Ryong is picked to be the first Korean "space tourist" to visit the Korean space agency's first space station. He is particularly thrilled about this opportunity because he has a secret mission involving the IVF experiments he wants to engage in while in space. It's obvious there was a big pay-off in Gong Ryong's selection as a "space tourist" and that the money came from the patriarch of MZ Group. Gong Ryong and the patriarch believe that IVF experiments in space might just be more successful than experiments done on earth (without any prior evidence backing that up).

In his training for his time in space Gong Ryong meets the space team's commander named Kim Eve (Gong Hyo Jin, Ruler Of Your Own World, Jealousy Incarnate, It's Okay That's Love, Thank You, Pasta, Snowman, Producer, The Greatest Question, Hello My Teacher, Sang-doo Let's Go To School, When The Camellia Blooms, Master's Sun). This is her first mission as a commander so she is very stern and strict about every little necessary procedure to be accomplished under her watchful eye. However, she still fails to notice some of Gong Ryong's secrets, like hiding alcohol in a case disguised as a book, and sneaking on IVF equipment and human cells for his planned experiments in space. Incredibly, as time goes on, it is revealed that the same bar woman named Jung Na Mi (Jung Young Joo, My Mister) who had raised orphaned Gong Ryong as her own son had also given birth to an illegitimate daughter who turned out to be Eve Kim! She had abandoned Eve in a taxi as a baby! Aigoo!

Gong Ryong also slowly grows close to some of the other astronauts on the space station: Spanish Santiago Gonzalez Garcia (Alex Hafner), Lee Seung Jun (Heo Nam Jun), and female Mina Lee (Lee Cho Hee). The more stern astronaut he meets is the man who is in love with his fiance, Kang Kang Su. They develop a very testy relationship, especially when Kang Su figures out what Gong Ryong is hiding in an incubator. There's also a side issue of a winning lottery ticket that belongs to Kang Su but which the other astronauts basically steal from him, hoping to cash it in themselves when they return to earth!

Back on earth at Seoul Mission Control Center the technical people in charge of the space mission are Park Dong A (Kim Ju Hun, Castaway Diva, Soundtrack #1, Encounter), Kang Tae Hui (Lee El, Liar Game, My Liberation Notes), Dona Lee (Lee Cho Hee), Han Si Won (Lee Hyun Kyun), and Ma Eun Soo (Park Ye Young). They too are unaware of Gong Ryong's secret IVF experiments. He even succeeds at the IVF with his own sperm and no one catches on, though Kang Su seems to be the only one who has suspicions about it. Gong Ryong's other more open experiments on fruit flies and mice are successful and that warms Eve to him. Then when a scary problem arises that requires the other astronauts to return to earth, leaving Eve and Ryong alone together in space, the inevitable happens and they become intimate. In time it's also revealed that Eve is pregnant with his baby! So not only the IVF experiments were successful so too was this unplanned human one that occurred in space! So now will Gong Ryong have TWO babies to raise in future, and with two different women as mothers??? (LOL!).

I usually do not write down end spoilers in my reviews but I will divulge a tentative, obscure one here in this review, as a further warning not to watch this drama, especially if you dislike tragic endings. After sixteen episodes of a convoluted script we have a double tragedy: one of our lead characters dies and the other lead character becomes disabled, lame and blind! At this point I was groaning at my television set big time! I kept hoping for a happy miracle ending but it was not to be.

If you love these actors then go down their acting resumes and pick dramas of theirs to watch that you have somehow missed over the years. Skip this one!

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