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 medical drama
missvictrix: I’m not a medical drama person at all, so if I watch one, it’s gotta be because of the overarching narrative. If the drama is just episodic medical mayhem, I’m uninterested. That’s probably the reason why I would love Hospital Playlist and You Who Forgot Poetry, if I could ever get my act together and watch them, and why the “medical” dramas that first pop into my head are ones that have medicine as a more of a backdrop or setting. So I’m going to be a rebel here and choose Chocolate. Set in a hospice, and with a male lead who’s a surgeon struggling to continue his career, this drama did what I basically want all my medical dramas to do: give me deep compelling character journeys that take up 85% of the plot, and then the other 15% can be the cases and patients that tease out the drama’s larger themes.
mistyisles: To be honest, medical dramas really aren’t my thing. For some reason, I’m totally fine with murder mysteries, crime shows, and the like — but set the show in a hospital or doctor’s office, and I nope out pretty quick (if I was ever persuaded to start in the first place). I couldn’t even stick with Hospital Playlist, despite having plenty of reasons to like it. So… does God’s Quiz count? Jin-woo is a doctor, after all. And all the cases deal with rare or unusual medical conditions, even though it falls more in the crime show category.
DaebakGrits: If I could only pick one medical drama to watch from now until eternity, my obvious answer is Hospital Playlist. (Love it. Will never get tired of it.) However, it’s been my choice for many other You Can Only Pick One prompts, so this time I’m going to pick the one medical drama that I’d like to rewatch: Doctor Stranger. To be honest, I haven’t seen this drama since it first aired in 2014, but surely a drama starring Lee Jong-seok as a doctor who was kidnapped and raised in North Korea still has some entertainment value, right? I vaguely remember shaking my head in 2014 over his character’s near superhuman ability — a.k.a. his finely tuned skills that had been forged under harsh North Korean conditions — to figure out what was wrong with his patients and save them via unconventional ways. If that’s my only memory of this drama, then I suspect that it hasn’t stood the test of time, but that’s kind of the appeal for me, though. Like, how bad could it be?
solstices: I’m usually too squeamish for medical dramas, but Life stands out for elevating the genre beyond the hospital setting. With a riveting power struggle and an atmosphere tense enough to rival a suspense thriller, the show had me hooked despite my initial reservations. Then again, give me a Lee Soo-yeon drama — plus some of my musical favorites Jo Seung-woo, Lee Kyu-hyung, and Jung Moon-sung — and I’m definitely sold. The show treaded the fine line of morality with such delicate finesse, delivering nuanced interpretations of compellingly flawed characters. It’s a show where the “good guys” seem bad and the “bad guys” seem good, and the slider scales of gray are so captivating to watch.
Unit: The heartwarming story aside, I’d have to pick Good Doctor because it’s one of my earliest dramas, and penned by my favorite writer. It also stars Moon Chae-won who used to be my ultimate favourite actress. (But now I have a mini league of favs.) By the way, I had the biggest crush on Joo Sang-wook’s character for a long time – so big that I gave up on the U.S. remake when his character’s version died. Heh.