My Ajusshi
Time slot: Wednesday & Thursday
Broadcaster: tvN
Genre: Romance melodrama
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: This is the new series from PD Kim Won-seok of Signal and Misaeng and writer Park Hae-young of Oh Hae-young Again, so there’s no way my expectations aren’t sky high for their first collaboration. It’s described in very generic terms as a healing drama, about a man in his forties and a woman in her twenties, each struggling to survive in their own way.
Lee Seon-kyun plays one of three brothers from an ordinary family who is neither successful nor unsuccessful, and doesn’t seem too happy about anything in life. IU is a young woman who’s lived a much harsher life, whose days seem to be filled with tears, scars, and bruises. She’s extremely bristly towards others, probably as a protective measure; in the teasers she asks for Lee Seon-kyun to hate her so that she can hate him back, which must be how she prefers most relationships to go. This drama is definitely going for gritty realism, but I’m hoping it’ll be uplifting in the same way that Misaeng examined the harshness of ordinary life to remind us that we all share the same struggles.
Let’s Hold Hands and Watch the Sunset
Time slot: Wednesday & Thursday
Broadcaster: MBC
Genre: Romance melodrama
Episode count: 32 (half-hour episodes, 16 hours total)
Reasons to watch: This is one of those romance dramas where I don’t know which pairing I’m supposed to root for because some of them are married (probably the point). But this one is complicated by the heroine’s terminal illness, which is what propels her towards finding true happiness as she faces the end of her life. Han Hye-jin stars as a woman who gave up her dreams to become the perfect wife to her architect husband, played by Yoon Sang-hyun, but when she discovers that she doesn’t have much time left to live, she decides to start living for herself. The best/worst part is that her doctor is Kim Tae-hoon, so of course she’s going to fall in love with him, because have you seen Fantastic?
The series will be about recovering parts of yourself that you lost and the importance of family and love. It comes from the PD of Radiant Office and the writer of Cruel Palace: War of Flowers and Flames of Ambition, so I’m expecting high drama with this one. You know, in case terminal illness and extramarital affairs made you think otherwise.