Good lord, the overacting in this. I would say that Toda Erika was the only sane person in this show except that she somehow agreed to be in it.

The overacting was acutely cringeworthy, far surpassing that seen in the likes of Tamiou or Keibuho Yabe Kenzô. And it’s unfortunate, because episode 2 centered on one of those deeply human moments that made seasons 1 and 2 of Code Blue so compelling. Regrettably, the brick-to-the-face acting of everyone but Erika made this unwatchable.

I have friends (heck, family members) who won’t watch Asian dramas because of the Japanese reputation for overacting. I have never had much of a problem with what on reflection I suppose some Americans would see as overacting—Nodame Cantabile, Gokusen, good ol’ Moriyama-sensei from DOCTORS—but this show crossed the line for me and my spouse; in fact it stepped so far beyond it that had we watched any longer it would have retroactively sullied Ryo’s spellbinding performance in Code Blue.