Western dramas of the high quality kind, the kind that wins awards for best something, performance or sound (anything really), have that artsy quality.  However, it's been copied over and over by dramas that don't even plan on winning anything (think amateur writing) to the point that those artsy cliches have been turned into a feeling of cheesiness.  Chinese dramas might have detected this pattern and just went back to regular style story telling.

What I've also noticed about good writing in high quality western dramas is that the writing will occasionally focus on "meta".  It doesn't get to the point of sounding philosophical however unless it is done incorrectly.  What I mean is they don't all of a sudden start talking about the fate of the planet in concept like the Japanese frequently do in their dramas.  An example would be something tragic happens and then all of a sudden a character who is rich and stuck in a wheelchair just has to say something like "So after humanity sinned, nothing went as planned.  The planet, gaia or something saw to it that the humans reaped punishment, and so slowly their civilizations began to collapse.  My corporation was the first to sense the inevitable path, the spiral downwards into the dark dark abyss that religions of the world strive so hard to keep the innocent away from and yet were so unwilling to show the world the severity of evil in all its truth.  I began a campaign to undo the wrongs of humanity, so as to forcefully compel the demons which have resided to take root elsewhere, anywhere but here."  So the character is an intellectual cliche.  Rather, good "meta" is interwoven in the dialogue as a means to progress the plot.  For example instead of the guy in the wheelchair talking about the fate of the planet in philosophical terms he might choose to say "Of us all I feel as though I might be the least privileged to give suggestions as to what direction our short corrupted lives on this planet ought to take.  Believe me when I say I know corruption....Pause 2-3 seconds...But even then I still care.  Even as I sit helpless in this wheelchair with the wheels still, unmoving, unchanging, it is with my stone cold solid heart that I reach out to humanity.  It is this heart which has recently been melted into ice water before it became superheated steam with all of the nonsense and unending sorrows of the world to become something which you see now, me."  Then you see him cutting a check for ten billion dollars for charity.

But I haven't seen every single episode of every single drama of the world so I can't say for sure.  I just know what moves me and what doesn't.