Season three maintains Master Kim’s mythical status with a breathless opening episode that finds him performing surgery on a boat while it sways in choppy waters far off the Korean coast in the middle of the night.

The boat’s passengers are North Korean defectors, among them a young brother and sister. Surgery becomes necessary when a gunfight breaks out, killing and injuring several of the passengers – including the father of the children, who winds up fighting for his life with several bullets wreaking havoc on his insides.

The Korean coastguard arrives and calls in a group of young star doctors and nurses from Doldam Hospital – the fictional setting of the series – among them returning medical professionals Seo Woo-jin (Business Proposal’s Ahn Hyo-seop) and Park Eun-tak (Kim Min-jae of Poong, the Joseon Psychiatrist).

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With the help of young military doctor Lee Sun-woong (Lee Hong-nae, The Uncanny Counter), they do what they can with the meagre supplies and facilities on board, but the severity of the case requires a surer hand on deck. The problem is that Master Kim is on holiday and nowhere to be found.Doldam doctor Cha Eun-jae (Lee Sung-kyung, Sh**ting Stars) sets out to find him in the middle of the night, eventually tracking him down in his secret night fishing spot. A helicopter sweeps in to pick him up and his holiday is cut short.

Master Kim performs his magic once he arrives on the boat, but all he can do is delay the inevitable. The patient can only be saved by being transferred to a state-of-the-art trauma unit.

However, owing to inter-Korean peace talks taking place in Seoul at the same time, the powers that be won’t allow the patient to be moved to the mainland. Master Kim and his team are told to wait until the evening of the following day, by which point the patient would likely be dead.

With only empathy at his disposal, Master Kim tries to reason with the coastguard captain. He eventually gets through to him, but the captain is unable to sway those above him.

The captain then suggests making an “unofficial” transfer. Master Kim jumps at the chance, but while his job is saving lives, the job of covering up this unsanctioned operation falls to the administrators of his hospital, including hospital director Park Min-guk (Kim Joo-hun, Big Mouth), head nurse Oh Myung-sim (Jin Kyung, Queenmaker) and manager Jang Gi-tae (Lim Won-hee, Move to Heaven).

This potential diplomatic incident coincides with the coming launch of the Doldam Hospital Regional Trauma Centre, which Master Kim has long dreamed of opening. The centre is almost ready to be unveiled and, since it is empty, it becomes a good place to hide a few secret patients.

However, since the building is supposed to be empty, this soon attracts some unwanted attention.

Among the prying eyes is the main new cast member this season, another legendary surgeon named Cha Jin-man (Lee Gyoung-young, The World of the Married).

Min-guk has been courting him to join their surgery team, but the problem is that he and Master Kim are bitter old rivals. Further complicating matters is that he is Eun-jae’s father, though their relationship has been strained for years.

Master Kim isn’t the only person who wouldn’t be too happy for Jin-man to join the team. Woo-jin, who has been dating Eun-jae for three years, is taken aside by Jin-man, who tells him to stay away from his daughter.

This sets up a number of conflicts should Jin-man accept the position. He has indicated to Min-guk that he would be willing to do so on one condition: the removal of Woo-jin from the staff. Speaking of staff, Sun-woong, who marvelled at the prowess of the Doldam surgeons on the boat, has also applied for a position at the hospital.

The staff interviews will be of particular interest to Extraordinary Attorney Woo fans, as a slew of familiar faces pop up looking for work.

While we wait to see who will join and who will remain in the ranks of the Doldam surgery team, in its first pair of episodes Dr. Romantic offers a compelling mix of medical thriller, office drama and even a solid dose of action that opens on the boat and spills out into the hospital as well.

It’s a pleasure seeing Han don the surgical scrubs again as the warm-hearted and sure-handed Master Kim, particularly as the veteran actor has been a less frequent presence on our screens over the past few years.

Dr. Romantic season 3 is streaming on Disney+.

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