[TV] Made in Korea

[reverancepavane]

Watch on YouTube

Quite enjoying this show. Be warned that it is set in 1970, at the height of the Third Republic of Korea, which was pretty much a dictatorship in all but name (having overthrown the overtly military dictatorship of the Second Republic of Korea just six years previously), where there was pretty effective suppression of dissent by the internal security apparatus. And the show is heavily involved in the security apparatus. And being a Korean show, it does not hesitate to show this with it's customary brutality (which as typical pulls no punches in the portrayal of bad stuff).

[For those unfamiliar with modern Korean history, in three years the Third Republic would formally become the officially recognised dictatorship of the Fourth Republic (supported by the large industrial conglomerates [chaebol]), until this was eventually overthrown by the bloody Gwangju Uprising after Park's death, and the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1980. Although struggles to enact a proper democracy in South Korea continued until the creation of the current Sixth Republic after the 1987 June Democratic Struggle (which eliminated a lot of the political control of the chaebol). And even so there was Yoon's recent attempt in 2024 at emulating Parks' 1972 successful self-coup with his martial law declaration. Which was why the attempt was so ... fraught.]

In other shows I am quite enjoying Plur1bus, although the protagonist does strike me firstly as being very American, but later I suspect this is really just her innate bitterness (unhelped by the fact that the incident did cost her the only person in the world who could pretty much put up with her in the first place). As for the rest of the show - well done so far.

I did find The War Between Land and Sea to be more of a Russell T Davies mess than is even normal for him.

And of course, Fallout continues to please.