Look, I understand that K dramas manipulate viewers’ emotions and I’m fine with that. The dramas usually try to make you root for the desirable but flawed hero and the plucky heroine. I can also accept time travel, body switching, and girls passing themselves off as poorly-disguised boys. I can even enjoy dramas with lawyers doing things that would get most lawyers disbarred; medical dramas with doctors who should lose their medical licenses; teachers who would normally be fired, if not criminally charged for abuse; and police dramas with police officers who need good psychiatrists. Although there are moments in every drama where logic takes a leap, I can get past most of them.

Doctor Stranger, however, violated the most important canon of Korean drama law: Thou shalt not brazenly insult the intelligence of your viewers. The drama starts out okay, if a little over the top, what with evil plots and Magic Hands Doctor but it quickly devolves into a mess whose primary purpose seemed to be to jerk the viewer around. One big problem was the romance that drove the story. The actress who plays the grand romantic interest is more wooden than my dining room table and the male lead regresses into a pathetic puppy whenever he's around her (for little reason, since the actors seem to have little chemistry together). I began to hope that the female lead would be shot and really die. On the ground, instead of falling into the water, which, in this drama, seems to have life-regenerating powers. I don’t even know where to begin on the farcical who-is-the-better-doctor-competition. It is better to draw a sheet over it and send it to a well-deserved end. Plus the malpractice/revenge subplot is just … my god … no.