Presentation
Korean Title: 번외수사
Aired in: 2020 (12 episodes)
Channel: OCN
Grade: 5.5/10
Actors: Cha Tae Hyun, Lee Sun Bin, Ji Seung Hyun, Jung Sang Hoon and Yoon Kyung Ho
For more…
Cha Tae Hyun:
– Matrimonial Chaos
– Producers
– The Best Hit
Lee Sun Bin:
– The Great Show
– Sketch
– Criminal Minds
– Squad 38
Jung Sang Hoon:
– Love Affairs in the Afternoon
– Cheat on Me if you Can
– Big Forest
Preview
Synopsis
Jin Kang Ho is a police officer, Kang Moo Young is an investigative journalist, Lee Ban Seok used to be a coroner and now he prepares corpses for burial, Teddy Jeong is an ex-gangster, owner of a bar and Tak Won is a profiler. Together, they form an atypical team and catch serial murderers to reveal the truth.
My Opinion (No Spoilers)
I am really mitigated regarding this 12-episode drama. Usually, I am very eager to see a new OCN drama since the channel has provided me with incredible content for the past few years. However, since 2018, I have to say I am more and more disappointed in their dramas. Team Bulldog: Off-Duty Investigation is unfortunately one of them.
I liked the humor, some cases were really interesting and I was captivated by the intrigue. Nonetheless, I really think there were some major downsides in terms of credibility of the story and rhythm of the plot.
For that reason, I put a low grade. Even though some parts were good, they were not enough to compensate the main weak points of the drama.
Analysis
- The parody of a system
A single-player police team
Laughable police
Preserving the crime scene
Parody of a gangster - The plot holes
Jin Kang Ho’s family
Is Kang Moo Young also rich? - A cheap version of the Avengers
- A good balance between humor and serious topics
The parody of a system:
A single-player police team: Team Bulldog follows the investigation of a police officer Jin Kang Ho (Cha Tae Hyun). He is stubborn, reckless and never gives up. Even though he seems like the perfect person to chase after criminals, he appears to be a sort of buffoon, who’s lost faith in the organization years ago because of a serial killer. Indeed, he was convinced the prime suspect was an old man, but no one in the police station listened to him and he got a 6-month suspension for that. Since then, he is almost laughed at all the time, never listens to his superiors, does whatever he wants and his voice is never considered in the cases he deals with.
In that matter, there is a clear lack of credibility and realism in this drama. Kang Ho is always right; yet, his boss and colleagues don’t listen. Even when he brings proof and suspects, Kang Ho has to make them confess and give a written proof, so that he is given some credibility. That is insane in my opinion. This guy is literally serving criminals, proof and confessions on a silver platter, but no one cares to listen. Plus, police officers are generally supposed to be working in teams. In our case, apart from Kang Ho’s rookie partner, there is absolutely no cooperation or coordination between officers; to the point that we don’t even know who his colleagues are.
Laughable police: More than just a lack of realism regarding police work, the whole system and institution appeared to me as a joke or a parody, laughed at throughout the drama. Indeed, Kang Ho’s boss is totally irrelevant in the drama. He is only useful when it comes to punishing Kang Ho. The police directors only care about their reputation, using cases to get promotion and are dismissed like toys. Even during important arrests, police officers come late or get the wrong person. In the last scene for example, before Kang Ho and his teammates enter the welfare center, he says he has called for backup. Yet, we have to wait until all of them escape or are almost dead, before the cars start coming in. This is ridiculous and doesn’t make sense.
Moreover, the police are shown as incompetent, since they are not able to catch a murderer, who has been active for 15 years, but a journalist like Kang Moo Young (Lee Sun Bin), helped by a profiler Tak Won (Ji Seung Hyun) manage to find him in less than a month. It clearly makes no sense. At that point, I really thought either the police are so corrupt they bury cases (which didn’t seem to be the case), or the journalist and the profiler are geniuses. The off-duty team gets his hands on more witnesses, information and proof than the police (in that case, what is the police for?). Plus, other issue: Since when does the police openly share so much detailed information with external people, especially journalists, regarding on-going cases? A great lack of credibility again that is visible!
Preserving the crime scene: Another huge issue with the drama regarding this lack of realism is of course how incompetent the police is. They are not even capable of preserving a crime scene. They let family members touch the bodies with their bare hands and never wear gloves. This is crazy and it really disturbed me at least two times: with the ex-coroner Lee Ban Seok (Jung Sang Hoon)’s daughter case and with the Box-Cutter Murder Case.
Parody of the gangster: Teddy Jeong (Yoon Kyung Ho) is probably the funniest character of the drama. When I saw him, I couldn’t help but thinking that he was such a parody of a gangster. He always plays the strong and robust man, who is very much capable of fighting, but the laugh lies in details. Indeed, he remains a fragile individual, who needs his Ventolin for his asthma. A real caricature!
The plot holes:
Jin Kang Ho’s family: One part of the drama that was introduced at the beginning and then mysteriously disappeared from the action is Kang Ho’s family. In the drama, we discover that he is very rich, but the reasons behind that wealth remain kind of blurry. I would’ve loved knowing why and how he is able to pay so much money to people when needed. There is a backstory regarding his father saving money; but this makes no sense whatsoever. Indeed, his father was also a cop, so I kept wondering how he managed to obtain such a fortune. You can’t have a family and a house to take care of, while saving millions of won, especially on a cop’s salary. Plus, his wealth seems never-ending, seeing how easily he pays others to help him on his cases.
Moreover, the relationship with his mother is introduced in the first episodes, but the character rapidly vanishes. She disappears as fast as the side story about Moo Young renting his house. I mean what happened? Why would you introduce that and suddenly give it up in the middle of the drama? Coherence please?
Is Kang Moo Young also rich? Clearly a big pain point in the drama that didn’t make much sense either. Moo Young doesn’t seem to be well-off and constantly reminds viewers that she is poor. Yet, she can pay Tak Won for each of his interventions on her show. More than that, she also happens to have money for witnesses to make them confess. I mean, where does she get the money from? Yet another incoherence in the drama and a clear lack of realism and reflection in the plot.
A cheap version of the Avengers: I admit that the 5 main characters were all caricatures and had their own funny side. Moo Young and her horse sounds (where does it come from by the way? Why a horse?); Tak Won and his pyramid scheme; Teddy and is refined bar and Ban Seok and his obsession for corpse make-up. They all have their particularities and form a rather atypical team. What comes out of this weird combination is that they are very reckless as well as strong-minded. They all bring their touch to the group and their own skills. The team is varied illustrating unusual personalities. By the end of the drama, I couldn’t help but compare each of them with an Avenger character. Teddy is Hulk, Tak Won is Iron Man, Moo Young is The Black Widow, for the rest let’s say that Ban Seok is Captain America and Kang Ho is Thor. In general, they are really close to comics’ characters; their special power being either their physical strength, their resourcefulness or their knowledge. Despite that heroic image, they remain real buffoons sometimes, scared of everything and never thinking before acting!
A good balance between humor and serious topics: Fortunately for the drama, not everything was that bad. Despite the overall lack of realism, that I understood because it is supposed to be a parody(?); there is a good balance between humor and serious topics. Two stories particularly got me captivated: the one regarding Oni and the one on the Box-Cutter Murder Case. I noted also that the stories involving our main characters were more interesting than the others, creating a huge gap in terms of attention and interest. That’s why some stories were very suspenseful and really got me stuck on my screen; whereas the others bored me. Still, there was an agreeable compensation of the dark themes by the light-hearted vibe and the characters’ craziness. Unfortunately, this drama, in my opinion, lacks a lot of thinking and coherence. Even if it emphasizes the absurdity of the intrigue, looking for laugh more than realism, some threads were not making any sense which I found quite distracting. This led me to being more interested in the plot holes rather than the actual story.
P.S.: And you, liked it or skipped it?
Once Upon a Drama 