Boy, life sure is imitating art today. Yoon Doo-joon, lead actor of tvN’s current Monday-Tuesday drama Let’s Eat 3, has been suddenly given his enlistment date in the army… and it’s this Friday, August 24. As a 1989er, Yoon needs to enlist before the year is out, but he was waiting on the results of his test to serve in the police department, which was ultimately rejected. That led to his enlistment date being set with almost no advance notice for later this week, which wouldn’t be a problem save for the fact that he’s in the middle of shooting a currently airing drama. Eep!
As fate would have it, his character in the drama, Gu Dae-young, just enlisted in the army in a sudden turn of events and had to say goodbye to his college friends in a matter of days—entirely a coincidence, since the news of Yoon Doo-joon’s enlistment came out on the same day the episode aired. And because Yoon has already filed for an extension once before (due to a knee injury), he won’t be given a second extension. Which obviously leaves the show in a big bind, as he’s the central character of a three-season-long franchise, and this was promoted as the final chapter that would wrap up Dae-young’s story.
Let’s Eat 3 and tvN have yet to make a final announcement regarding how to deal with Yoon’s sudden enlistment, but it’s looking more and more likely that they’ll have to cut the episode count short. The series was originally slated to air 16 episodes, and just aired Episode 12 on Tuesday. If it can manage to shoot enough footage, there’s a good chance it’ll end with Episode 14 next week, just a week shy of its original plan.
I much prefer this option to letting the drama drag on for an extra week without its main character, because he’s not just a romantic lead or something—he’s the only protagonist we’ve followed around from season to season (and girl to girl). I would hate to watch this show pull a Bad Guy and try to write and shoot around the very obvious fact that its lead actor has gone to army before the show ends its run. It would be the worst way to say goodbye to a beloved character, so fingers crossed for an ending that makes sense and does justice to the storylines we’ve begun.
Yoon Doo-joon released a public apology for causing problems for the drama with his sudden enlistment, and asked fans for their understanding. He plans to spend his remaining days shooting whatever footage he can on the set, and then report for active duty this Friday.