In Netflix K-drama Crash Landing on You, the DMZ proves no barrier to love

There must be easier ways of finding a date than waiting for one drop out of the sky on a paraglider – even if you are stuck in North Korea and regrettably beyond the range of OkCupid and Tinder.

And if you’re a South Korean heiress – of the ruthless, obnoxious, privileged sort that might, let’s say, complain about the serving of nuts when flying first class – there must be easier ways of finding a date than accidentally paragliding over the DMZ and into North Korea during a storm, becoming snagged in a tree, then falling out of it and into the arms of a grim-faced soldier waving a pistol.

Such is the set-up for new Netflix dramaCrash Landing on You, the 16-part first series of which is now streaming, whose star-crossed couple are bound for romantic entanglement – geopolitics notwithstanding.

He is a taciturn army officer in the ironically named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. She is an alluring but haughty business tycoon from Seoul who has just taken over her father’s chaebol, despite lashings of toxic enmity from her siblings. He is captain Ri Jeong Hyeok (played by Hyun Bin), stationed at the 38th parallel; she is Yun Se-ri (Son Ye-jin), pampered and cosseted by her own army of fawning hangers-on.

Back in the Land of the Morning Not So Calm, Yun’s lackeys are rabid with anxiety about her disappearance – unlike her scheming family. In the Hermetically Sealed Kingdom, Ri’s unit, already in the crosshairs of a corrupt superior running a racket in stolen historical artefacts, are living in fear of the State Security Department. Having failed to apprehend the outsider-spy and having been drunk on duty, they could all be shot as traitors. “The Great Leader is always with us”, his subjects are constantly told.

The entire premise is, of course, ridiculous – let’s face it, Yun would have been obliterated by one of Little Rocket Man’s ICBMs the instant she sniffed North Korean air. Nevertheless, Crash Landing lays bare some profound contrasts between lives as lived either side of a line on a map, and is sympathetic to the daily struggles of ordinary Northerners rather than the South’s tyrants in business suits.

This isn’t so much a clash of cultures as a clash of centuries, with the devious, manipulative businesswoman at its centre being forced to adapt to new rules of behaviour, to life in a village with intermittent electricity, and to the idea that brainwashed children are obliged to chant militaristic slogans as they march to school.

The captain and the chief executive are clearly destined for an affaire d’amour, but then what? Will he defect? Will she give up glitz, glamour and gossip columns? Will North and South reconcile because of the girl who fell to Earth?

Amazon Prime Video’s The Expanse – an ideal way to escape festivities

What better way to dodge the seasonal mayhem than with a big dose of off-planet escapism? And what better delivery system than science-fiction sensation The Expanse, from Amazon Prime?

There’s “a blood-soaked gold rush” going on, a land grab for living space in a future in which humans, now based on Earth, Mars and along the asteroid belt, have colonised the solar system. And they still can’t agree on anything.

So the captain of the good ship Rocinante, conflicted idealist James Holden (Steven Strait), has the job of refereeing a territorial spat between two groups of settlers – and in space, no one can hear you bleed.

All 10 episodes of series four recently hit cyberspace, so forget the festivities and space out.