Netflix: Review of HOSPITAL PLAYLIST: Medical Musical Mashup

September 19, 2021

HOSPITAL PLAYLIST is a 2020 K-drama series about five doctors in their early 40s who had been best of friends since their med school. Their bond was strengthened further by the band they formed together to play their own versions of their favorite songs. There would a song number performed by them before each episode ended, covering older Korean hits. Surprisingly, there would be a cover of a Bon Jovi song in S2E10. 

The five friends were: liver surgeon Lee Ik-jun (Jo Jung-suk), heart surgeon Kim Jun-wan (Jung Kyung-ho), pediatric surgeon Ahn Jung-won (Yoo Yeon-seok), obstetric surgeon Yang Seok-hyeong (Kim Dae-Myung) and the only rose among the thorns neurosurgeon Chae Song-hwa (Jeon Mi-do). Cases in these specialties have the most emotional heft for TV. I guess a specialty ENT did not really have much potential for melodrama.

We did not watch this series when it premiered on Netflix in June of 2020. We only began watching Season 1 one episode a night this summer when we learned that Season 2 will be starting June 2021. This was not really an easy series to binge because the episodes were more than 1-1/2 hours long each. Watching one episode a week as released was just right for all of us. Each season had 12 episodes each.

Each episode tackled not their close friendship with each other, but also their families and their relationships, professional or romantic, with other consultants, fellows, residents and med students. Romances between male consultants and younger female residents seemed so casual and acceptable, which is rather surprising in the local context. All these multiple love stories will have been sorted out by S2E11. 

Interspersed in between these threads were various challenging cases in each of their specialty, involving tough decision-making for doctor, patient and family. They had their most critical cases of the season in S2E12 -- emergency liver transplant with bleeding varices, heart surgery in a boy with Marfan's, small bowel transplant, a premie delivery for a woman with breast cancer post-chemo, and an evacuation of a medullary bleed. 

This was a generally feel-good series with no antagonists. Most of the "ships" you were rooting for eventually wind up together. The comedy can be corny (like the "delightful" singing of Song-hwa) or even slapstick (like those silly "fights" between Ik-jun and Jun-wan), but always lighthearted and good-natured. By the end of the series, you feel like you saying goodbye to your real friends and you'd want to see them back. 8/10.