I saw the promo for this on Netflix back in late April and decided to wait till the whole series finished uploading in early June to watch it. It wasn’t worth the wait.

Dr Cha’s premise is that of an ambitious woman who gave up her dream of becoming a doctor to became a devoted housewife to an unappreciative and disrespectful husband and family. It promises a great comeuppance epic for the middle-aged woman who gets a new lease on life, a second chance at her medical dreams replete with a haircut that makes her look more youthful and a toy boy to elicit jealousy from her cheating husband. What an enticing mix! Except, we find that this narrative is all BS in Dr Cha’s case.

The premise is set up in the following manner: we get intro’d to a near middle-aged Dr Cha who questions whether having given up her medical license, and her dream of becoming a doctor, to become a housewife was worth it or not. Her mother-in-law assures her rearing children is the most worthy pursuit in life before instructing her on performing her duties and chores, which is basically as a servant of the household. The protagonist then has advanced hepatitis and we see how meaningless her selfless sacrifice has been. Her husband (In Ho), the only compatible donor for a liver transplant, is not only reluctant to save her life but is having an affair on the side. The oppressive mother-in-law puts the life of the family above hers yet guilts her into being more “considerate” of In Ho’s future as a surgeon and actively stops him from donating his liver to her. Oh, the outrage! Oh, the inhumanity! What a bunch of a-holes. Except we find that Jung Sook is anything but a victim.

In only a couple of episodes, all the poor victim housewife narrative is debunked. Firstly, Jung Sook never had a medical license so she was never a doctor. I’m not even sure how the scriptwriters figured in her residency years when she got pregnant in only her 2nd year of med school. Medical degrees are usually 5-6 years, with a year’s internship before the residency years, so she wouldn’t even have made her residency years. It’s doubtful that she even completed her degree. Plus, she never had a dream of becoming a doctor until she had her brush with death, in the present, so this part of the premise fails too.

Secondly, there was no betrayal from the “affair” since Jung Sook and In Ho didn’t get married because of love. They got married because Jung Sook seduced him in a situation that can only be described as the lamest reason to hook up I’ve ever seen—Jung Sook basically had sex with In Ho because the room they were in was very warm. *roll eyes* Laziest scriptwriting ever. And I say she seduced him because at the time, it was well known in their course that In Ho and Sung Hee (the “mistress”) were in a r/ship. They were the it couple of the program but because, and I quote verbatim from Jung Sook, Sung Hee was not there to stop them, they had sex together. Not only was love never part of the equation, the mother-in-law had never approved of Jung Sook to begin with; instead, she preferred the gf, Sung Hee. Despite this, they did marry because In Ho was man enough to take responsibility for the child and felt obligated to provide for mother and son. So it was understandable, in the present, that In Ho was reluctant to put his life and career at risk to donate his liver since there was never any love between them to begin with. And being that there was no love, his “affair” could not be construed as a betrayal. Thus, the whole unappreciated, betrayed victim housewife angle fails spectacularly. Not only that, it quickly becomes clear that Jung Sook is really an opportunistic and petty airhead.

For one thing, Sung Hee not only stole In Ho from Sung Hee but also Sung Hee’s best friend, Mi Hee. Also, although we get told that she’s good at studies, she gets better grades than the surgeon husband, In Ho, and also a higher residency mark than her son, a surgical intern in In Ho’s department, the reality of her abilities is totally different. Of all the hospitals she could have applied to, for her residency, she applies to In Ho’s hospital. Why? Is it because it’s a good hospital? We don’t get told this so—no. Is it because it’s sentimental to her? She suggests this but even Mi Hee vetoes the idea so—no. It’s because she finds out that Sung Hee is his colleague. Yes, the gf that, when Mi Hee was recounting the past with her, she claims she doesn't remember at all. Talk about starting anew—NOT.

Then, rather than diligently focusing on her work, which is literally life and death for patients, she indulges in petty office politics by resolving to keep an eye on her son’s strict supervisor (and secret gf), doesn’t know the basic medical acronyms, sulks about being reprimanded for getting medications wrong (which could’ve killed someone!) and gets upset over not being treated with respect as an elder. What an entitled attitude. This is after having the gall to meet the woman whom she stole the bf from, asking Sung Hee if she remembers her before asking her to support her application to the hospital. Unbelievable nerve. By right Jung Sook could not have made it in at all but for the same agency that brought her a compatible liver in the first place—luck! This airhead is nothing but lucky and did not make it in anything in life on any of her efforts because they don’t exist! She gets lucky by getting knocked up by a skilled boy, whom later becomes a good surgeon, and then lucky by an applicant dropping out of the running for the residency position. How does she celebrate all this luck? By drowning her new liver with the very thing that would damage it—alcohol.

The toy boy angle was a mess in this clusterf#ck of a series. The whole American-surgeon-moving-to-Korea thing was obviously created to enhance the appeal of the toy boy, and her middle-aged "revenge", but, like her medical license that never was, the angle made not an ounce of sense at all. It’s great that toy boy went to Harvard or Stanford med school and all but being an adoptee who grew up in America, how the heck did he learn up adequate Korean to be able to be a surgeon in Korea? Why did he come back to Korea anyway when his family and life was all in America? Just because someone was born in Korea doesn’t mean they’ll be able to master Korean when they’ve grown up in a non-Korean speaking country most of their life! Not only that, conversational Korean would be vastly different to technical medical Korean, of which toy boy would have had to have mastered to be able to give the simplest instructions in a surgery. Did this obvious fact not even occur to the scriptwriter at all?! Jeezus!

I tapped out half way through episode 4 when Jung Sook was trying to guilttrip her son for not doing everything that was rightfully her job as a resident-in-training in what was meant to be her dream career. She's effing useless and I had no bond with the character nor any inclination to want to invest in her journey, which is the most important thing for a screenwriter to have to do with a character. Instead, the writer created a self-absorbed narcissist who should find somewhere else to play out her misguided victimhood fantasies so that she can stop endangering the lives of patients.

Despite this, I do plan to finish this series but only while on the treadmill where I don’t need all my brain cells but just moving images to keep me going. For those who do want to watch shows with a full brain though, I wouldn’t recommend this. The suspension of disbelief needed to watch it with full attention is asking too much of a discerning audience. It’s just insulting to the intellect to watch Jung Sook being valorised as the victim when she was the real mistress and villain to begin with and I felt sorry for Sung Hee for the villainess tag that the series was obviously trying to pin on her.

Disappointing AF.