"Dr. Brain" has lots of indicators of a new player with dumptrucks of money ready to throw around in the genre. When it comes to readily available cash, no one other than a central government bank has as much as Apple. How does it work out? Well...

Imagine a teenager that has just hit the lottery and he walks in a car dealer with a suitcase of large bills. Are they going to buy the practical vehicle with lots of seats and cupholders and storage or the exotic exterior with the fat tires and giant engine? Right, not the first one. And that's "Dr. Brain" in a nutshell.

When it comes to visuals, this show is off the charts. Although there's some scenes where the production design isn't elaborate, most of it is exquisite. The sets and props are tops. The lighting and color palette are stunning. It is a gorgeously shot show.

And the cast is just as phenomenal. Lee Sun Kyun, as Se Won, a brilliant but emotionally stunted neurologist, is excellent. Seo Ji Hye flaunts some serious detective cred. Park Hee Soon is wildly entertaining as an unconventional private detective. Lee Jae Won, Lee El, Kim Jeo Heon, Uhm Tae Goo and Moon Sung Geun comprise an ensemble of supporting characters that are as good as almost any show. The best performance, albeit unfortunately brief, is by Lee Yoo Young playing Se Won's wife who is convinced that their dead son is not, in fact, dead.

To watch almost any single scene in isolation would render an opinion that "Dr. Brain" is exquisite. But unfortunately the scenes must thread themselves together and this is where things don't add up to equal the sum of its parts. The overall plot is a mish mash of sci-fi/horror where Se Won has discovered how to link his brain to others, the catch being that they must be close to their death. As he links to others, when are his thoughts and memories his or and when are they those of someone that he's linked to? Is he himself anymore? It's an intriguing device and, at times, it works well, especially in the first couple of episodes.

But the show mostly limps through the second half as it unravels the facade that Se Won's life had been. Partly, it's because once the final confrontation happens, it feels like a step down in production value from the high bar it had set for most of the series. Also contributing is that there is a high frequency of rotation of characters opposite Se Won. Had either Seo Ji Hye's Lieutenant Cho or Park Hee Soon's Lee Kang Moo or Lee Jae Won's Hong Nam Il established themselves as The One Sidekick to Se Won, it would have resulted in a far better balance of personality with Se Won's natural introversion. Chiefly, however, the balance between the narrative in present day and the slow reveals of backstory through Se Won's brain links just ends up teasing far, far too long to get to the juicy, emotional parts. By the time the viewer gets ready to be emotionally engaged with cheering on the good guys and wanting real bad things for the bad guys, the final fx fireworks are about to go off (again in a sort of anticlimactic manner) and the show's over.

All the pretty camera work and stellar acting can't save a wonky storyboard basically.

Oh and the AppleTV app is wretched. For a bazillion dollar company with a reputation of creating user friendly interfaces, this is some of their absolute worst work.

Recommended? Meh. It's ok and it's only six episodes.