Kdrama Review: Daily Dose of Sunshine Ep.1

 Just finished watching the first episode of the new kdrama starring actress Park Bo Young, 'Daily Dose of Sunshine.' I had seen the trailer for the show
a month and some change ago on Instagram and knew it would be a sentimental but funny watch that would leave a warm feeling in its wake. The show was released yesterday on November 3rd so spoilers got to me before I could make time to watch the first episode. After seeing a spoiler or two, and with my current nursing school hostage sister along for the ride, I decided to tune in for the first episode.

 

In the show Park stars as a 3rd year Nurse just switching to the Psychiatric ward of her hospital. We follow her from before the break of dawn in the morning on her first day after switching. She listens to a video on her way, it describes insomnia and mental illness. A man on the bus talks to his hands, begging them to not make him look crazy and she moves away, clearly uncomfortable. In her rapid orientation to the unit she, and the audience are simultaneously debriefed on the set flow and safety protocols. No shoelaces, no straps, no hinges, nothing that can be a danger or trigger to patients. We are then just as quickly introduced to her collogues on the unit, in a nature that triggers my sister and sets the fast-paced feeling of the hospital setting. 

The big question for her is why did she join the unit? My sister and I discuss: is it because of a crush on a doctor, is she crazy, or a family member. None of these ended up being right, but no spoilers sorry. 

This drama has a similar setup to the likes of Hospital Playlist, Move to Heaven or How May I Help You in that the patients probably won't overlap into more than one episode. I think it works out well as we will be able to get a cathartic feeling within each episode. Of course, Bo Young's character will still have growth throughout the series overall, which I look forward to seeing. 

In this episode we saw a female - 43-year-old patient with bipolar disorder, who was being checked in mainly under the care of her mother. Watching it with my own sister we thought of our own relationship with our mom and the difficulties that happen between generations when the love we have can lead to great chasms of miscommunication. In this case that miscommunication was represented by the mother buying grapes for her daughter who in fact had not liked grapes since she was a child. My sister had me on edge though, because we were both sure someone was going to choke on the grapes. 

Sidenote: the grocery store that the mom went to to buy fruit has to be the bougiest grocery store in the world and I want to go there. 

The drama was directed by Lee Jae Gyoo who also directed, 'All of Us Are Dead,' which means nothing to me since I haven't watched that (I can't do Zombies/creepy stuff). He added a surreal feeling to this drama which added to it for me as an audience member. The music gave an off kilter ambiance and the zooms in some scenes made me see the world in the show differently as if the director wants the audience to relate to the patients by literally seeing the world differently. 

I look forward to seeing what other conditions and stories they include in the future episodes as well as any potential love lines for the main character. So far I say 9/10!