Netflix K-drama review: Doctor Slump – Park Shin-hye, Park Hyung-sik heal each other in muddled romantic comedy

This article contains minor spoilers.

3/5 stars

Lead cast: Park Shin-hye, Park Hyung-sik

Latest Nielsen rating: 6.5 per cent

Traditional Korean dramas, often made up of 16 episodes, each 70 minutes long, can be lengthy affairs, but their stories vary in importance. Prime-time melodramas like The Penthouse are all about plot, as they drub us into submission with their whiplash twists and reversals.

On the opposite side of the narrative spectrum, we have healing dramas. These are shows with loose narratives that present characters detaching themselves from the stressful world around them and slowly learning to find inner peace before returning to society.

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Doctor Slump is a healing drama, but it is not the kind of show that is content to play in just one sandbox. It is also a romantic comedy, cohabitation drama and medical drama – but is a poor exemplar of those genres given its lackadaisical plotting and lack of stakes, hallmarks of the healing drama.

Former school rivals Nam Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye) and Yeo Jeong-woo (Park Hyung-sik) meet again as adults at their lowest points and wind up living in the same building. There is some residual antagonism between them at first, but that dissipates once they realise they are the only people in their orbits who understand each other.

They get together early on, Ha-neul briefly pulls back, and by episode 10 they are an item again. That leaves six episodes during which very little happens.

Park Shin-hye as Nam Ha-neul in a still from Doctor Slump.

Ha-neul and Jeong-woo enter the lovey-dovey stage of their relationship and agonise over whether to tell family and colleagues about their new status. Nonetheless, they all figure it out and are delighted for them.

Doctor Min Kyung-min (Oh Dong-min), Jeong-woo’s former tutor and Ha-neul’s dishonest boss at her former hospital, is revealed to be connected to the events that derailed their respective careers.

Kyung-min’s nefarious deeds, which included drugging Jeong-woo in university and playing a hand in the death of a Macau heiress in Jeong-woo’s operating theatre at the beginning of the series, are muddled by murky motivations. These make his eventual fall from grace feel anticlimactic rather than tragic, the note the show was going for.

Yoon Park (left) as secondary male lead Bin Dae-young and Kong Seong-ha as secondary female lead Lee Hong-ran in a still from Doctor Slump.

Doctor Slump introduced itself as a series with ambitions to discuss mental health and the stigmas surrounding it in Korean society. Yet, save for occasional images of Ha-neul popping her pills and the odd catch-up with her psychiatrist, the show largely abandoned these themes after the characters played by its lead stars got together.

The themes come roaring back at the end of the show, reintroduced in a ham-fisted way as Ha-neul visits her psychiatrist, who makes her fill out a multi-choice mental health self-assessment. He pronounces her cured, as if she has passed a mental health SAT.

Leaving the clinic for the final time, Ha-neul notices all the other visibly depressed patients in the waiting room. Her psychiatrist confidently reassures her that they will all get better. Although Doctor Slump’s endorsement of mental health treatment is commendable, this parting message feels misleading.

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Mental health treatment is a journey and it is seldom as successful as it is depicted in the show. People can get better, for a time, and may relapse several times in their lives. But some people never get better, and it is important to acknowledge that that is OK as well. Mental health is not a test you have to pass.

Ha-neul is not a challenging character for Park Shin-hye to play. Equal parts cute and capable, vulnerable and confident, she is strongly reminiscent of roles that Park has played before, such as in Doctors or Heart Blackened, but her familiarity with the character gives the performance a balanced and grounded feel.

Somewhat less balanced is Park Hyung-sik’s showier performance as Jeong-woo. He leans strongly into the comedy, with an elastic set of expressions and an endearing willingness to appear foolish, but unlike his more stoic performances, such as in Happiness, the variety of tones on display here nudge Jeong-woo a little too close to the realm of caricature.

Park Shin-hye (left) and Park Hyung-sik as Ha-neul and Yeo Jeong-woo in a still from Doctor Slump.

Doctor Slump was never less than a breezy watch, and there were occasional moments where it brought some spirit to stereotypical scenarios, such as when Jeong-woo and secondary male lead Bin Dae-young (Yoon Park) carry home their very drunk partners, Ha-neul and secondary female lead Lee Hong-ran (Kong Seong-ha), but ultimately superficiality won out over substance.

Doctor Slump is streaming on Netflix.

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