Doctor Slump’s Chaotic Couple May Cure Your Drama Slump
Doctor Slump feels both fresh and nostalgic to me. Fresh because we rarely see romcoms in k-dramas without a high level of external conflict any more, and it’s very tiring to turn on a romance and barely get any couple moments until late in the second half. Nostalgic because this show brings me back to the mid-2010s when building the relationship and giving us ample sweet moments was the point of the romcom.
I don’t mean to say that we don’t get good romances any more, but far too much of the screen time gets taken up by characters and machinations that are unrelated to the relationship, and this has become the norm in dramaland for some reason.
I strongly believe that this is why people get mad at murder romcoms. It’s not that we can’t see why an external conflict is added to the plot; but we can’t see why it has to be given such a large chunk of the storyline when all we want are more couple moments that cement the romance in our hearts!
And so Doctor Slump, with Park Shin-hye and Park Hyung-sik as its lead, feels like it was written for viewers like me, who miss the gentler pacing of dramas that allowed love to blossom gradually and organically.
Romance that’s immediately believable
Writer Baek Sun-woo has clearly written Yeo Jeong-woo (Park Hyung-sik) and Nam Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye) with a lot of love. Both leads have strong individuality and drive, yet when they meet up, they immediately feel like lost halves of each other.
Hello! I’m trying something more sustainable with a post like this. Instead of writing just for the newsletter, I’m going to mix in issues with link to the full post on my blog. I apologise for the extra clicking required. 🙏