TV shows you most recently finished watching

When the Camellia Blooms (2019) is also on Netflix; it's such a quirky comedy; the characters are all offbeat. There's a bit of a Hot Fuzz-like premise: a young dumb cop in Seoul annoys his colleagues because he's too energetic and keen, so he's transferred to a small coastal town; but it just so happens a serial killer is on the loose. He falls instantly in love with the owner of a bar who is the scandal of the town because she's an unmarried bar-owner also raising her child alone. You'll come to care about all the characters, even the gossips who spurned the bar-owning single mother but are starting to accept her and the outsider-cop as well.

Goblin (also known as Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, 2017) is on Viki.com; fans of shows like Supernatural would totally dig this. The geek in me insists that it just might be my favorite. The goblin was a general who lived hundreds of years ago but is cursed to keep on living because of killing so many in battle. The lead actor also starred in the zombie film Train to Busan. His roommate is a grim reaper! (Turns out grim-reapers have to eat and sleep and pay rent like everyone else!) (By the way, Viki.com is free, and it's a fantastic source to find Korean shows - you just have to endure commercials, like on Hulu.)

My Mister (2018) is on Netflix; it's a great little nocturnal flick, takes you both into a company and also a neighborhood in Seoul, such as a local pub where you get to know the patrons. The main lead was the rich bloke in the Oscar-winning film Parasite.

At least two other actors in Parasite play roles in what in my opinion is the greatest Korean drama of 2020, Crash Landing On You, also on Netflix. It's a great premise: a woman reaching the peak of her career decides to celebrate by hang-gliding; but a storm sweeps her over the DMZ and into North Korea! This will show you North Korea in a way you'd never expect. Yes, you see corruption and power black-outs and poverty, but you also see a simpler life that we also often long to go back to, and by the end you really love the North Korean characters you've met (at least, most of them). Oh, and it's a comedy, and quite funny. North Korean defectors were hired as consultants, so the authenticity factor is quite high.

Right now, my wife and I are watching 2017's comedy Strong Girl Bong-soon; it has a great cartoon-like humor; the main character possesses supernatural strength (think Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but she can only use her strength to protect the weak, not for personal gain, or she'll lose it. This same lead actress is in a brand-new show on Vicki.com called Doom at Your Service which we're also enjoying. It's another fantasy like Goblin above, if not quite at that level. Still really good and funny. A terminally-ill young girl, in a fit of anger, curses the world - and a demon-like being, Doom himself, comes to grant her curse. It's a bit like the book of Job: Doom frequently meets with God (a frail, always-ill young girl who prefers to think of herself as the Gardener.) I'm not sure how it turns out though, have to wait till next week for the next 2 episodes to air and be uploaded to Viki.com. 

I've watched tons of other shows, but these are my favorites. Korean dramas all seem to be only a season long, with about 22 episodes. A weakness in Korean shows is that they can start off really good, but can be a sludge to get to the end - but that's not the case in the ones above. And the best ones are immersive - you want to luxuriate in the surroundings, the geography of the place, and spend more time with the usually-large ensemble cast.