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Pierce Conran

This article contains spoilers.
2/5 stars
Lead cast: Lee Sun-bin, Kang Tae-oh
Latest Nielsen rating: 1.79 per cent
The great thing about potatoes is how versatile they are. Fry them, boil them, steam them, mash them – no matter how you slice or cook them, you’ll probably wind up with a tasty dish.
The same, alas, cannot be said for The Potato Lab, a rigidly formulaic Korean drama series that does not dare stray from the tried and true recipe of the workplace romantic comedy.


Trouble is, rather than being comfort food, this particular iteration of the office romcom is more like a midweek meal where you skip half the ingredients because you have not had the time to go to the supermarket for a few weeks. It does the job, but it is oh-so-far from satisfying.
Despite ranging in length from 75 to 85 minutes apiece, the four episodes that comprise the final third of the series have featured precious little in the way of conflict or side plots.
Granted, there wasn’t much to begin with as the drama mostly coasted by on the down-to-earth qualities of its rustic rural location and the charms of its leads. However, on both counts it fell short of the many superior predecessors that have already come and gone.
The Potato Lab, a tuber research facility in the countryside, is filled with goofy and eccentric characters, but they exist purely as a unit since, aside from the leads, none of them get to exist independently of their colleagues.
The leads are potato researcher Kim Mi-kyung (Lee Sun-bin, Boyhood) and So Baek-ho (Kang Tae-oh, Extraordinary Attorney Woo), an executive of Wonhan Retail, the conglomerate that assumes control of the Potato Lab at the beginning of the series.

Mi-kyung is ostensibly obsessed with her research but at least part of her potato passion is a defensive mechanism, as she left the big city years earlier following a damaging workplace romance. This personal trauma catches up with her when her former employer – Wonhan Retail – takes over her lab.
Wonhan wants to know if this potato research facility is dead weight and Baek-ho is the person who treks to the countryside to crunch the numbers for them. His audit extends into a long-term survey as he becomes the temporary chief of the lab.
Baek-ho is a dapper and brilliant figure but also a very literal one who seldom cracks a smile. He clashes with the hot-headed Mi-kyung early on, or rather she is the one who repeatedly antagonises him.
Despite her aggressive behaviour, Baek-ho soon falls for Mi-kyung and, while they wind up together, he continues to endure her constant temper tantrums despite being a perfect gentleman.
There is one late reveal that he played a hand in her ostracisation at her former workplace, but since they did not know each other back then it does little to redress the balance between them.

In fact, no one in the series is spared Mi-kyung’s tempestuous behaviour. As time goes by, particularly in those final episodes, it is hard to see what she brings to the table. Why do people put up with her?
Granted, the few side plots that the show has only exist because she is a needy and insecure character.
Her brother Kim Hwan-kyung (Shin Hyun-seung, Han River Police) and best friend Lee Ong-ju (Kim Ga-eun, King the Land) live with her and secretly become a couple after having had eyes for each other for over a decade.
Why the long wait? Largely because they worried that Mi-kyung would disapprove – she does.
Eventually, she reluctantly accepts their union, yet as the coda at the end of the series – which takes place three years later – shows us, she never needs to give up her living arrangement with her roommates in their idyllic forest cabin and still gives them grief for being a couple.

We get the sense that they are only permitted to be together so long as Mi-kyung still gets to keep what she wants.
The secondary romance, involving Mi-kyung’s ex Park Ki-se (Lee Hak-joo, Newtopia) and flighty Wonhan heiress Yoon Hee-jin (Jung Shin-hye, Moon in the Day), is much ado about nothing – it truly goes nowhere.
By the end of The Potato Lab, Mi-kyung gets the guy and gets to keep working with potatoes. She is no longer at the lab, but she still works nearby and interacts with her former colleagues, only now she is strong-arming them into deals in her favour.
Mi-kyung lives in a perfect fantasy. She never has to change but everyone bends to her will. Every so often a character comes along who is so charismatic that people will willingly bend over for them; this is not one of those times.
The Potato Lab is streaming on Netflix.


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Lee Sun-bin plays a researcher and Kang Tae-oh an executive who antagonise, yet fall for, each other in this weak romantic comedy


Lee Sun-bin plays a researcher and Kang Tae-oh an executive who antagonise, yet fall for, each other in this weak romantic comedy.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Lee Sun-bin plays a researcher and Kang Tae-oh an executive who antagonise, yet fall for, each other in this weak romantic comedy

Lee Sun-bin plays a researcher and Kang Tae-oh an executive who antagonise, yet fall for, each other in this weak romantic comedy