K-drama midseason recap: Rookie Cops – love is in the air in Disney+ comedy-drama, but is it enough for us to care?

Set in a police academy, the series has had plenty of broken hearts and misunderstandings, but halfway through its run, it will need to raise its game soon

The main problems include the lead characters not clicking, a shortage of narrative clarity and even the smaller moments suffering from some sloppy editing

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Chae Soo-bin in a still from Rookie Cops. Love is in the air, but it will take more than this if the K-drama is to be a success.

Published: 6:15pm, 18 Feb 2022Updated: 4:02pm, 10 May 2022

This article contains mild spoilers.

There’s a scene in Rookie Cops in which a supporting character watches an episode of an acclaimed Korean drama on his laptop, visibly moved by the tense and emotional exchange unfolding on his screen.

Several episodes later two teams face off in a tug of war during a sports day and it isn’t clear who we’re supposed to be rooting for, let alone what the outcome of the match is.

The drama clip is from Korean drama series Signal and the sporting bout comes only a few months after one of the breathtaking contests in another series, Squid Game. It wouldn’t be fair to compare Rookie Cops to either show, but reminding us of some of their emotional highs offers a deflating contrast.

Of course, this series set in a police academy is not a probing fantasy thriller nor a high-concept death game – it’s a youth-centric comedy-drama.

That label generally promises oodles of romance and high jinks, but while the show has given us plenty of both, halfway through its 16-episode run we’re still waiting for our heartstrings to be pulled and our funny bones to be tickled.