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"If you're jealous you can drop dead"
Ghost Doctor is one of those dramas that I have a difficult time writing a review for. It had a likeable cast, an interesting story concept, and despite a spirited bromance, I often found it boo-ring.
Cold, efficient Dr. Cha Young Min only takes the toughest of cases. He’s quick to anger and suffers no fools. His patience is tested when Dr. Ko Sung Tak is assigned to him. Ko is gifted at reciting diagnoses but has zero surgical skills. He’s in line to be on the hospital board and gets away with about anything either from his charming smile or hospital connections. When Cha is involved in a car accident and lapses into a coma he discovers a side of the hospital he never knew existed. Real ghosts and coma ghosts walk the hallways. He can also possess Ko’s body, even performing surgery on himself. An old love and a deadly conspiracy will make his chances of recovery challenging.
Kdramas are great at writing bromances and Ghost Doctor was no exception. Rain and Kim Bum played off each other nicely, going from enemies to platonic lovers. The romances were a different story, often killing the momentum of the story. The chemistry just wasn’t there for me. The male leads were given a wide emotional range to play. The same could not be saide for the female characters. I haven’t seen Uee in anything else so I will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume the director told her to play Jang Se Jin like a broom with a sad face drawn on it. Lackluster Jang was terribly written. The two main female characters felt like afterthoughts with no real depth. Poor Oh Soo Jung periodically disappeared from the screen leaving me to forget about her character until she popped up again.
It would be terrifying that someone like Ko could actually be assigned to a hospital. Even The Simpson’s Hollywood Upstairs Medical College would not have passed him. He might have been friendly with a tragic backstory, but I would never have wanted him near me except to look at. Maybe the rigged medical school system was why Cha was the only (live) competent heart surgeon in Korea. The hospital appeared to be run by one man with people obtaining surgical privileges super easily and operating rooms were never booked.
There was a lot of bloat in this drama. The villains that came and went weren’t terribly menacing and had ill defined goals. I knew I was in trouble when I reached episode 8 and very little had happened.
Now that I’ve complained, here’s what I did like other than the bromance. There was a charming trio of coma ghosts as well as Tess, a real ghost, who was my favorite. They would help teach Cha humility and empathy. And of course, the polar opposite wonder twins helped each other become better men and doctors.
Ghost Doctor had its entertaining moments, yet I found myself checking out through much of the drama when it fell into repetition or offered lengthy flashbacks of a romance that wasn’t compelling. The writers tended to break their own ghostly rules and just slapped a “miracle” bandage on the results. Sixteen episodes was far too long to rely on a bickering bromance, no matter how handsome the bros, in order to keep the drama stitched together.
9 October 2025
Trigger warnings: Realistic and long surgical scenes
Cold, efficient Dr. Cha Young Min only takes the toughest of cases. He’s quick to anger and suffers no fools. His patience is tested when Dr. Ko Sung Tak is assigned to him. Ko is gifted at reciting diagnoses but has zero surgical skills. He’s in line to be on the hospital board and gets away with about anything either from his charming smile or hospital connections. When Cha is involved in a car accident and lapses into a coma he discovers a side of the hospital he never knew existed. Real ghosts and coma ghosts walk the hallways. He can also possess Ko’s body, even performing surgery on himself. An old love and a deadly conspiracy will make his chances of recovery challenging.
Kdramas are great at writing bromances and Ghost Doctor was no exception. Rain and Kim Bum played off each other nicely, going from enemies to platonic lovers. The romances were a different story, often killing the momentum of the story. The chemistry just wasn’t there for me. The male leads were given a wide emotional range to play. The same could not be saide for the female characters. I haven’t seen Uee in anything else so I will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume the director told her to play Jang Se Jin like a broom with a sad face drawn on it. Lackluster Jang was terribly written. The two main female characters felt like afterthoughts with no real depth. Poor Oh Soo Jung periodically disappeared from the screen leaving me to forget about her character until she popped up again.
It would be terrifying that someone like Ko could actually be assigned to a hospital. Even The Simpson’s Hollywood Upstairs Medical College would not have passed him. He might have been friendly with a tragic backstory, but I would never have wanted him near me except to look at. Maybe the rigged medical school system was why Cha was the only (live) competent heart surgeon in Korea. The hospital appeared to be run by one man with people obtaining surgical privileges super easily and operating rooms were never booked.
There was a lot of bloat in this drama. The villains that came and went weren’t terribly menacing and had ill defined goals. I knew I was in trouble when I reached episode 8 and very little had happened.
Now that I’ve complained, here’s what I did like other than the bromance. There was a charming trio of coma ghosts as well as Tess, a real ghost, who was my favorite. They would help teach Cha humility and empathy. And of course, the polar opposite wonder twins helped each other become better men and doctors.
Ghost Doctor had its entertaining moments, yet I found myself checking out through much of the drama when it fell into repetition or offered lengthy flashbacks of a romance that wasn’t compelling. The writers tended to break their own ghostly rules and just slapped a “miracle” bandage on the results. Sixteen episodes was far too long to rely on a bickering bromance, no matter how handsome the bros, in order to keep the drama stitched together.
9 October 2025
Trigger warnings: Realistic and long surgical scenes
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