Given K-drama’s reputation for being all about the romance, it’s surprising how rarely I’ve found the main couple to be the star attraction in shows I’ve watched. Healer may not have the most original of plots, but it nails the brave, aching, adorable love story between two lost children that forms its emotional core. It also proves that casting the right actors is often more critical than casting the “best” actors. Whatever Ji Chang Wook and Park Min Young may sometimes lack in technique, they more than make up for in heart, chemistry and a willingness to be vulnerable in front of the camera and each other. When they’re together on screen you’ll want to jump up and down, squeal and hug puppies. They’re also surrounded by a marvelous gang of unique, well-written supporting characters (I’m looking at you, Hacker Ahjumma), that you’d enjoy spending well over the allotted twenty hours hanging out with. On the downside, I do wish the antagonists in the show were as multi-dimensional as the protagonists. The shadowy gang of leering oligarchs plotting EEEEVIL in back rooms felt preordered from central casting, with master plans that were too over-the-top to be really believable. I kept expecting them to start stroking Persian cats or feeding their piranhas. If you’re watching for the action thriller/romance elements, you probably won’t mind, but their cartoonish-ness undermines the credibility of the crusading journalists out to take down corruption strand of the story. It doesn’t diminish the fun, but it does make the show less socially relevant than it would like to be. There is also an odd casualness in the way that all of the characters, both good and bad, roam in and out of each others' lives and lairs with impunity. I guess courage is virtue, but I’m not sure I’d curl up and take a nap in the heart of enemy territory. This is a show though where the emotional through-lines not the plot mechanics are the real draw, and those deliver with a vengeance. You’ll laugh and cry and smile and fall in love. In an entertainment world full of lots of explosions but few real sparks, that's reason to rejoice.