You can only pick one, and boy the pressure is on. The DB team will answer a new prompt in each post, and you’re invited to do the same in the comments. Ready to play?
You can only pick one legal drama
missvictrix: I don’t know if it’s exactly fair for me to play this round, because any legal drama I have enjoyed has been solely about the characters and not about the legal storylines and/or courtroom battles at all. At all. Lucky for me, K-dramas care a lot about their characters, even when the pesky case-of-the-week is at hand. Anyway, my pick here will have to be Hyena — because characters. Joo Ji-hoon as the whipped attorney who fell for the rowdy and disruptive (in more ways than one) Kim Hye-soo?! Not only was their chemistry together amazing, but the drama knew how to play to its strengths: drawing from the characters to tell an interesting story that just so happened to sometimes take place in the courtroom.
mistyisles: For the most part, the few legal dramas I’ve enthusiastically finished (as opposed to powering through for the bean) have been ones that focused less on the law elements and more on things like romance or fantasy. So I’ll give special mention to Suits for being the exception to that rule, but my overall pick is I Hear Your Voice. Though I’ll be honest — my love for this show has very little to do with the law elements, and everything to do with… well, everything else!
solstices: The Forest of Secrets series may not be your typical courtroom drama, but it’s my favorite examination of the legal system and its intricacies. Rather than a single villain to defeat, the overarching enemy here is the system itself — one that exists to serve the people, yet ends up self-serving at the hands of internal corruption. It’s a realistic and unforgiving endeavor; there’s no deus ex machina to save the day. Instead, our heroes must work within the confines of the law, making it even more gratifying and cathartic when they finally devise a solution. Yet there are no true victories, just like in real life; there are always sacrifices to be made, and it’s a never-ending fight against injustice. That’s why it’s all the more impressive that Forest of Secrets managed to deliver a tightly-woven story within the larger context of ongoing issues, leaving viewers with both a satisfying conclusion as well as food for thought.
Unit: I like a good whodunnit show and I enjoy dramas set in institutions of higher learning, and Law School is the perfect combination of both. The timelines between past and present could get confusing at times, but I found the murder mystery (and the trials) interesting, and I loved Kim Myung–min’s commanding presence every time he was on screen either as a professor, or on the defendant’s stand. I particularly liked that even though the students were involved in the murder trial and their own personal cases, they didn’t forget to be students — worrying about their grades and exams and internships. It was so relatable! Most importantly, I enjoyed the chemistry between Kim Bum and Ryu Hye-young’s characters, and I cannot believe the drama teased us till the end with these two. We need the Joon-hwi and Kang Sol-ah spinoff!
Dramaddictally: Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I don’t have to think twice about this at all. I didn’t even understand the possibility of what legal dramas could do until I saw this show. In part, it operates like a procedural, but really it’s about the relationships between the main characters and how they grow. The greatest part is that the case selection in each episode informs the challenges that the heroine is facing in her personal life, so the whole thing blends together into a cohesive story. And most of the cases are based on real-life social issues and caveats in the law that are both entertaining and thought-provoking. Outside of the legal aspect itself, this drama created one of the loveliest, funniest, and most memorable female leads of all time. Park Eun-bin never disappoints and I can’t imagine anyone else bringing Woo Young-woo to life like she did.