I know I can’t talk about Ando Lloyd (BIGGEST disappointment) again, so I’ll just talk about Medical Top Team (MBC / 2013). Also known as Medical Top Turtlenecks.
This TV miniseries follows the journey of creating Korea’s best multidisciplinary medical team and the stories of doctors inside. Characters who have different hurts and dilemmas struggle as they get to work together and gradually learn that healing a person is healing oneself.
MBC Global Media
Not a very inspiring summary, but I remained cautiously optimistic. My reasons for adding it to my fall ’13 list were Joo Ji-hoon (my number one oppa) and Jung Ryeo-won, who had an amazing year in dramas the year before. Episode 1 was pretty decent, and I immediately took to Kwon Sang-woo’s Park Tae-shin! He wasn’t too cool for school, just a doctor with a heart made of vanilla ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. While I was intrigued by his heart (at the beginning, anyway), Medical Top Team definitely lacked in the heart department.
There were some characters I had difficulty grasping (ahem, Joo-young) and others I didn’t give a damn about (ahem, My-Name-is-Minho’s intern character), which made it really hard for me to watch week after week. There was so much time spent on building the team and not enough on the people in it. And as cute as Eun Ba-wi was, her story spanned way too many episodes and even those were marred by hospital politics and posturing. When they did focus on relationships (the one between Seung-jae and his mom, cries) it was awesome. Medical Top Team wasn’t bad by any means, it just could have been better.
. . .
(More) Reasons to Watch: Joo Ji-hoon’s face. Joo Ji-hoon’s hair. Joo Ji-hoon being angsty and complex as Seung-jae. Surprise romantic pairings! Joo Ji-hoon.
Honorable Mention: Anything Kimura Takuya’s done after 2008. SADFACE.