Yikes, it has been revealed that PD Lee Jung-hyo, one of the directors on crime thriller Criminal Minds, officially left the production last week, right before the show started airing. The reason for his departure has been explained as “creative differences” between PD Lee and drama production company Taewon Entertainment.
Criminal Minds was originally supposed to be helmed by two PDs, so PD Yang Yoon-ho will now be acting as sole director of the show. It’s unfortunate, because I do think PD Lee was a big draw for me given that his last project was The Good Wife, which was gorgeously shot and directed. Not to say that PD Yang is a lesser director, but he’s more involved in films, and the last drama he helmed was 2009’s IRIS, which was quite a while ago. But maybe this development is a good thing, because it sounds like this was a case where there were too many cooks in one kitchen.
Taewon Entertainment came out with an official statement once reports started appearing of PD Lee’s resignation: Originally, filming for Criminal Minds was supposed to be handled by an A team led by PD Yang and a B team with PD Lee in charge. This setup isn’t unusual in dramaland, but once they started rolling the cameras, they decided to combine the two teams given the volume of filming they had to do. That’s probably where the problems started, since there were apparently a lot of difference of opinions on directing choices, from the music selection to editing.
PD Lee then announced his intention to leave, and while Taewon “tried to persuade him to do otherwise,” the production company received notice from CJ Entertainment (tvN’s parent company) that he had officially left the show. I just hope that this doesn’t affect the show negatively, because I’m looking forward to starting it once life stops getting in the way.
Crime thriller Criminal Minds airs every Wednesday and Thursday on tvN.