The Captain & The Car Wrecker ♡ A Pretty One & A Favorite Son °8.3° excellent
DOTS is a romance in which the two leads have an immediate attraction & the balance of the show is logistics & obstacle courses. Kang Mo-yeon is a doctor. Capt Yoo Si-jin is special forces. Dr. Kang Mo-yeon is businesslike. Capt Yoo Si-jin is always joking to deflect the heavy weight of his occupation; fallen comrades being one stressor. They each take their deadly-serious professions seriously.
They smeet in Seoul. In the opening sorties, they aren't able to get a full drill (date) in, as one of them is liable to get an emergency call (usually him). Capt Yoo gets a pick-up from one of these emergencies - in a, HELLO, helicopter on the 🏥 rooftop. But for all that, inexplicably, Mo-yeon declares she can't live like this & places Si-jin on leave. Permanently. She thinks. She will ultimately reject him 3 times. He never loses focus of his mission. Her heart wasn't really in that third rejection, anyway.
While all of this is getting off the ground, Mo-yeon is being disrespected at work. Though best qualified, she's passed over for a fellowship in favor of a less competent Dr. W/ a much better catalogue of connections (& the empathy of a human trafficker). Mo-yeon had her💓 set on that gig. Reeling from disappointment, Mo-yeon is summoned to t/t the hospital director. Expecting an apology, or at least an explanation of the indignity foisted upon her, she enters the top corner office. Here's the jist: She can have the position & benefits she wants via a strategic benefits-for-benefits (🛏) exchange. Her immediate rejection of him lands her the position of director,,,, of the hospital's humanitarian mission to the (ficticious) Balkan state of Uruk.
Of all the UN relief joints in all of the globe, why did HE have to be assigned to her base of operations? Never retreating, their attraction continues from the prior engagement jump-off point.
The next wave is philosophical differences. Mo-yeon struggles, particularly when it comes to their occupations. Everything about her work is saving lives, while Capt Yoo kills for a living, or so she perceives. Mo-yeon tells the Capt that it just can't work, so they each go on w/ their lives. Sort of.
Oddly, this UN hot button zone is a place that affords them much more quality time than Seoul ever did. Quality time includes: An incident w/ a Saudi Royal that escalates to an international relations crisis that puts both the Blue & White Houses on alert, harrowing skirmishes w/ arms dealers, human traffickers, minefields, earthquakes, & diamond smugglers. No thing in the show suffers more abuse than any wheeled transportation w/ which Mo-yeon comes into contact. She left 3 or 4 cars & 1 wheelchair totaled in her wake. Not every life is safe around Mo-yeon.
In the same arena are members of the medical team along w/ military forces & medical. Capt. Si-jin's best friend, MSG (Master Sergeant) Seo Dae-yeong, is part of his unit. His love interest is 1st Lt Yoon Meong-joo, a military surgeon. Her father happens to be Special Forces CDR (Commander) & he does not approve of their relationship. Therefore, the ever dutiful MSG Seo has been evading Lt. Yoon. Their story is every bit as touching as the primary duo's. Yoon Meong-joo doesn't care what her father thinks. Like she'd let /him/ choose her spouse, anyway. Despite her cool & professional demeanor, she is always tracking Seo to express her love. He is her prisoner & she refuses to let him escape. When not deployed, MSG Seo earned renown as the toughest drill instructor in the military. Yet, as a non-commissioned officer, he doesn't think he's worthy of Lt Yoon. He certainly doesn't want to mess w/ the CDR either. So, he retreats while she advances. Besides all that, the CDR does /his/ best to keep them apart. Somehow, they manage (or blunder, depending on perspective) to snag overlapping assignments to the compound in Uruk. It only took an earthquake.
This show has the feel of a 20th Century romance in the best way. The men are manly, which not only means that they are strong, responsible, protective, & respectful, but they also love their women completely. The women, on the other hand, are both doctors. They are smart, tough & brave. These women don't feel the need to surpass the men, & visa-versa. Viva la difference; This is how classic M/F romances are made, & SK cranks out more of them in 1 yr, than Hollywood has in years & years. Si-jin, ends up rescuing Mo-yeon from several varied perils. Meanwhile, she rocks the OR, even at gunpoint, even when the OR is rocking,rollin,shaking,quaking. She starts to see Si-jin for what he is: A protector, not a killer.
DOTS is the complete package w/ love, laughter, lots of thrills, & a decent amount of food. There's a particularly cute dynamic between the 4 of them, including crissXcross comparing of notes & furtive calls. Rounding it out are a solid soundtrack, beautiful filming, & frequent stops to watch the soldiers on their daily, often shirtless, runs. Thus its rating.
Since MSG Seo is the toughest grader of the bunch, here's what he might nitpick at:
Song Hye-kyo, who plays Mo-yeon, is too wooden in much of the show. I'd only seen her in That Winter The Wind Blows-7 as Oh Young, a blind, emotionally stunted woman. She was excellent in that role. However, she's playing Dr. Kang the same way, which is seriously out of sorts. There's only small flashes of a personality, until the 2nd half, when she livens up. It's not clear why the director had her acting that way. Perhaps she went from down, suspicious, & self-protective, to resolved, confident, & loved? Good concept, bad execution.
They drag out a political/medical drama for too long. There are unnecessary delays. In fact, quite a few scenes are too drawn out, w/ overly-sappy sap. Part of the problem is the editing. While the tempo is off, a handful of times, most of the series has a good cadence.
We're all used to our onscreen heroes who, though getting shot, knifed, & beaten, keep fighting. That trend has been so out of control for so long that anything else would feel amiss (What a nancy-pants: There's not a scratch on him!). DOTS takes it to a new height, (or a new low, maybe?) when Si-jin shuffles the length of the hospital to diffuse a hostage crisis, a mere 30 seconds after being shocked back to life from cardiac arrest - due to blood loss from gun shots wounds, already! My health then became compromised due to a hypertension spike. Fortunately, moments like that were brief and scattered, like landmines shifted by an earthquake.
In view of this, your assignment is to give DOTS a view & a shake. The leads are all beautiful people, but one cannot help but note that the 2 male leads… well, they represent their country well.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7.6 🎭7.7 🤔 6 💓9 🦋7 🌞8 💤4 🎨8 🔚8
Age 14+
Post Script Screed ~Optional~
Racism is depicted in DOTS. This is not the first Kdrama to incorporate some callous treatment ala Caucasians vs Asians. Before you reflexively think: They are too sensitive. I'm sure it's not that bad. They are excelling, so why do they care? Consider the following:
°They didn't pull it out from nowhere. Sincere hurts lead to these portrayals.
°Asians put a high premium on manners & respect.
°As is always the case, people forgive their own tribe before they'll forgive a foreigner. No one wants to👂what their /own/ did.
°Our duty to be polite & respectful transcends any inconsistent reactions on others' parts. To think otherwise is juvenile.
°USA citizens have one of the world's worst reputations for bad manners.
°If you received such treatment. How would /you/ feel? Go ahead, clutch those pearls and gasp. Why does it always seem that the worst offenders are the most offended when their behavior is turned back on them? (Psst: b/c they think they are so special).
°Racism can be either proactive (aggressively initiated) or RE-active (defensive). Proactive is exponentially worse. Think about it.
°Know that if you reject all such claims reflexively, there's a likelihood that you're subconsciously presuming your own superiority. It's connected to pride, which is insidiously sneaky.
°If you think you are superior based on what you've been given, such as good looks, physical ability, that lucky promotion, or wealth, you are delusional. More is expected of you, not less. (Btw: the $tandard of living for USA citizens often reaches the top 5% globally. We /are/ rich).
°Things don't change overnight. The offender always thinks the aggrieved should move on in the time it takes to pour milk on cocoa puffs, however, tell us, please, where that's ever happened in the history of the wide world? There's ethnic groups that have been slaughtering each other for millennia, tit-for-tat. We expect those we offend to be angels. Frankly, that's downright offensive.
°Common courtesy is free, & not trading tit-for-tat is mature (you know, 2 wrongs, an'all).
Look, this is not about hating-on anyone who's made mistakes. From personal experience, I can report that once one begins a journey of internal honesty, which is often a byproduct of hitting the bottom, the internal horrors never ceasefire. Just because we tell ourselves we're good ~nothing to see here~ doesn't make it actually true. Turning the light to that dusty cobwebbed thinking in the back corner is what's needed to clean house to spec. These issues are complex, not simple. Take time to consider & think it all through. Then, suddenly, it's quite simple.
In the meantime, please learn the basic please-&-thank-yous of the countries you may visit. Be polite, even if others aren't in return. Be the adult, and refuse to tit-for-tat, which only escalates situations. Scientists and theologians agree that we all descended from a single woman. We are all family, indeed, and there's nothing as bitter as a family squabble. Let it go.
TTFN.
I love You All To Uruk And Back 😘
Recommendations
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
My Mister 9.5,
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡/🚀 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Originally 〰️🖊 February 2022
They smeet in Seoul. In the opening sorties, they aren't able to get a full drill (date) in, as one of them is liable to get an emergency call (usually him). Capt Yoo gets a pick-up from one of these emergencies - in a, HELLO, helicopter on the 🏥 rooftop. But for all that, inexplicably, Mo-yeon declares she can't live like this & places Si-jin on leave. Permanently. She thinks. She will ultimately reject him 3 times. He never loses focus of his mission. Her heart wasn't really in that third rejection, anyway.
While all of this is getting off the ground, Mo-yeon is being disrespected at work. Though best qualified, she's passed over for a fellowship in favor of a less competent Dr. W/ a much better catalogue of connections (& the empathy of a human trafficker). Mo-yeon had her💓 set on that gig. Reeling from disappointment, Mo-yeon is summoned to t/t the hospital director. Expecting an apology, or at least an explanation of the indignity foisted upon her, she enters the top corner office. Here's the jist: She can have the position & benefits she wants via a strategic benefits-for-benefits (🛏) exchange. Her immediate rejection of him lands her the position of director,,,, of the hospital's humanitarian mission to the (ficticious) Balkan state of Uruk.
Of all the UN relief joints in all of the globe, why did HE have to be assigned to her base of operations? Never retreating, their attraction continues from the prior engagement jump-off point.
The next wave is philosophical differences. Mo-yeon struggles, particularly when it comes to their occupations. Everything about her work is saving lives, while Capt Yoo kills for a living, or so she perceives. Mo-yeon tells the Capt that it just can't work, so they each go on w/ their lives. Sort of.
Oddly, this UN hot button zone is a place that affords them much more quality time than Seoul ever did. Quality time includes: An incident w/ a Saudi Royal that escalates to an international relations crisis that puts both the Blue & White Houses on alert, harrowing skirmishes w/ arms dealers, human traffickers, minefields, earthquakes, & diamond smugglers. No thing in the show suffers more abuse than any wheeled transportation w/ which Mo-yeon comes into contact. She left 3 or 4 cars & 1 wheelchair totaled in her wake. Not every life is safe around Mo-yeon.
In the same arena are members of the medical team along w/ military forces & medical. Capt. Si-jin's best friend, MSG (Master Sergeant) Seo Dae-yeong, is part of his unit. His love interest is 1st Lt Yoon Meong-joo, a military surgeon. Her father happens to be Special Forces CDR (Commander) & he does not approve of their relationship. Therefore, the ever dutiful MSG Seo has been evading Lt. Yoon. Their story is every bit as touching as the primary duo's. Yoon Meong-joo doesn't care what her father thinks. Like she'd let /him/ choose her spouse, anyway. Despite her cool & professional demeanor, she is always tracking Seo to express her love. He is her prisoner & she refuses to let him escape. When not deployed, MSG Seo earned renown as the toughest drill instructor in the military. Yet, as a non-commissioned officer, he doesn't think he's worthy of Lt Yoon. He certainly doesn't want to mess w/ the CDR either. So, he retreats while she advances. Besides all that, the CDR does /his/ best to keep them apart. Somehow, they manage (or blunder, depending on perspective) to snag overlapping assignments to the compound in Uruk. It only took an earthquake.
This show has the feel of a 20th Century romance in the best way. The men are manly, which not only means that they are strong, responsible, protective, & respectful, but they also love their women completely. The women, on the other hand, are both doctors. They are smart, tough & brave. These women don't feel the need to surpass the men, & visa-versa. Viva la difference; This is how classic M/F romances are made, & SK cranks out more of them in 1 yr, than Hollywood has in years & years. Si-jin, ends up rescuing Mo-yeon from several varied perils. Meanwhile, she rocks the OR, even at gunpoint, even when the OR is rocking,rollin,shaking,quaking. She starts to see Si-jin for what he is: A protector, not a killer.
DOTS is the complete package w/ love, laughter, lots of thrills, & a decent amount of food. There's a particularly cute dynamic between the 4 of them, including crissXcross comparing of notes & furtive calls. Rounding it out are a solid soundtrack, beautiful filming, & frequent stops to watch the soldiers on their daily, often shirtless, runs. Thus its rating.
Since MSG Seo is the toughest grader of the bunch, here's what he might nitpick at:
Song Hye-kyo, who plays Mo-yeon, is too wooden in much of the show. I'd only seen her in That Winter The Wind Blows-7 as Oh Young, a blind, emotionally stunted woman. She was excellent in that role. However, she's playing Dr. Kang the same way, which is seriously out of sorts. There's only small flashes of a personality, until the 2nd half, when she livens up. It's not clear why the director had her acting that way. Perhaps she went from down, suspicious, & self-protective, to resolved, confident, & loved? Good concept, bad execution.
They drag out a political/medical drama for too long. There are unnecessary delays. In fact, quite a few scenes are too drawn out, w/ overly-sappy sap. Part of the problem is the editing. While the tempo is off, a handful of times, most of the series has a good cadence.
We're all used to our onscreen heroes who, though getting shot, knifed, & beaten, keep fighting. That trend has been so out of control for so long that anything else would feel amiss (What a nancy-pants: There's not a scratch on him!). DOTS takes it to a new height, (or a new low, maybe?) when Si-jin shuffles the length of the hospital to diffuse a hostage crisis, a mere 30 seconds after being shocked back to life from cardiac arrest - due to blood loss from gun shots wounds, already! My health then became compromised due to a hypertension spike. Fortunately, moments like that were brief and scattered, like landmines shifted by an earthquake.
In view of this, your assignment is to give DOTS a view & a shake. The leads are all beautiful people, but one cannot help but note that the 2 male leads… well, they represent their country well.
IMHO〰🖍
🎬7.6 🎭7.7 🤔 6 💓9 🦋7 🌞8 💤4 🎨8 🔚8
Age 14+
Post Script Screed ~Optional~
Racism is depicted in DOTS. This is not the first Kdrama to incorporate some callous treatment ala Caucasians vs Asians. Before you reflexively think: They are too sensitive. I'm sure it's not that bad. They are excelling, so why do they care? Consider the following:
°They didn't pull it out from nowhere. Sincere hurts lead to these portrayals.
°Asians put a high premium on manners & respect.
°As is always the case, people forgive their own tribe before they'll forgive a foreigner. No one wants to👂what their /own/ did.
°Our duty to be polite & respectful transcends any inconsistent reactions on others' parts. To think otherwise is juvenile.
°USA citizens have one of the world's worst reputations for bad manners.
°If you received such treatment. How would /you/ feel? Go ahead, clutch those pearls and gasp. Why does it always seem that the worst offenders are the most offended when their behavior is turned back on them? (Psst: b/c they think they are so special).
°Racism can be either proactive (aggressively initiated) or RE-active (defensive). Proactive is exponentially worse. Think about it.
°Know that if you reject all such claims reflexively, there's a likelihood that you're subconsciously presuming your own superiority. It's connected to pride, which is insidiously sneaky.
°If you think you are superior based on what you've been given, such as good looks, physical ability, that lucky promotion, or wealth, you are delusional. More is expected of you, not less. (Btw: the $tandard of living for USA citizens often reaches the top 5% globally. We /are/ rich).
°Things don't change overnight. The offender always thinks the aggrieved should move on in the time it takes to pour milk on cocoa puffs, however, tell us, please, where that's ever happened in the history of the wide world? There's ethnic groups that have been slaughtering each other for millennia, tit-for-tat. We expect those we offend to be angels. Frankly, that's downright offensive.
°Common courtesy is free, & not trading tit-for-tat is mature (you know, 2 wrongs, an'all).
Look, this is not about hating-on anyone who's made mistakes. From personal experience, I can report that once one begins a journey of internal honesty, which is often a byproduct of hitting the bottom, the internal horrors never ceasefire. Just because we tell ourselves we're good ~nothing to see here~ doesn't make it actually true. Turning the light to that dusty cobwebbed thinking in the back corner is what's needed to clean house to spec. These issues are complex, not simple. Take time to consider & think it all through. Then, suddenly, it's quite simple.
In the meantime, please learn the basic please-&-thank-yous of the countries you may visit. Be polite, even if others aren't in return. Be the adult, and refuse to tit-for-tat, which only escalates situations. Scientists and theologians agree that we all descended from a single woman. We are all family, indeed, and there's nothing as bitter as a family squabble. Let it go.
TTFN.
I love You All To Uruk And Back 😘
Recommendations
Crash Landing On You 9.1,
My Mister 9.5,
🎎 -
My Only Love Song 8.7 ~ excellent comedy,
Mr. Queen 8.5,
My Sassy Girl 8.5,
Saimdang 8.5,
The King's Affection 8.3,
Mr. Sunshine 9
⚡/🚀 -
K2 8,
Private Lives 8.1,
Sisyphus 8,
Tunnel 8.5,
Signal 8.6,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
Black 9,
Squid Game 8.4,
Kingdom 8.3,
Sweet Home 8.4
Romance junkies only -
My Secret Romance-7 (if you ff thru overdone flashbacks),
Boys Over Flowers-8 ~ melodrama to the max,
The Bride of Habaek-7,
Heirs-7.3,
That Winter, The Wind Blows-7,
Something in them Rain-9,
C🇨🇳: Well-Intended Love-7.5 Rom-porn - extra points for the dopamine,
When I Fly Towards You-7.8,
Wait, My Youth-8.4,
A Little Thing Called First Love-8.5,
Find Yourself-8.9, Hidden Love-7.8
Consider a Chinese 🎎/🔮 romcom: The Romance of Tiger and Rose 9.8, Love Between Fairy and Devil 8.9, Love and Redemption 10 or Japanese romcoms: Maid Sama 10, Mischievous Kiss Love in Tokyo 7.8, Love, Chunibyo And Other Delusions 8.4, or Toradora 8.5
Originally 〰️🖊 February 2022
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