There are two new cable shows on the way this week—OCN spinoff crime thriller Bad Guys: City of Evil and JTBC melodrama Just Between Lovers. JTBC is adding a new Monday-Tuesday drama time slot with this series, though we’ll have to see how Just Between Lovers fares to know if the time slot is here to stay. More dramas means more options for us, right? Who needs sleep anyway?
Just Between Lovers
Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: JTBC
Genre: Melodrama
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: Junho had a breakout year with his performance in the office comedy Chief Kim, and is following it up with his first leading drama role in this series. It sounds like a very emotional, sentimental melodrama because it’s all about people in pain who heal each other. Junho plays a wayward young man who’s hit rock bottom in every aspect of his life after surviving a traumatic accident that left him comatose and badly injured. He looks like a battered runaway puppy in every promo still and teaser for this drama, so I just have it in my head that he’s got a lot of beef with the universe for his plight. Coming from the writer of Secret and the PD of Nice Guy and Wonderful Season, I expect a hearty dose of pain and a moving romance to make up for it (it’d better make up for it, or we’ll have words).
Bad Guys: City of Evil
Time slot: Saturday & Sunday
Broadcaster: OCN
Genre: Crime thriller
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: I never saw the original Bad Guys, but this is a spinoff with a brand new cast and story, and hardly any connection to the original other than the general concept of bad guys banding together to catch badder guys. I would wonder why they bothered naming it Bad Guys at all, except that it comes from the same writer, Han Jung-hoon, who also wrote Police Unit 38 and two seasons of Vampire Prosecutor for OCN. The writer has a really strong track record and a knack for ensemble crime capers, plus he’s re-teaming with the PD of Police Unit 38 for this show, so it’ll probably be worth checking out for that alone. Yunno, if you’re in the mood for badass dudes, lawlessness, and general mayhem.