Doctor Slump

If you solely go by its name, Doctor Slump may seem like a classic medical drama about the daily struggles doctors endure to keep up with the demands of their high-stress profession – a Korean version of Grey’s Anatomy, if you will. While the medical side of things certainly is a main story driver, as the trouble that surfaces for the characters are well-rooted in that world, there’s a whole lot more to the Korean series than what its title perceives it to be. It’s really, at the end of the day, about life slumps. As one of the characters establishes early on, “No matter when, no matter who it is and no matter the reason, it will always come.”

Korean shows tend to be a melting pot of genres and timelines, and Doctor Slump is no different. It tells the story of former high school foes Yeo Jeong-woo (Park Hyung-sik), an internet-famous plastic surgeon, and Nam Ha-neul (Park Shin-hye), an anesthesiologist, who find themselves living under the same roof in less-than-ideal conditions. Flashing back to 2009, we also see them as students at their peak competitiveness and childishness, setting up a fascinating parallel track that will, hopefully, inform their palpable present-day tension and, over time, reveal why they kept their distance for 14 years.

While the show may meander from broad physical comedy one minute to devastating family melodrama the next, Doctor Slump is a hopeful, relatable and relatively realistic romantic dramedy about two people knocked down by unfortunate life circumstances and looking to start over. They just have to sort through their own hardships first. The medical stuff just happens to be the backdrop.

That’s not to take away the importance of the medical situations that led them to their low points in the first place, which promise to be vital storylines moving forward. For Jeong-woo, he becomes the bane of the medical world after a high-profile patient dies on his operating table, causing him to be sued into bankruptcy and debt – his reputation ruined. There’s most definitely more to the story, since it’s implied that someone is out to get him. But who and why?

For Ha-neul, she quits her toxic job after being humiliated for the last time by her emotionally abusive and incompetent medical advisor. The lethargy and dark thoughts that enter her mind are unsettling but authentically portrayed, leading her to be diagnosed with severe depression by a therapist.

Even with heavy subject matter, Doctor Slump is surprisingly well-balanced with its light-hearted banter and melodramatic trauma, and takes real care in addressing mental health and societal pressures – things that have no language barrier – in a non-exploitative way. There are also scenes that remind us that yes, the world is still quite beautiful, even if you’re not feeling your best. (You’ll be hard-pressed to go an episode without at least one scene featuring falling cherry blossom petals to hype up the romantic vibes.) By extension, endearing performances by Park Hyung-sik, who’s known in the K-drama world for his comedic timing and ad-libs, and Park Shin-hye, who’s believable as a high-strung perfectionist, make it all the more entertaining to watch as their characters wrestle with their mutual life lows and each other.

Doctor Slump doesn’t pretend to be novel and that’s okay. There’s something particularly comforting about a show that celebrates and embraces its characters’ journeys over unnecessary gimmicks. After all, what’s more realistic than two people just trying to find their way.