There will be a steady stream of new shows premiering in late November and early December, and the first of them are coming later this week on SBS, JTBC, and tvN. I’m glad that the premieres are a little staggered this time around, because the last time that nine shows started up at once, I couldn’t keep up with the watching schedule. These three upcoming dramas are all very different in genre and tone, so let’s hope there’s something for everyone.
Smart Prison Living
Time slot: Wednesday & Thursday
Broadcaster: tvN
Genre: Black comedy
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: I think most people will be tuning into this show to see the latest project from PD Shin Won-ho, director of the Answer Me franchise. He’s finally branching out into a new dramaverse with a junior writer from the Answer Me series, about the everyday lives of prison inmates. It’s about a baseball superstar who suddenly ends up in prison and has to learn how to navigate a whole new social system to get by. I’m especially looking forward to the potential bromance between baseball star Park Hae-soo and baseball fanboy prison guard Jung Kyung-ho. The drama is described as a black comedy, which definitely piques my interest (even though more often than not, K-dramas that get called black comedies are not black comedies). This director has great comic sense and timing though, so I’m anticipating something fresh and darkly funny. Fingers crossed!
Nothing to Lose
Time slot: Wednesday & Thursday
Broadcaster: SBS
Genre: Legal drama, romance
Episode count: 32 (half-hour episodes, 16 hours in total)
Reasons to watch: SBS’s follow-up to While You Were Sleeping is another legal romance in the same time slot, which could either work to secure the same audience… or cause law fatigue. I love this cast though, so maybe the premise is secondary when most people will probably tune in to see Park Eun-bin and Yeon Woo-jin bicker and fall in love—I know I will. The setup seems closer to Witch’s Court actually, with a hot-headed heroine and a cool-headed hero thrown together as reluctant partners in the courtroom. Here, the characters will be judges, which is at least a new approach when we’re so often following prosecutors and lawyers around in dramaland. Honestly though, they could be doctors or firefighters or supermarket cashiers for all I care—I just like these two actors a whole lot, and want to see them being cute together.
Untouchable
Time slot: Friday & Saturday
Broadcaster: JTBC
Genre: Melodrama, revenge
Episode count: 16
Reasons to watch: Untouchable is the new drama from PD Jo Nam-gook of Last and Empire of Gold, and it’ll follow in the same vein of epic empire-building and power struggles, this time in a Godfather-esque story about two brothers from a mobster family who take very different paths in life. Jin Gu stars as the wayward son who rejects his family’s corruption and chooses to become an upright police detective, while Kim Sung-kyun is his older brother who follows in their father’s footsteps and takes over the family business, and they’ll end up at war with one another. If the drama isn’t afraid to go dark, I love a good mob empire story, though I really have to be in the right mood to start something like this. I have a feeling that the biggest draw here will be the villain, so maybe it’ll be worth checking out for Kim Sung-kyun’s performance alone.