God’s Gift PD returns with new drama for SBS

by girlfriday

There seems to be some heavy competition going on at SBS for a spot on its late summer Wednesday-Thursday drama lineup, because we’ve already heard news about two other dramas angling to air in that time slot — writer Kim Eun-hee’s Signal, which got pushed back for Shin Mina’s Will You Have Dinner With Me. And now a third drama is throwing its hat into the ring: a medical human drama called Yong-pal.

Yong-pal comes from production house HB Entertainment (You From Another Star, You’re All Surrounded, Punch), and at the helm are PD Lee Dong-hoon of last year’s gripping thriller God’s Gift–14 Days and writer Jang Hyuk-rin of OCN’s psychological thriller Reset. It’s about a doctor who makes house calls, but he isn’t a small-town country doctor like I was picturing in my head. The hero makes house calls in Seoul — the secret kind, for clients who can’t call emergency for all sorts of sordid, illicit reasons.

The main character, who goes by the alias Yong-pal (a name that conjures up shady quack doctor associations), worked tirelessly to put himself through medical school. But his younger sister needs weekly kidney dialysis treatments, sending him into massive debt. So in order to pay the bills, he starts making house calls to the filthy rich, where he witnesses makjang dramas come to life. The drama begins with the secrets he learns while on the job.

Despite one huge infuriating turn, I really did like everything else about God’s Gift, especially the directing, which makes me really curious about this PD’s next project. Reset had more problems in that it left my favorite things in the story underdeveloped, but it was a first outing for the writer, so hopefully there’s more opportunity to flesh out interesting characters in a show that’s longer than ten episodes.

The reports about the time slots are mixed and there are no confirmations from SBS about which drama will air, so it looks like casting will begin all around in the hopes of securing an August premiere. I’ll be honest, I’m hoping that Will You Have Dinner With Me wins (because, Shin Mina!), but it probably wouldn’t kill me to wait two months if it gets pushed back to the fall. Probably.

Either Yong-pal or Will You Have Dinner With Me will follow Mask on Wednesdays and Thursdays beginning in August.

Via IS Plus

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