“Chief of Staff” (보좌관): Season 1 & 2

Lee Jung-Jae and Shin Min-A star as a political dream team working for opposing candidates. He is a former police officer, whose goal it is to become an assemblyman. She was an attorney and on-air journalist before becoming an assemblywoman.

“D.P.” (디피)

The superb “D.P.” is not an easy series to watch. While not as gory as “Squid Game,” it’s more disturbing in many ways, because it deals with South Korea’s real-life mandatory military duty — which requires every able-bodied Korean man to enlist for approximately two years.

In ‘Squid Game,’ children’s games get awfully bloody

NPR asked me to share my thoughts about the Korean series, “Squid Game,” for their Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. We discussed the controversy about the subtitles, whether the Western actors in Episodes 7 lended anything to the series and whether a Season 2 would be a good thing or not.

“Hospital Playlist” (슬기로운 의사생활): Season 2

“Hospital Playlist” is a good series, where the core friendship is warm and engaging. The five doctors have the kind of relationship with each other that makes me envious … even though I don’t particularly feel a need for that many close friends in my real life. (haha)

“Squid Game” Is a Social Allegory Informed by Korean History

“Squid Game” is not this year’s “Parasite,” so much as it is a satire in the vein of “A Modest Proposal.” Just as Jonathan Swift pointed out the abject brutality of telling the poor to satiate their hunger by eating healthy, plump babies, Hwang depicts the cruelty of lording a huge sum of money – literally – over desperate people’s heads, knowing that most will die as they lived: penniless.