Doril
This review may contain spoilers
Excellent Slice of Life - Will be Enough for Some Viewers but Not All
I will be completely avoiding spoilers in the FIRST half of this post and will discuss spoilers in the SECOND half of this post. I'll put a separator to try to help you avoid accidentally reading them.
If you like the Slice of Life genre, this will easily be an 8-10 out of 10. However, this show is not perfect, and I believe some of these elements weigh the quality down so that if you are not a hardcore Slice of Life lover, you might find your enjoyment decreased, which was how I felt after completing this show.
First, let's discuss the story: there is no story. Traditional, overarching plots that span throughout the series are thrown out the window so that the drama can focus on the five main characters and their relationships with their friends, family, and coworkers, while splashing in medical cases. This works extremely well if you enjoy purely character driven stories with a splash of medical jargon. This won't work so well if you are expecting longitudinal narratives -- I have to admit that I am not that into Slice of Life, but picked up this show due to all the hype, and did end up literally falling asleep at some points, having to go back and rewatch the parts I missed. However, what the show does well, it does really well: there are many, many, really heartwarming scenes which I will describe in the spoiler section. Still, for me, the show bogged itself down with too many contrivances, especially with some specific romances. I felt some elements were too cliche and appealed too much to the "kdrama fantasy" rather than being a solid look into "real life", which I would expect from Slice of Life.
Next, the acting: there is not much for me to say about this because it is wonderful. Jo Jung Suk nails it as the universally loved Lee Ik Jun. Jeon Mi Do, relatively unknown to film and TV in 2020, kills it as the bleeding heart Chae Song Hwa. The rest of the cast, including the supporting and guest cast, is very effective and believable at serving their parts.
The soundtrack was exemplary as well, drawing from older songs like the 2001 song Aloha by Trio or the 1996 Introduce Me a Good Person by Basis.
Overall, I think this show lives and dies by its Slice of Life classification -- comparing this to the breadth of romances, actions, thrillers, mysteries, horrors, etc, I think Hospital Playlist is just "good".
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SPOILERS START HERE
SERIOUSLY AFTER THIS IS THE SPOILER SECTION
FOR REALZ, SPOILERS AFTER THIS BREAK
------------------------------------------------------------
It's difficult to talk about my criticisms without diving into specific details about things that happen in this series, so the following is a discussion of faults I found with it.
First, the romance, which to me is the greatest fault: this show suffers "Grey's Anatomy syndrome": that is most of the doctors are actively engaging in relationships with each other, are actively considering relationships with each other, and are somehow devoid of outside-of-work love interests. Yes, there are some non-doctor pairings like Kim Jun Wan and his girlfriend, but I would argue even his relationship is too close to home, since he dates a main character's sister, Lee Ik Sun, conveniently within the circle of the main cast. Outside of this, somehow, everyone loves someone in close proximity to the show or are crushing on them: Ahn Jeong Won's resident loves him. Yang Seok Hyeong's resident also loves him. Chae Song Hwa's resident ALSO loves her. There is even a minor romance of two residents who love each other. Do you see the pattern here? For a show where romance takes a back seat to the "daily happenings of life", I thought this was way too convenient and made the relationships feel too forced. As this is a TV show, obviously some creative license is allowed, but I think the ubiquitous nature of this intra-show love just felt like lazy writing to me -- a device to fill in the extra time because the writers couldn't figure out what else to put in and just needed to jam some romance in there.
The relationship I took the most issue with was Ahn Jeong Won and his resident Jang Gyeo Wool -- over a 12 episode run, Gyeo Wool is essentially crushing over Jeong Won for 11 episodes, even trying to get over him by going on a blind date, but ultimately still remaining committed to her crush as basically nothing happens with the "getting over him" subplot. Moreover, she is characterized as being cold and misunderstood -- she is a very diligent person who is "kind in her own way" but is not someone that expresses any kind of obvious affection towards anyone, whether it is her patients or her love interest. Meanwhile, Jeong Won is characterized as being very religious to the point of taking active steps to quit being a doctor to become a priest, like the rest of his siblings, who are all priests and nuns. He doesn't date because he's committed to God. Initially, he's pretty much just ice cold to Gyeo Wool, but expresses increasing empathy to her. Finally, in episode 12, she begs him not to become a priest and he just...kisses her. I'm sorry, but especially a male watcher, this love line felt way too much an appeasement of the female fantasy rather than a realistic, or even semi-realistic romance: we're talking about a woman whose love was so great that she literally changed the life course of man. My issue isn't that their kiss wasn't heartwarming, but my problem is that Jeong Won essentially pulled a 180 over an "outwardly cold" woman who basically just wanted him to love her because...reasons. I would argue that Jeong Won's reversal of his decision in becoming a priest would have been more realistic and compelling if he had done it solely on the realization of the value of his strength in being a good doctor, without the added issue of the romance.
Second, and more minor, is the characterization of hospital life -- just like other medical shows, the series combines several jobs in one doctor, so that a general surgeon like Ik Jun diagnosing cancer, which in reality would be done by an oncologist, or doctors only needing to worry about 1-2 cases per day instead of the endless patients they seem to need to see. However, I think this is fine -- the real life paperwork of medicine is probably way too boring to turn into a real show.
Lastly, and also a little minor, the last episode in particular seemed to lean really heavily on flashbacks. I understand that context is important, but I felt it was pretty excessive, especially if you've been following the characters in a purely character-driven story for 11 out of 12 episodes and are just watching the last one.
At the end of the day, despite the issues I took with this show, I felt it was still on the positive side. Some of the heartwarming moments will stay with you for a really long time: the Aloha karaoke scene is a masterpiece and spawned the "I BELIEVE" meme that you see in some places.
------------------------------------------------------------
I think this show is really easy to recommend or not recommend: if you love Slice of Life, it's an autowatch. If you are tolerable of Slice of Life, it is worth your time. If you do not like it, it is a hard pass.
If you like the Slice of Life genre, this will easily be an 8-10 out of 10. However, this show is not perfect, and I believe some of these elements weigh the quality down so that if you are not a hardcore Slice of Life lover, you might find your enjoyment decreased, which was how I felt after completing this show.
First, let's discuss the story: there is no story. Traditional, overarching plots that span throughout the series are thrown out the window so that the drama can focus on the five main characters and their relationships with their friends, family, and coworkers, while splashing in medical cases. This works extremely well if you enjoy purely character driven stories with a splash of medical jargon. This won't work so well if you are expecting longitudinal narratives -- I have to admit that I am not that into Slice of Life, but picked up this show due to all the hype, and did end up literally falling asleep at some points, having to go back and rewatch the parts I missed. However, what the show does well, it does really well: there are many, many, really heartwarming scenes which I will describe in the spoiler section. Still, for me, the show bogged itself down with too many contrivances, especially with some specific romances. I felt some elements were too cliche and appealed too much to the "kdrama fantasy" rather than being a solid look into "real life", which I would expect from Slice of Life.
Next, the acting: there is not much for me to say about this because it is wonderful. Jo Jung Suk nails it as the universally loved Lee Ik Jun. Jeon Mi Do, relatively unknown to film and TV in 2020, kills it as the bleeding heart Chae Song Hwa. The rest of the cast, including the supporting and guest cast, is very effective and believable at serving their parts.
The soundtrack was exemplary as well, drawing from older songs like the 2001 song Aloha by Trio or the 1996 Introduce Me a Good Person by Basis.
Overall, I think this show lives and dies by its Slice of Life classification -- comparing this to the breadth of romances, actions, thrillers, mysteries, horrors, etc, I think Hospital Playlist is just "good".
------------------------------------------------------------
SPOILERS START HERE
SERIOUSLY AFTER THIS IS THE SPOILER SECTION
FOR REALZ, SPOILERS AFTER THIS BREAK
------------------------------------------------------------
It's difficult to talk about my criticisms without diving into specific details about things that happen in this series, so the following is a discussion of faults I found with it.
First, the romance, which to me is the greatest fault: this show suffers "Grey's Anatomy syndrome": that is most of the doctors are actively engaging in relationships with each other, are actively considering relationships with each other, and are somehow devoid of outside-of-work love interests. Yes, there are some non-doctor pairings like Kim Jun Wan and his girlfriend, but I would argue even his relationship is too close to home, since he dates a main character's sister, Lee Ik Sun, conveniently within the circle of the main cast. Outside of this, somehow, everyone loves someone in close proximity to the show or are crushing on them: Ahn Jeong Won's resident loves him. Yang Seok Hyeong's resident also loves him. Chae Song Hwa's resident ALSO loves her. There is even a minor romance of two residents who love each other. Do you see the pattern here? For a show where romance takes a back seat to the "daily happenings of life", I thought this was way too convenient and made the relationships feel too forced. As this is a TV show, obviously some creative license is allowed, but I think the ubiquitous nature of this intra-show love just felt like lazy writing to me -- a device to fill in the extra time because the writers couldn't figure out what else to put in and just needed to jam some romance in there.
The relationship I took the most issue with was Ahn Jeong Won and his resident Jang Gyeo Wool -- over a 12 episode run, Gyeo Wool is essentially crushing over Jeong Won for 11 episodes, even trying to get over him by going on a blind date, but ultimately still remaining committed to her crush as basically nothing happens with the "getting over him" subplot. Moreover, she is characterized as being cold and misunderstood -- she is a very diligent person who is "kind in her own way" but is not someone that expresses any kind of obvious affection towards anyone, whether it is her patients or her love interest. Meanwhile, Jeong Won is characterized as being very religious to the point of taking active steps to quit being a doctor to become a priest, like the rest of his siblings, who are all priests and nuns. He doesn't date because he's committed to God. Initially, he's pretty much just ice cold to Gyeo Wool, but expresses increasing empathy to her. Finally, in episode 12, she begs him not to become a priest and he just...kisses her. I'm sorry, but especially a male watcher, this love line felt way too much an appeasement of the female fantasy rather than a realistic, or even semi-realistic romance: we're talking about a woman whose love was so great that she literally changed the life course of man. My issue isn't that their kiss wasn't heartwarming, but my problem is that Jeong Won essentially pulled a 180 over an "outwardly cold" woman who basically just wanted him to love her because...reasons. I would argue that Jeong Won's reversal of his decision in becoming a priest would have been more realistic and compelling if he had done it solely on the realization of the value of his strength in being a good doctor, without the added issue of the romance.
Second, and more minor, is the characterization of hospital life -- just like other medical shows, the series combines several jobs in one doctor, so that a general surgeon like Ik Jun diagnosing cancer, which in reality would be done by an oncologist, or doctors only needing to worry about 1-2 cases per day instead of the endless patients they seem to need to see. However, I think this is fine -- the real life paperwork of medicine is probably way too boring to turn into a real show.
Lastly, and also a little minor, the last episode in particular seemed to lean really heavily on flashbacks. I understand that context is important, but I felt it was pretty excessive, especially if you've been following the characters in a purely character-driven story for 11 out of 12 episodes and are just watching the last one.
At the end of the day, despite the issues I took with this show, I felt it was still on the positive side. Some of the heartwarming moments will stay with you for a really long time: the Aloha karaoke scene is a masterpiece and spawned the "I BELIEVE" meme that you see in some places.
------------------------------------------------------------
I think this show is really easy to recommend or not recommend: if you love Slice of Life, it's an autowatch. If you are tolerable of Slice of Life, it is worth your time. If you do not like it, it is a hard pass.
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