[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Good Doctor" Episode 17

Shi-on has for the most part given up on directly approaching Yoon-seo about his feelings at this point, since he already confessed and now she has to do something. Yoon-seo, like a good romantic lead, tries to probe him, but since Shi-on keeps interpreting her actions on the surface level he doesn't give her the emotional reactions she's hoping for. And it's fun watching her fail. It's a neat subversion on typical romantic comedy dynamics that they don't work simply because the target doesn't know what they are.

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The episode as a whole does lots of comic relief along these lines. It's incredibly goofy and dumb and yet still fun and cheerful. It all boils down to a failure to communicate- and in this context, it actually works really well to have Shi-on picking up the pieces, because he doesn't actually have any idea what the goal is. So sometimes the results are not at all what we're expecting, even though they make perfect sense to Shi-on. The best example we get is when we see the two least likely characters in bed together, after their story arc has mostly fizzled out to boot.

Fizzling story arcs remain a problem. As much as I appreciate the humor in "Good Doctor"'s cute moments, it still doesn't really seem like we're building up to all that much. Yes, there is tension about what's going to happen to Yeon-seo- and this episode starts out with a pretty telling exchange of everybody yelling because of the unprofessionalism involved last episode. But this is muted and confused somewhat by the fact that we're also supposed to care about Hyeon-tae's son- and there's no clear parallelism between their stories.

The conflict in this episode's cliffhanger is also a pretty bizarre one. I thought, in the previous episode, that this particular bit of drama regarding Do-han was resolved a little too easily- but to bring it up now all of a sudden is pretty weird, considering that of all the possible places this conflict could come up, I'd expect a hospital would be the place where people are aware of the problem beyond Do-han.

So, there are problems in the storyline of "Good Doctor" that I doubt are going to be solved satisfactorily by the time the drama finishes. Still, there's genuine heart and charm in the performances that really do make it a joy to watch regardless of these flaws. I'm actually looking forward to the resolution of all these various romantic subplots, as they've really hit a strong stride. And, I have to admit, I do like these characters. Even if the storyline has weaknesses, I can always choose to ignore them and focus on the uplifting stuff.

Review by William Schwartz

"Good Doctor" is directed by Ki Min-soo, written by Park Jae-beom-I and features Joo Won, Moon Chae-won, Joo Sang-wook and Kim Min-seo.