Yang Dong-geun, Park Han-byul
MBC’s Borg Mom (formerly known as Our Mom is Recharging), the variety-drama project that was previously announced a couple of months ago has already lined up its main cast and is gearing up to start filming soon. The show will be helmed by former We Got Married PD Sun Hye-yoon, and I hope her experience in variety will help her inject more of that side into the show than past variety-drama projects have done to date.
When the first reports for Borg Mom were released, the plot descriptors were quite vague and said that the show would center around a strange neighborhood and its quirky inhabitants. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but it certainly wasn’t this: The show will follow a genius inventor who builds a humanoid robot that looks like his late wife. The titular ‘borg mom will enter the bizarre world of snooty, socialite mothers as the inventor’s son enters an upscale kindergarten, hilariously named Buckingham Nursery. Borg Mom will cast a critical eye on the ridiculous excess of the upper class and their obsession with status and wealth, while also bringing the comedy as our robot disrupts their airs mid-snipe.
Yang Dong-geun (Missing 9) will play the inventor dad, who’s one of those aloof, but really warm-on-the-inside types. Yang apparently liked the script so much he agreed to join the show nearly as soon as he read it. I’ll always have a soft spot for the rapper-actor because of his part in early 2000s sitcom Nonstop, and though Borg Mom isn’t technically a sitcom, the premise is wacky enough that I think he’ll be a great fit for the show. Park Han-byul (I Have a Lover) will portray the titular borg mom, who has perfect looks and brains but absolutely no flexibility in character. I haven’t seen any of her dramas since 2006’s Fantasy Couple, but I’ve heard good things about her acting in recent years, and I’m pretty excited to see her robot character take on the Gangnam mothers.
Ivy, Choi Yeo-jin, Hwang Bora, Jung Yi-rang
Borg Mom has also cast the cadre of high society wives and mothers that rule Buckingham Nursery, and their character names are cracking me up: Singer and musical actress Ivy will play the ice-cold queen bee of the Buckingham mothers, called Do Do-hye, which literally means “haughty.” Choi Yeo-jin’s (On the Way to the Airport) character, Bu Ti-na, or “upscale feel” in Korean, is a show-off who needs to add English to every sentence in order to feel satisfied. Hwang Bora (Blow Breeze) will portray a former girl group member who’s now a social media addict. Her name is Gu-seol Suzy, which translates to a hilarious “gossiping Suzy.” This group of mothers will be the subject of envy and admiration from Yoo Gwi-nam, played by SNL veteran Jung Yi-rang, who is desperate to join the club.
Also joining the cast is Choi Jung-won (Shining Eun-soo), who will play Yang Dong-geun’s trusted friend and assistant, and Kwon Hyun-bin, who participated in the second season of idol reality show Produce 101. Kwon will make his acting debut as a teacher at Buckingham Nursery, who is also the son of the kindergarten’s principal. He’s described as free-minded and full of hip-hop swagger as a result of having grown up abroad.
Borg Mom doesn’t have a premiere date nor a set episode count yet, but filming is scheduled to begin at the end of the month, so we can probably expect to see it on the airwaves sometime later this year. We’re going to see several dramas later this year with robots as the main leads (I’m Not a Robot and Are You Human Too?), so hopefully, Borg Mom manages to stand out from the pack. Let the not-quite-human hijinks ensue!
Choi Jung-won, Kwon Hyun-bin