While Netflix’s most-watched TV series of all time, Squid Game, won’t be returning until Christmas, the fall calendar is still packed with dramas designed to delight, horrify, and comfort.
As “Gyeongseong Creature” prepares to return with its Season 1 spinoff, the writer-director team behind “The Hometown Cha Cha Cha” is back with a romantic comedy that looks set to be as heartwarming as their 2021 hit. Meanwhile, Baeksang Award-winning director Mo Wan-il (The World of the Married) is trying to keep us guessing about what’s in store with the mysterious trailer for the suspense thriller “The Frog.” In the meantime, here are the five K-dramas to watch in the coming months.
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Romance in the House (August 10-September 19)
Korean dramas often do a better job than American television of telling multigenerational, community-focused stories, and “Romance in the House” is the latest example. It stars Son Na-eun (Apink, Ghost Doctor) as Byeon Mi-rae, a young department store executive who fired her deadbeat father years ago, while also being the primary breadwinner for her family, paying for her younger brother’s education, and ending up in the hospital due to overwork in the first episode.
As her father, Byeon Moo-jin (Jewel in the Palace’s Ji Jin-hee), reappears after being presumed dead, transforming into a handsome middle-aged multimillionaire and buying the apartment building the family lives in, it’s interesting to see if things could change and if Mi-rae and the rest of her family will accept him. The series stars SHINee’s Minho as Nam Tae-pyeong, Mi-rae’s workplace crush, and Kim Jee-soo (Hwarang) as Geum Ae-yeon, a hardworking mother who never stopped loving her ex. So far, the series has been a real treat, serving as another recent example of an international K-drama that places a lot of emphasis on a complicated romance between middle-aged characters.
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Love Next Door (August 17-October 6)
The romantic comedy “Love Next Door,” which tells the story of two childhood friends reunited as adults, is the work of screenwriter Shin Ha-eun and director Yoo Je-won (also known for Crash Course in Romance) of the series “Hometown Cha Cha Cha.”
The series stars Jung Hae-in (Netflix DP and Disney Plus Connect) as Choi Seung-hyo, a rising young architect, and Jung So-min (Alchemy of Souls, Playful Kiss, Because It’s My First Life) as Bae Seok-ryu, a product manager who returns home after a failure to try to make a fresh start, in true Hallmark movie fashion. The move naturally leads to a messy rapprochement between the two characters, and shenanigans ensue, bringing up deep and complicated feelings from the past. Such a strong team both in front of and behind the camera makes this one of the best K-dramas of the late summer and early fall.
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The Frog (August 23)
Among K-dramas, there are some that suit K-drama fans and there are some that find a wider audience and in the latter case, we find “The Frog” from “The World of the Married” director Mo Wan-il. Set in a rural area of South Korea, this dark and psychological drama is set to lure unsuspecting viewers with its suspenseful story of serial killers and small-town secrets, all spread across eight episodes.
The series stars Kim Yoon-seok (The Chaser, Another Child) and Yoon Kye-sang (K-pop boy band god, Road Number One) as two men who run lakeside vacation homes in a peaceful region of Korea. It would be unfortunate to reveal more details about the plot, but it is worth mentioning that Go Min-so is also playing a very different role than she did in the drama “Sweet Home,” where she played former ballerina Lee Eun-yu.
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Gyeongseong Creature Season 2 (September 27)
With the end of the first season of “Gyeongseong Creature,” most of the supernatural plots of the Japanese-occupied Seoul series have been resolved and we were treated to a surprising opening credits scene. Indeed, we see someone who looks remarkably like Park Seo-joon’s Tae-sang, living in modern-day Seoul, looking no older than he did in 1945, and although he is called by a different name, Ho-jae, the scar on the back of his neck seems to indicate that it is indeed the same man. Considering the power of Season 1 co-star Han So-hee, it is safe to assume that Yoon Chae-ok, who apparently succumbed to a fatal attack by her monstrous mother while protecting Tae-sang, will also be back in Season 2.
The question is whether the two will finally have a chance to love each other peacefully, whether Chae-ok has turned into a monster, as suggested in Season 1, and how the hell Tae-sang has managed to stay young for 80 years. It must be said that “Gyeongseong Creature” is the exceptional K-drama with mind-blowing twists and turns in the first season and, while it didn’t always make the most of its premise and star-studded cast, the second season is another chance for this series to become iconic.
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Mr. Plankton (To be confirmed)
Life as a plankton is not a dream come true for anyone, but that is what Hae-jo (Oh Jung-se) is living, well, not literally. Hae-jo dreams of a colorful future far from his life as a plankton where he feels like he doesn’t fit in anywhere and has no one he cares about. However, it would be interesting to see if things will change when he embarks on a journey with Jo Jae-mi (from Squid Game and Lee You-mi’s All of Us Are Dead), his ex but also an unhappy bride-to-be.
The title Mr. Plankton may be a bit ridiculous, but the fact that it was written by Jo Yong, the writer of “It’s Okay to Not Be Okay,” suggests tons of angst before a potential happy ending. The series also stars Alex Landi from Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19 in a rare mix of Hollywood and Korean drama.
What K-drama are you looking forward to watching on Netflix?