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Doctor John korean drama review
Completed
Doctor John
0 people found this review helpful
by hum
May 24, 2022
32 of 32 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 7.5
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 2.0
This review may contain spoilers

Surprisingly disappointing. Good story though the logic is super off. Terrible character design.

Story Plot [+]

It's a very good story - good plot on the ML's life, quite a few of thought-provoking/impressive/inspiring moments, but the character design on the villain side is the worst. It's a story full of clever people who are intentionally unprofessional and prejudiced.

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Logic of the story [-]

I don't understand why so many people in the story try to say that a person who can't feel physical pain due to an illness isn't approved to be a doctor as well as put all the blames on the person. This logic comes out so forcefully. The series tries super hard to make this claim valid, but it still feels super off.

I don't understand either why people like the prosecutor take the idea of euthanasia of consent, terminally ill patients as something to be so vengeful toward the doctor who is willing to help the patients. It's to the point that he wants to destroy the doctor's life and career as well as put him into jail even though the action of the doctor complies with the patient's desire. This topic of euthanasia is surely a socially debatable topic. But the opposing side in this series takes this issue very personally to the point of personal grudge and vengeance. It's so extreme without a proper root or cause that would help the viewers to understand and empathize with, thus their actions feel very off. It's like this series has devalued this social issue by portraying the opinions from the opposing side as illogical to the point of absurd and psychopathic. This topic that is worth being discussed has become some nonsense, personal issue of the irrational villains.

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Character Design [-]

The first one is the prosecutor who is competent but blindsided and has the habit of rushing to a conclusion. I don't understand his competence at all. These traits of his must prevent him from being clearheaded enough to be able to have an objective analysis on his cases. Not to talk about his vengefulness in destroying an ex-verdict without a proper cause. I don't understand his long-term vengeance towards the ML who has no personal issue with him. He often blames the ML that the ML euthanized his patient to make his own mind feel at ease by not having to see the patient being tortured from the terminal illness, but he also says the ML doesn't have the right to treat patients because ML has an illness that makes him not able to feel pain thus he wouldn't understand patients' pain and just does the scientific experiment on human's bodies due to curiosity via medical treatment. Is this kind of contradictory logic supposed to come from a character who is a competent prosecutor?

The second is the hospital-management-team doctor who openly attacks the ML on all sorts of unreasonable issues no matter how nonsense the issue is to start with. It's like he is clouded by a kind of hatred that doesn't have a cause, either. The ML isn't even a threat to his position. I don't understand his stupidity at all. In reality, all the blames he openly puts on the ML would normally harm himself back as a high-level doctor. It would easily cause people to be skeptical about his qualification in his position that needs objectivity and analytical skills. I don't understand at all how he's in the hospital management team with this kind of intelligence.

The third person is the female villain of the story. She's designed to be an extreme emo. She is a stalker who is vengeful towards a murderer who killed her daughter, but later shifts all the hatred and vengefulness to the ML who put the murderer to death. I understand her upset, but this vengefulness is so offset. I don't understand how it is shifted to the ML and even after the ML was imprisoned for 3 years, she still stalks him and is willing to destroy his career and his life after he was released - all of this because he killed the murderer who had killed her daughter?! I don't understand even more when the prosecutor agrees with this person's perspective (though his son was also killed together with the daughter, his character is positioned to be highly rational.) The prosecutor always believes that he is righteous in what he does, but all his actions contradict what he thinks he is. This female villain and the prosecutor make this series super absurd and drag the overall score of the series down immensely.

With this kind of character design, this story becomes too unreasonable, excessively absurd and overly melodramatic.

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Acting [~]

I would say the acting of the ML carries the whole series. I watch this series till the end only because of him and the struggle in his life with his illness and his profession's experience. The FL's acting is off from time to time. I watched her in Red Sleeve before this one and let me say her acting doesn't improve as the years passed. The second ML's character design contradicts itself at the beginning of the story and that contradiction makes me feel off about him for the whole series. The second FL's acting and expression are not good enough to be a second FL. All other supporting roles' actings are just so-so.

By the way, I don't feel any connection in the FL's family at all. They all work at the same hospital, see one another very often, and always have interactions, but these people who are FL's mother, uncle, aunt and sister don't look like they're related at all -- not related to the FL and not to one another. There's zero family relationship among them even when they're in the same scene talking face-to-face to each other.

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