For this week’s exclusive drama review we will be dissecting the second series of the drama ‘Dr. Romantic’, because we do love a good hospital drama with a touch of romance.
Written by Kang Eun-kyung and directed by Yoo In-sik, ‘Dr. Romantic 2’ is a 2020 series that aired on SBS. The first season aired in 2016, and left us in love with the characters, doctor and incredible stories in the very famous Doldam Hospital.
Familiar and new faces
In this sequel of ‘Dr. Romantic’ once more we see Dr. Kim Sa-bu (Han Seok-kyu) doing what he is best at, saving people’s lives, along with Oh Myeong-sim (Jin Kyung), Park Eun-tak (Kim Min Jae) and the rest of the team at Doldam Hospital.
Just as he did in the first season, Dr. Kim is out trying to recruit new doctors and finds the young talents Seo Woo-jin (Ahn Hyo-seop) and Cha Eun-jae (Lee Sung-kyung), however this pair have some issues to work on before becoming true professionals.
Woo-jin is a survivor of a familicide, he grew up to become an exceptional doctor despite the fact that he was being bullied by his co-workers in the first hospital where he worked after revealing the antics of a co-worker. He is still repaying the debt his parents left him and has been trying all his life to repay but hasn’t been able to due to the high interest rates.
Eun-jae comes from a family of doctors and becomes very skilled, however she suffers from a disorder that makes her get sick in the operating room as a result of her trauma. She has to take medication to be able to go into the operating room but the side effects make her fall asleep anywhere.
Woo-jin accepts Dr. Kim’s offer, and Eun-jae is transferred to the hospital, there, they join the team along with Yoon Ah-reum (So Joo-yeon), a fourth year resident who asked to be transferred to Doldam after meeting Dr. Kim at the main hospital.
The Doldam Hospital as usual is busy, full of complicated cases and the constant battle between life and death, ethics and beliefs, making each medical case very unique, interesting and heart-breaking.
The staff at Doldam keep working as best as the can, but the hospital and its staff enter a dangerous zone when the retired Doctor Do Yoon-wan (Choi Jin-ho) decides to intervene in the hospital administration to get Dr. Kim out of the way. He wants to build a new exclusive hospital in the same location as Doldam’s.
For this, he gets the very skilled and reputable doctor Park Min-gook (Kim Joo-hun) as the new director in Doldam, but things don’t go the way he wants after a few plot twists that made Doldam hospital an independent entity from the main hospital.
Saving lives and hearts
Working at Doldam Hospital becomes a cathartic experience to Sung-kyung, Woo-jin and Min-gook. From one side Sung-kyung regains her confidence after Dr. Kim gives her the chance to improve her skills with the help of a medicine that helped her calm her sickness every time she went to the operating room, but this medicine ended up being just for digestion and just had a placebo effect.
Woo-jin despite being very tormented due to his past, becomes a better doctor and human. He learns how to divide and differentiate his personal thoughts to his duties as a doctor and with the help of a Doldam staff he finally manages to pay off his debt and is able to move on with his life.
Min-gook learns about the importance of flexibility and how as a doctor sometimes he needs to improvise to safe people’s lives instead of following the guidelines step by step and the orders of Yoon-wan. He sets free from his chains and is finally able to show the full level of his skill and by the end of this series he stays on as a doctor and also the director of Doldam Hospital.
‘Dr. Romantic 2’ despite being a medical drama, couldn’t leave out the romance of it. Woo-jin and Sung-kyung develop feelings for each other and by the end of the drama they finally start dating.
Without a doubt my favourite couple in the drama is Ah-reum and Eun-tak, this pair is adorable and I loved seeing how their relationship developed from being co-workers, to a very cute, clumsy and kinda flirty one.
Finals Thoughts
‘Dr. Romantic’ is still one of my favourite ones but the sequel delivered and met my expectations, the characters were well developed and made the story interesting to watch. I wasn’t able to connect the same way I did with the first season but the actors did a fantastic job portraying the characters and delivering the story.
You can watch ‘Dr. Romantic 2’ in Viki, and below you can check the trailer.
