No, it’s not a mistake — there really are five dramas starting up this week! I don’t know if I should jump for joy, or mourn for all the hours I’m about to lose. They’re actually quite a fun and diverse handful of dramas, too, which makes it all the more exciting. Rom-coms with love-inundated heroines, detectives hunting killers (sometimes in parallel universes), and a murder mystery amongst friends… I’m convinced. Sign me up!
Men Are Men
Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: KBS
Genre: Fantasy, romance
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: If you miss Hwang Jung-eum after the end of Mystic Pop-up Bar, the pre-production stars have aligned, and her next drama Men Are Men, is happening on Monday! While I admit she’s not my favorite actress, I do have a serious soft spot for our male leads here: Yoon Hyun-min and Seo Ji-hoon. Both confess their love for our heroine, who fully plans to stay single — and I honestly have no idea how this drama will handle a love triangle of this nature. Or how we will. Team Hyun-min? Team Ji-hoon? Wait, can’t we just have both?
The Good Detective
Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: JTBC
Genre: Crime, investigative
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: I’m super into the sunbae/hoobae detective setup we have here with Sohn Hyun-joo (always fantastic) partnered up with Jang Seung-jo (yay, a lead role!) to dig into some nasty crime. The two are very different kinds of detectives, but methinks they will balance each other out perfectly, and one person’s strength will balance the other’s weakness, and vice versa. It looks gritty and dark and suspenseful, but the fact that this is a JTBC drama makes me expect some good character-driven story to flesh out the crime procedural plot skeleton. Ugh, gross analogy there, but I guess it fits the genre?
Was It Love
Time slot: Wednesday & Thursday
Broadcaster: JTBC
Genre: Rom-com
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: Our second rom-com to premiere this week is another embarrassment of riches suitors story, and while these types of stories might be the new trend, I’m sure not getting tired of it yet — are you? In Was It Love, our single heroine Song Ji-hyo suddenly has four men in her life: Sohn Ho-joon, Kim Min-joon, Song Jong-ho, and Gu Ja-sung. My head/heart hurts already! Will our OTP be quickly identified (a la Oh My Baby), or will we actually be left guessing which contender (if any) our heroine will choose? I might as well just say off the bat my vote is with Sohn Ho-joon.
Graceful Friends
Time slot: Friday & Saturday
Broadcaster: JTBC
Genre: Mystery, thriller
Episode count: 17
Reasons to watch: Of all the dramas premiering this week, Graceful Friends strikes me as the most different. While it gives off similar vibes to Sky Castle and A Couple’s World in terms of stylization and crisp production, murder mysteries are not common to dramaland, so I’m pretty intrigued (especially having grown up on Agatha Christie novels). The ensemble cast is impressive to say the least — boasting Yoo Joon-sang, Song Yoon-ah, Bae Soo-bin, and Kim Won-hae just to name a few. I’m expecting some sleek, twisted, heart-pounding suspense, and even betting on understated suspense, which is the best kind to me.
Train
Time slot: Saturday & Sunday
Broadcaster: OCN
Genre: Mystery, thriller
Episode count: 12
Reasons to watch: In case you’re craving more parallel universe mayhem (yeah, didn’t think so), we have Yoon Shi-yoon x2 to look forward to with OCN’s Train. Yoon was recently awesome in Psychopath Diary, and I’m starting to really like him in more dark, serious fare. Maybe he will be a good match for OCN, whose dramas (to me) are always better when they contain actors that bring some human warmth to offset the usually bleak premises. Here, Yoon is chasing a serial killer across both dimensions to protect his loved one. Not much new in that description, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be great. Yoonie, bring it!