[PREVIEW] SBS TV series "OB & GY"

SBS Special Drama - "OB & GY"
- Written by Choi Hee-ra
- Directed by Lee Hyun-jik, Choi Young-hoon
- Produced by JS Pictures
- Starring Jang Seo-hee (as Seo Hye-young), Ko Joo-won (as Lee Sang-shik), Seo Ji-suk (as Wang Jae-seok), Jung Ho-bin (as Yoon Seo-jin), Song Joong-ki (as Ahn Kyung-woo), Lee Young-eun (as Kim Young-mi)
- In one sentence: A competent obstetrics and gynecology surgeon learns about life, grows as a person and finds new love after experiencing demotion, pregnancy and meeting patients with unfortunate life stories.
- Premiere date: February 3, 2010 (9:55 PM)

Most people go to the hospital when they fall sick or get into accident. But an OB/GYN office is a place that many women must inevitably visit when they go though a certain process in life -- namely pregnancy and giving birth. The most ordinary and most dramatic aspects to an OB/GYN office was revealed during a 15-minute highlight video shown at the press conference for SBS TV series "Ob & Gy", held January 27 at Konkuk University Hospital.

OB/GYN doctor Seo Hye-young (played by Jang Seo-hee), who is known for her surgical skills and for being a workaholic, finds out that she is pregnant while she is having an affair with married co-worker Yoon Seo-jin (played by Jung Ho-bin). To make matters worse, she gets fired and demoted to a hospital in the rural countryside. Hye-young starts working with fertility doctor -- and former classmate -- Wang Jae-seok (played by Seo Ji-suk) and good-natured pediatrician Lee Sang-shik (played by Ko Joo-won). OB/GYN resident Ahn Kyung-woo (played by Song Joong-ki) breaks up with his OB/GYN nurse girlfriend Kim Young-mi (played by Lee Young-eun) when he decides it is hard to make money after getting married. But "Ob & Gy" is not just about romance at the hospital. Each episode carries two or three sub-plots -- stories about the patients -- and deals with the predicament of OB/GYN doctors who "must take responsibility for two lives, the mother and the fetus, at the same time". Director Lee Hyun-jik explained his purpose of making the drama by saying, "First, I wanted to show men how much pain women go through and risk their lives to give birth. Secondly, I wanted to inform young women who avoid getting check-ups at the OB/GYN, that the sooner they go see an OB/GYN doctor, the sooner they'll get better. Third, I wanted to portray the difficult, just and respectable a job OB/GYN doctors have, having to deal with two lives at the same time."

Anticipation Quotient (1-10 points)

If you want to know how much pain your mother went through to give birth to you - 8 points
If you think having a married man's baby and not plotting revenge against the man is boring - 7 points

The current winner of Wednesday/Thursday evening dramas is KBS' "The Slave Hunter", which is riding high with a viewership rating of over 30 percent. But a medical drama has rarely failed and it would be interesting to see a specific story, about an OB/GYN office, which has never been told properly before. A top star who asks to give up the fetus during a surgery, a mother who wants to have a blood test in case her husband is not the father of the baby, parents who sob and wail over their baby who is born with a rare disease... Jang Seo-hee's passionate acting also shines through when coupled with such unfortunate stories.

Reporter : Choi Ji-Eun five@10asia.co.kr
Editor : Lynn Kim lynn2878@asiae.co.kr, Lee Ji-Hye seven@10asia.co.kr