Episode 182 – Bomb Drop

Slice of Life Dramas

Thirty-Nine
A slice of life drama about three women who have been best friends since high school and are about to turn 39. Follows their families, loves, and the deep friendship of the three women. I like this one because the focus is on the friends and their relationships with each other, not their love lives.

Misaeng: Incomplete life
Another slice of life drama about a young guy as he starts his first full time job at a company. Unlike his fellow interns, Jang Geu-rae, only has a GED. He spent most of his life training to be a professional baduk player. The game is also known as go, think chess. He is very much out of his element and struggling to get into the groove of office worker life. With the help of is workaholic boss, and fellow interns, he learns to navigate and adapt to corporate culture, with baduk as his guide. I really enjoyed this series. All of the characters are likeable yet flawed and completely relatable despite the cultural differences.

Hospital Playlist
Friends since med-school Lee Ik-jun, Ahn Jeong-won, Kim Jun-wan, Yang Seok-hyeong, and Chae Song-hwa work at the same hospital and on weekends play together in their basement band. We follow their friendships, meet their families, root for their romances, and watch them jam. This is one of the few shows with two seasons. It's funny and sad and watching their jam sessions is so much fun.

Crime/Thriller

Stranger
Another one with two seasons. Follows a criminal prosecutor, who after an operation as a child lost his sense of empathy. Others see him as cold and rational. He also seems to be the only one in the prosecutor's office who is free of corruption. He and a detective join forces to solve a murder case. As they begin to unravel the mystery behind the murder, they find that their efforts are continually being obstructed by participants in a major corruption conspiracy between the Prosecutors' Office and a private corporation.
The second season starts 2 years after the events in the first season. The prosecutor from season 1 has been transferred to a smaller coastal town. Where what appears to be an accident, ends up being a murder case with a whole lot more than meets the eye. Season 2 also focuses on a dispute arises between the Prosecutors' Office and the National Police Agency, with the former wanting control over all investigative proceedings while the latter seeks autonomous authority to conduct investigations.
I love murder/crime shows. This was one of the first Korean crime dramas I've seen and it's still my favorite.

Signal
A fantasy crime drama. A criminal profiler finds an old walkie-talkie that can communicate with the past. Think of the movie Frequency, but the profiler isn't talking to his dad. As each conversation with the past happens, it changes things in present day.
This was a really good show. I liked seeing how the present day changed, as the profiler helped the cop in the past solve cases with his knowledge from the future. If you like procedural crime shows, you'll like this one.

Vincenzo
A drama/comedy about a guy who was adopted and brought to Italy became a mob consigliere. Returns to Korea to find hidden money, ends up helping a group of misfits who live in a building that is about to get torn down. This is another one with a bunch of corrupt people getting brought to justice.
Super funny, totally worth watching.

Chief of Staff
A political drama. If you enjoyed West Wing, you'll like this. I this is grittier than West Wing. There's a lot more corruption. It follows Jang Tae-Jun, a former police detective turned politician, who helps his friend, the incorruptible every-guy, Lee Seong-Min get elected to the General Assembly. Now the chief of staff, Jang Tae-Jun has higher ambitions and will stop at nothing to win. Even if that means he must get involved in some shady stuff.

Fantasy/Horror

All of Us Are Dead
A zombie outbreak begins at a high school. The kids must fight to stay alive. The one difference in the zombies in this story is that some remain self aware but now have some super powers, and some who are infected can hold off their zombie tendencies.
This is based on a Webtoon of the same name. It's a fun watch if you're into zombie lore.

Kingdom
Zombies during Korea's Joseon period. Crown Prince Lee Chang and his team are investigating a political conspiracy and then stumble across an unnatural plague that resurrects the dead.
Historical zombies...how can that NOT be a fun twist?

Hotel Del Luna
A fantasy about a hotel for the recently deceased to recover from the trauma of death or settle any remaining grudges before moving on to the afterlife. The hotel can only be seen by the living under specific circumstances and aren't supposed to be able to enter at all. However, the hotel needs a living person as the general manager to handle the day-to-day things, like paying bills and fulfilling any last requests of the deceased. The staff are all ghosts who have unsettled grudges and have been working at the hotel for centuries.
This was a really fun show with the running mystery of the hotel's owner and what her story is, plus your "deceased of the week" story.

Korean Odyssey
A fantasy that is an incredibly loosely based version of Journey to the West. It involves Son Oh-gong (the Monkey King), Woo Ma-wang (the Ox King), and Jin Seon-mi who is the Sam Jang - a human reincarnation of a holy being. It is said that if a demon eats the flesh of the Sam Jang they will gain immortality. As a child Jin Seon-mi released Son Oh-gong from his imprisonment after entering a pact where Son Oh-gong promised to protect her whenever she called his name. Upon his release he stole the memory of his name out of her head and ran off. Present day, they run into each other. He wants very badly to become immortal, but due to the pact he must protect her. And of course the wackiness ensues.
A fun fantasy tale of demons living in the human world and all the chaos and comedy involved. This one is so much fun.

Slice of life

(This one may also be on Netflix)
My Mister
Wikipedia description: the story of an impoverished and debt-laden young woman, Lee Ji-an, struggling to stay afloat as she nurses her deaf, sick grandmother and working a temporary job. She develops an unlikely bond with one of her equally miserable supervisors, Park Dong-hoon, which is subjected to scrutiny and manipulation by their colleagues, friends, and dysfunctional families. Enduring the weight of their respective lives, they come together, forming new relationships, keeping parts of themselves secret — but ultimately healing one another's past scars.
It's hard for me to describe what this is about. But the two main characters struggle with life, share their depression but manage to get through it all. Lee Ji-an does form feelings for Park Dong-hoon, but there is no actual budding romance between them. Ji-an goes to extremes to try to help Dong-hoon. And Dong-hoon also helps Ji-an. It's a really great story, and this is actually one of my very favorites.

Historical drama/Fantasy

Mr Queen
This is an absolutely hysterical comedy. The head chef of the Blue House (the Blue House is to South Korea what the White House is to the US) who is a womanizing, conceited ass. Through timey-wimey magic he wakes up in the body of Queen Cheorin, she was queen between 1849-1864 during the Joseon period. He has to face the politics of court life while in a woman's body. As well as work on the relationship with the king. He uses his cooking skills and modern knowledge to charm those in the palace and solve problems while trying to figure out how to get back to his real life.
This show is funny as hell. The actress playing the queen (with the soul of a man) does an amazing job. Performing this role must have been just as fun as watching it. I HIGHLY recommend this series. I was actually sad when it ended.

More Cop Shows

Through the Darkness
It is based on the 2018 non-fiction book of the same title co-written by Korea's first criminal profiler Kwon Il-yong and journalist-turned-author Ko Na-mu, which highlights Kwon's field experiences.
This is a damn fine show. It spans several years with time-hops here & there. The head of the forensic unit campaigns to create a Criminal Behavior Analysis team like we have in the US. But too many of the higher ups think it's garbage. He finally gets the OK and recruits a detective whose co-workers find to be problematic, but we can see that he's already using criminal profiling as he tells his co-workers they got the wrong guy and tracks down the actual criminals.
I loved this show. It's dark, it's brooding, the actor who plays the detective does such a great job with his quiet portrayal of this brilliant, yet tortured guy. Watch it.

Mouse
A masterpiece psycho-killer crime show. It raises the questions, whether it is possible to scan a psychopath in the mother's womb using fetal genetic testing? And if the child in the womb is a psychopath, will it be wise to have that child? It follows Jeong Ba-reum, a steadfast police officer, whose life changes when he encounters a psychopathic serial killer. This drives him and his partner Go Moo-chi to unearth the truth behind psychopathic behaviors.