The first drama that I finished this month was Fix You/ Soul Mechanic. It is about a psychiatrist Lee Shi-Joon (Shin Ha-Kyun) who tries to cure people of their emotional traumas in new and inventive ways. He is not always appreciated by the hospital because he is more concerned about the patients then the institution of practicing psychiatry. He meets Han Woo-Joo (Jung So-Min) who is a rising musical star under strange circumstances. He gets to know her and later finds out that she also needs help and he wants to be the one to help her.
I noticed that there are more than one drama that is cover the theme of mental health and psychiatry lately. I know that mental health in South Korea is a tough subject and going to get counseling is a tricky subject so I was hoping that this drama would show it in a positive light. I think it really had the potential to be a positive light to shed on mental health because it shows that psychiatrists suffer from the same problems as the patients. No one can escape from dealing with emotional and personal issues and that counseling is a healthy tool for everyone.
I really like Shi-Joon and the way he would work with his patients because he cared about them and wanted to help them. I wish the drama would have focused more on his skills as a psychiatrist. I really liked Woo-Joo’s character because she was imperfect but she would keep trying and even though she had problems it didn’t stop her from pursuing her dreams. She kept trying and was able to help others even in her own imperfectness. As much as Shi-Joon was helping Woo-Joo, she was also helping him and his own emotional pitfalls.
I really didn’t like how they turned it into a romance drama and it really just didn’t fit together. Shi-Joon and Woo-Joo had good chemistry but it wasn’t really a romantic type of chemistry to me. It just felt wrong and especially because he was her psychiatrist at the time of dating and it just felt sloppy writing to me. Woo-Joo was still going through quite some turbulent time in her life at the time and I think it was a bad message that she needed to be in a romantic relationship. I would have preferred them to both grow as a people and have some character development before they accepted each other in a romantic relationship. It is almost like they wrote it backwards they got together and once they had some character development they slowed down the romantic relationship. So the ending just felt anti-climatic and lacking. Also the politics of the hospital get so boring and I really wish they would have focused on the different patients and the different therapies that they used to help people. I feel like this drama had potential but it just got lost and couldn’t make its way back.
I thought it was a decent drama and had some interesting ideas about counseling but the romance was a bit of a turn off for this drama.
The second drama that I finished was Oh My Baby. It is about Jang Ha-Ri (Jang Na-Ra) who is a deputy manager at a parenting magazine company names “The Baby”. She has given up on finding love and since she is 39 years old she wants to have a baby even if she can’t find love. She has three men in her life that could help her Han Yi Sang (Go Joon) a freelance photographer who has come back into her life after a few bad meetings. The second is Yoon Jae-Young (Park Byung-Eun) who is her childhood friend who she thinks of like a brother. He cut her out of his life when he got married and now that he is divorced and a single dad, he has come back into her life. The third is Choi Kang Eu Ddeum (Jung Gun-Joo) who is a new employee that works in advertising. He is a bit clueless but has a bright friendly personality and is good to her.
This drama was really interesting because this topic is very sensitive to even talk about. Fertility is a tricky topic because I think there are lot of women out there that struggle with this idea. Honestly it is really unfair that women have a expiry date on having children and men can get away with having children until they want to. I really admire that this drama was going to delve into this topic because I think it doesn’t get talked about that much and how heartbreaking it can be. It does also focus on male infertility and the reality of what it means to have children or not. I think it covers some important and interesting concepts in a drama that I haven’t seen before. Also this topic does make me feel uncomfortable because I also fear that I will never meet anyone and never be able to make a family. It also had some humorous scenes in this drama that would help combat the serious topic of this drama. I thought the characters were all fun and had good chemistry between each other.
I didn’t really like how some episodes have dragged some of the plot, it felt like they could have wrapped up the story in less episodes. I also found that they made one love line drag out with the friend and it just seemed somewhat unrealistic. I wish they would have written that love line better and made him more likeable and a viable option for her. If they wanted to drag out that story line that they should have written him as a better rival and have Ha-Ri take him as serious love interest. I also really dislike when they make the characters break up all of a sudden and the reason why they break up is so silly when they have already decided to be with each other. I get they want to create tension but it is just so silly and predictable.
Overall I really enjoyed this drama and thought it was a refreshing drama even if it lags a bit.
The last drama that I watched this month was Dinner Mates/ Would You Like To Have Dinner Together. It a drama that is based on a webcomic which always gets me to want to watch it but somehow adaptations always seem to be lacking. The drama stars Kim Hae-Kyung (Song Seung-Heon) who is a psychiatrist who likes to counsel clients who have had heartbreak over a meal. It also stars Woo Do-Hee (Seo Ji-Hye) who works as a PD for a company that produces content for streaming services. She goes to Jeju to meet her boyfriend and becomes heartbroken she meets Hae-Kyung and get intertwined in each others lives. They decide to let fate bring them together and become someone they can eat together with anonymously.
I thought this was decent drama it had its interesting moments and kept the chemistry going throughout the drama. I really like that they had a nod to Ji-Hye’s character in Crash Landing On You, I love when they have inside jokes in dramas. I think the drama had a good flow to it and it kept me sufficiently entertained when watching it. It was steady drama that you could depend on even if I wasn’t necessarily on edge to watch the next episode every week. It also focused on the exes of the main characters and things got crazy with them that I feel they could have utilized better to break them up but it was still intense. I liked the chemistry between the leads and thought they were well suited for each other. I also like the side character romance with the homeless man and her boss, that was pretty fun.
The one thing with this drama was they didn’t focus on Hae-Kyung’s psychiatry practice, I still don’t really understand why he needed to eat a meal with a client and how that was so important. I wish they would have fleshed out this idea better because I kinda forgot by the end what he even did. Also when Do-Hee having to break up with him didn’t really make a lot of sense to me and why she was so upset, I understand but it just didn’t fit with her character.
There was some predictable moments that bothered me, but overall it was decent drama that was entertaining.
Upcoming Dramas
- It’s Okay to Not Be Okay- It is about a man who works in the psychiatry department that moves every year with his brother who has autism. He meets a child book author with antisocial personality and they get mixed up with each other.
2. Train- It is a sci fi drama about a man who tries to protect his woman from a serial killer in a parallel universe.
3. Flower of Evil- It is about detective wife that tracks down her husbands cruel past. He is deceiving his wife and she discovers it and tries to figure out his past.
