Member-only story
Why I, as an American, adore Korean Television
Over the years streaming services haven’t brought lower prices, the original value proposition of a-la-carte programming. I now pay more than I ever did for cable to watch the shows I’ve come to love, such as “The Last of Us”, “Stranger Things”, “Ted Lasso”, and many others. What streaming has done, and the reason I gladly pay between $10 to $20 for each of these services, is given a platform for more creators to deliver high-quality content to smaller, more genre-focused audiences. While these shows aren’t immune from budget woes and cancellation, the willingness of the streaming companies to invest in smaller, lesser-known creators has brought so much spectacular content, I find myself having not watched a major network show in more than two years.
It follows, then, that some of the greatest successes for Netflix in recent years have been content from other countries. This includes my new favorite source of entertainment, South Korea. These are predominantly “network” shows, as we would consider shows from CBS, ABC, NBC, and FOX, but most of them still have, at least for me, the feel of other “Netflix Originals” that originate in the States. They don’t seem produced for mass audiences (except for “Sisyphus”, a show that didn’t click for me) like American network shows do. Most of them feel like their creators take great care with their characters, and genuinely…
