Summary
The Potato Lab gets off to a chaotic start in Episode 1. While the eccentricity feels a little overegged, the characters are at least fun to be around.
What is it with K-Dramas these days? The concepts seem to be getting more and more bonkers. Now seems an odd time to suddenly decide that a good old rom-com isn’t enough anymore; there needs to be some kind of unique qualifying gimmick. When the Stars Gossip was about fertilizing eggs in space (until, of course, it became about one thing after another.) The Potato Lab is about… well, potatoes. But at least as of Episode 1, it puts its dafter elements to better use.
Eccentricity is a fine line to walk. Sometimes it can be a distraction from a lack of meaningful character and drama, but sometimes it effectively embellishes what would otherwise be a too-straightforward story. It’s obviously too early to say where this one lands, but I have slightly more hope for it than When the Stars Gossip just because the wackier elements seem to be working in service of meaningful subversions.
At least it’s likable. The characters are fun to be around if nothing else, and that works to build a solid foundation. I’m never keen on slapstick, as long-time readers will no doubt know, and I don’t buy “Oh, it’s so random!” as a justification for anything, comedy included. But I do like when a show zigs when you expect it to zag, when a character takes a tumble instead of avoiding one at the last moment. That stuff can give a show more mileage than you’d think.
But look, I’ll concede the potato stuff is weird. It’s not hard to accept Kim Mi-kyung as a researcher, even of potatoes, but to be quite so excited about them is another thing. It feels like a deliberately eccentric quirk, but we are where we are. The business of the starchy vegetables is at least pretty central to the plot, though, with Mi-kyung working for Sunnyeo Foods, a company on the cusp of a big corporate merger that should help Mi-kyung make ground on the new kind of potato she has been furiously working on for ages.
Kang Tae-oh and Lee Sun-bin in The Potato Lab | Image via Netflix
But tragedy strikes when the Director of Wonhan Retail’s Strategic Planning Department, So Baek-ho, exposes the CEO of Mores Company, Michael Lee, as shady conman Lee Moon-su. The whole thing’s a scam and the resultant scandal leads to Sunnyeo going bust and merging with Wonhan instead.
This is especially aggravating for Mi-kyung, who used to work at Wonhan. Sunnyeo is hanging on by a thread and, in the manner of all such mergers, some restructuring is due. This means taking a long, hard look at which departments and employees are necessary, and Mi-kyung, who works in a potato lab and didn’t leave Wonhan under the best circumstances, is likely to be on the chopping block.
You can see the basic conflict outline coming to the fore here in The Potato Lab Episode 1. Mi-kyung has to justify the existence of her lab and the value of her work while Baek-ho examines everything in the hopes of pinching some pennies and streamlining the operations. Through its scientific merit and long-term value, Mi-kyung tries to justify the potato lab’s existence, but it’s going to need to provide tangible results in order to remain in operation.
Mi-kyung also has an ex to deal with, one who has been rather harsh to her in the past but has, of course, benefitted immensely in his career. And she has a maniac magpie who is deeply loyal to her that she also has to answer for, just in case you were worried that this might be a normal drama.
Mi-kyung needn’t worry too much about her ex, though, since it’s obviously Baek-ho she’s destined to be with, and we start to move in that direction as things progress with a classic – though nicely subverted – “hiding from the rain under an umbrella” scene. But the power imbalance will obviously prove to be the major obstacle between the two, with Baek-ho likely to personally supervise the potato lab’s operations to ensure it’s worth the cost of keeping it going.
Thus far I think Mi-kyung’s enthusiasm for potatoes reads as a bit gimmicky and insincere and despite some of the twists on the formula here and there, in its broad strokes The Potato Lab does have the DNA of a traditional zany Korean rom-com. It’ll be interesting to see which direction it leans in as things go.
RELATED:
