This is a grown-up romance about gray areas in life, upsetting norms, and the difficult decisions we must make to find our happiness in life.
Started strong, with devastating news for a 39 year-old, single professional woman, played by Jang Na Ra. Her fertile days are numbered so she may never realize her dream to become a mother. She decides to have a baby without marriage. She examines her options. Her first, find a willing semen donor online, who expects payment, which ends badly. In Korea, it's illegal. Oops. Her misstep becomes tabloid fodder. Online mothers troll her for selfishly wanting to raise a fatherless child and that uproar threatens her job. Her next option, seek discretely a free, 'natural insemination' by one of the following men she knows:
1) Like-a-Brother-to-Her Doctor. He's a mess--divorced with an infant to raise on his own. Park Byeung Eun plays him with his usual sense of comic timing. Sadly, though, he has the mopey, clingy dingleberry role common in too many Kdramas. I loved him in "Because It's My First Life," but there his subtle comedy is at the forefront and he's charming. Here, he's just Dr. Dingleberry hanging around where he's least wanted.
2) A sweet, clueless Millenial junior account exec. At the magazine, who turns out to be a "Sperm King," with 10 times the average man's l'il swimmers. Being so mild-mannered, he's a dark horse virility-wise who considers a donation to her cause. But becomes too infatuated with her.
3) Hunky Photog, left by his bride-to-be years ago and has been a walls-up grump ever since. Joon Go is a g-d hunk of a man. Seriously. Studly. He starts out a human Moai (Easter Island Head) when meeting her. Stone faced. Arrogant. Off putting. Cracks appear over time and he reveals his sensitivity, emotional honesty and strength as well as a silly side. What he's hiding from her is a big deal but the writers have given him maturity and grace to deal head on with it once he realizes he must come clean.
When the story is cooking, the rivals discover her intention and compete in all possible chest-puffing ways with each other to be her baby daddy. She must decide what and who really matters to her.
When the story bogs down, Dr. Dingleberry makes a nuisance of himself and the choices she must make become melodramatic. Should she judge her potential lover/partner for his ability to knock her up? So a man's fertility is at issue; meanwhile, her uterus has been seriously scarred by endometriosis and may not support any pregnancy--even if the Sperm King gives her the old college try.
The subject of parenthood vs. Childlessness, marriage vs. Single life are explored in ways that feel like real life. I liked the main characters and the rest of the cast well enough to spend all that time with them but I suspect I'd've liked this series better if it had been 12 episodes.
On the other hand, Joon Go was so fine, I'd watch whatever he did.
