Dr. Brain: Episode 1 (Review)
by missvictrix
AppleTV+ just launched in South Korea, and with it their first-ever Korean language production, Dr. Brain. But don’t let the goofy title fool you — this is very serious and cerebral sci-fi fare. As we follow our main character on his risky and ground-breaking experiments into thought and memory, his whole world turns upside down.
Note: Coverage of this drama will not continue after this review.
EPISODE 1 REVIEW
Right off the bat, the first thing I need to say – and perhaps the most important thing about this drama — is that the direction is just fantastic. It’s gorgeous to watch, executed perfectly, and is quite arresting. On everything else, I’m torn. I love the premise and the deep dive into mind-bending possibilities, but at the same time, the story leaves me cold. Perhaps that’s because the drama is much more concerned with the trippy structure of the story, and how our main character gets hit with unexpected events, than building an emotional connection to him as a character.
Dr. Brain has only a six-episode run, so after a bit of exposition in the first half of the episode, we do jump rather quickly into what becomes the crux of the story. But first, we meet our hero as a young boy.
Our hero is LEE SE-WON, and he’s clearly different from the other children around him and struggles to relate to anyone (including his devoted mother) socially or emotionally. We see a brief vignette of how this plays out, how his Autism is diagnosed, and how much his mother strives to champion for him. But it’s not until she dies tragically in front of him (cue Truck of Doom) that Se-won and his genius brain are truly looked at.
After the accident, a neurology team examines him, and we learn how Se-won’s hippocampus and amygdala are quite farther apart than would be considered normal; this constitutes both his genius, and his inability to connect with the world. He’s an adorable child, but there is a coldness that radiates off of him — and the direct and almost mathematically perfect way that the scenes are shot lends to this coldness.
In fact, it’s an interesting dilemma for the drama: the coldness of the filmmaking makes the story so much more effective… but it also makes it difficult to react to the story (or even Se-won) emotionally as the audience.
We meet Se-won several decades later, now played by Lee Seon-kyun. Some quick exposition lets us know that he’s just the same as he was as a young boy — bereft of feeling and emotional attachment. He works in a lab where his coworkers respect his intelligence but are also well aware of his quirks and general detachment. Not that he notices.
Se-won seems to live only for his work, and he’s obsessed with the idea of transferring thoughts from one entity to another. He is looking at a future where thoughts can be predicted, collected, and quantified by a computer. Se-won sees this as a great benefit — the thoughts of a person in a coma, for instance, would become known, and humankind wouldn’t need to communicate with words anymore (how terrrifying!).
Interestingly, Se-won isn’t a bachelor-loner like we might expect. He had a young son with his wife JUNG JAE-YI (Lee Yoo-young), and history doth repeat itself. His son was just like him, his wife struggled to nurture her son, and the whole thing ended in unthinkable tragedy. His young son died in a gas explosion, after which his wife went a bit mad, insisting he was still alive, and ending (ostensibly) with her suicide. While looking at Se-won, you can’t tell that this tragedy affected him in the slightest.
When Se-won finally completes his first example of thought-transfer successfully, it’s through a happy accident, and after many failures. Importantly, the brain waves did not transfer from one live mouse to the other. They only transferred when one mouse died. This allowed the brain waves to be transferred to the live mouse.
This means exactly what you think it might. Our somewhat-crazy scientist and his assistant HONG NA-MIL (Lee Jae-won) sneak into a morgue to perform the same experimental procedure, trying to transfer the brain waves of a corpse — into Se-won’s own mind. It doesn’t take an even moderately smart person to understand that this could go terribly wrong. And it does. A little flash of a memory is lodged in Se-won’s brain, and after this point, everything starts to go a bit haywire.
The plot moves fast at this point, and this is where I get a bit caught. I hands-down adore the concept — that plugging other people’s memories into Se-won’s brain starts changing his own reality, whether that means changing his reality, or causing him to feel emotions, or even changing his personality. This is the main construct of the drama, and it’s fantastic. Where I get caught, though, is with Se-won’s no-questions-asked approach to the whole thing.
I buy that he will gladly and readily experiment on himself, but when his own reality changes in front of him? When one simple question or circumstance leads him not to investigate in the physical world around him, but to immediately go and download the brain waves of yet another corpse? It’s wild. I believe he’s all in, but I also wonder about the actual science of this.
If Se-won and his very reality are changing, how will he be able to tell the changes apart from the reality? How long will he be him, or will he forget that he doesn’t like to drink coffee or is not left-handed? The lack of any control (in the scientific sense or any other, really) is troubling, and as long as it doesn’t interfere too much with the story, it will make for a riveting narrative as it unfolds.
The deeper Se-won gets in his own experiment, the more strange things start to happen — and the less we can actually trust him as a narrator. This is another great thing about the drama, because there’s nothing stronger for a story’s unpredictability than an unreliable narrator whose brain is changing in front of our very eyes.
But above all, it’s the direction of the drama — its strong style and mood — that make the story come to life. There’s also something satisfying about the frequency of straight head-on shots, and overhead shots. It’s all so perfect, from the proportions to use of color, silhouette, and shadow; it creates the perfect backdrop for a reality that gets upended.
Reservations aside, and perhaps a suspension of disbelief in hand, Dr. Brain delivered an intriguing first episode. The premise is ripe for reversals and twists, and the drama is not afraid to deliver them as the tale unfolds.
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Tags: Dr. Brain, featured2, first episodes, Jo Bok-rae, Lee Seon-kyun, Lee Yoo-young, Park Hee-soon, Seo Ji-hye
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1 LT is Irresistibly Indifferent, Dame Judi
November 6, 2021 at 6:37 PM
Boy they never give you the easy ones, do they @missvictrix?
I don't know how to feel about this tbh. There's just so much that I have to handwave before I can enjoy the reality-bending nature of that. Almost nothing about the set-up makes sense. Nor do we get any clear idea of what would give this character the urgency that would cause him to do something so illegal, unethical and, well, stupid.
For a kdrama, the plotline was crowded and the exposition was out of control. And a lot of that exposition was nothing but pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo of the quantum fallacy kind.
"Brain wave synchronisation possible through quantum entanglement"
"This could be a side effect of my brain waves colliding with the deceased"
What I did find interesting was the suggestion that his perception of reality was already distorted before the first transfer and everything he believes about himself and what happened to his family might be wrong. In terms of the way the show deals with memory, perception and how we process reality is interesting. And the acting is incredible of course. But there is a LOT of handwaving they expect me to do to get to that point and I'm not sure yet that my tiny hands can take it.
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bomibeans
November 7, 2021 at 8:35 AM
As a side note, if this show felt underwhelming and you want to use your trial/subscription to the fullest, I highly recommend Ted Lasso, if you haven't watch it already. :)
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mindy
November 7, 2021 at 9:09 AM
I’m on ep 6 of Ted Lasso and it’s clear from ep 1 how and why it charmed the world so quickly. Just so good!
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miss h
November 7, 2021 at 9:20 AM
It's delightful. I'm just finishing up Season 2, and I don't want it to end.
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bomibeans
November 7, 2021 at 10:33 AM
Comment was deleted
bomibeans
November 7, 2021 at 10:36 AM
“Charmed” and “delightful” are two fantastic words to describe Ted Lasso. If it could “charm” and “delight” me, a lifelong pessimist and cynicist, gosh it’s doing its job making this world a much better place to live. I’m approaching the end of season 2 too, and I practically cried (and laughed) through the whole of the Christmas episode, just in time for the holidays in my part of the country. What an absolute gem it is! 💕
LT is Irresistibly Indifferent, Dame Judi
November 7, 2021 at 11:41 AM
I haven't seen Ted Lasso. I may or may not have acquired episode 1 of Dr Brain without Apple Tv's assistance. And I think it's very funny how this thread has become a discussion of how delightful a completely different show is.
Recommendation noted.
Ayalynn
November 7, 2021 at 5:03 PM
I love Ted Lasso!
I was actually thinking maybe they got an idea from Stove League, somehow, vaguely? Because plot wise, very similar to that.
I know, Jason Sudeikis's character is totally different from Namgoong Min's...
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bomibeans
November 8, 2021 at 6:59 AM
Oh, really? I didn't watch Stove League. I'm def putting Stove on my To Watch Immediately list then!
The power of Ted Lasso: everyone's talkin' about it! 😊
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Ayalynn
November 8, 2021 at 10:53 AM
Stove League has a very similar theme (a general manager who has no experience in baseball hired to lead a baseball team) and it's not comedy.
But I highly recommend it. Such a great show.
Kafiyah Bello
November 7, 2021 at 3:53 PM
You have quantified my feelings on this show, even ignoring the pseudoscience, basic scientific method isn't followed in this drama and he is supposed to be a genius. Also I agree with the above Ted Lasso is delightful.
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2 Jingbee
November 6, 2021 at 6:59 PM
Hmm.. there is a comedy-horror version of this brain takeover that comes to mind. In I, Zombie, lead eats the brain to survive, and the personality and memories of the person she ate takes over, which then helps her and sidekick detective solve crimes. Of course this is a million times different than Dr. Brain, but at this point I may just go to Netflix and watch the iZombie last season instead. With this premise, am not compelled to get apple tv yet.
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LT is Irresistibly Indifferent, Dame Judi
November 6, 2021 at 7:06 PM
Of the various other things this show brought to mind, the film Flatliners was one of them. But the other one was definitely <iZombie. As you said, it's very different. But also a delightful show that I kind of loved right to the end despite its flaws. I support your decision 😊
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3 MapleSilver
November 7, 2021 at 12:13 AM
What a great review of this first episode. I agree that the first half felt a bit slow and the second half a bit too fast, leaving viewers with a lot head scratching. I hope this means we will get to the "meat" of the story sooner. Still it was quite an enjoyable, wacky ride that could lead to somewhere unpredictable, and for that I am ready.
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4 Wur
November 7, 2021 at 12:51 AM
I'll admit if compared to all the Netflix Originals till now Dr Brain easily had the best cinematography and color palette. It felt like watching a high quality movie straight out of Hollywood. If future Apple TV+ Originals keep the same cinematography format it'll be a good change from the bulky cinematography of Netflix Originals. However I'm not feeling this plot one bit and not only because of the ethical problems but the writing and characterization is just off. Netflix Originals are much better written in comparison but this is just 1 episode of 1 drama but just off the bat comparing Dr Brain to Kingdom the difference is already huge. If they both had come out at the same time I would pick Kingdom hands down despite my issues with even that plot. Here's hoping for better written Originals from Apple TV+ because their cinematography and editing is topline.
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5 💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
November 7, 2021 at 1:44 AM
Unfortunately for anything this drama might achieve well down the track, it failed to hook or compel me with anything really even remotely interesting, for me to keep going past episode one.
I think the thing that stood out the most to me was the Rain Foley effects. I wasn't even impressed by the cinematography despite it having colours and styles I like.
Instead the experience was, for me, overshadowed by everything @leetennant mentioned in criticism: the rushed pacing and set up, the rushed character introduction, the exposition, the bs pseudoscience, the stupidity, the unethical and illegal nature of the whole thing, the convoluted plot they have to solve in just 6 episodes... and the concept of memory and reality is not interesting enough for me to care about what is happening either.
So this will just be a 1 Episode watch for me, perhaps alas, but I am not that cut up about it, lol.
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💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
November 7, 2021 at 1:45 AM
(*not interesting enough TO me, I'm sure others find memory based stories quite interesting enough indeed.)
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6 Eazal
November 7, 2021 at 1:00 AM
For someone who is so rational and wants to know how everything works, SeWon is quite wreckless by accepting as true a one time result with rats, making him ready to try on humans. While I was watching I was thinking... where do those helmets come from? He had been working on rats and suddenly has a perfect dispositive for humans? How come? Are rats and human brains that alike?
I'm pretty sure most of what Sewon sees is not real. At least not Park Hee Soon's character.
But even so, I'm intrigued enough and it's only 6 episodes, so I'll keep watching.
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💜🍍☠ Sicarius The Queen of Melonia ☠🍍💜
November 7, 2021 at 2:23 AM
(*Mice. He stole the helmets from Mouse. Probably. Maybe. I didn't actually watch past ep 1 of Mouse either.)
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Eazal
November 7, 2021 at 2:25 AM
Neither did I. I didn't pass minute 8.
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HANI
November 7, 2021 at 5:52 PM
Mouse has helmet...? I actually watched Mouse till the end but damn, I totally erased it from my memory 🤣🤣
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Kafiyah Bello
November 7, 2021 at 3:56 PM
Yassss, these were my exact thoughts, he had a positive reaction exactly once in 37 trials, all of sudden he is gung-ho to experiment on himself. It doesn't make sense, but as you said it is only 6 episodes, so why not.
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7 RenOIshi
November 7, 2021 at 2:53 AM
I jumped into it for obvious reasons but the experience was not how I expected it to be. My tiny brain won’t be able to keep up so it’s a no from me.
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8 redfox
November 7, 2021 at 7:09 AM
Im glad there is more sci fi coming now but I dont have time to watch this.
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9 Ally
November 7, 2021 at 10:32 AM
I agree with the absolute beauty of the cinematography and how thoughtful it is. I was immediately drawn into the first scene—the one where the boy is in the closet with the multicolored flashlight. I love shots that are framed (with doorways, windows, etc.) and there was A LOT of this. Maybe too much, but I felt like a fly on the wall looking in from afar. And I thought that it did a good job drawing me in. Besides for the ethical, moral and legal preposterousnesses, which I’m just considering as a necessary evil in getting the story off the ground, and looking at this show through my sci-fi lens, I’m very interested in seeing how multiple brain synchs will change our protagonist. Already, we’re seeing his personality get reworked from unempathic to more empathic. I really hope six episodes will allow this story to be well-exited without a lot of extraneous fluff. I love LSK’s voice and great casting because I get to hear it constantly as he’s narrating!
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Ally
November 7, 2021 at 10:33 AM
**Well-executed
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10 HANI
November 7, 2021 at 5:50 PM
I make a mistake watching this after Jirisan and I ended up lamenting how Jirisan would look like if it has better directing tbh. Drama is beautifully shot but I understand nothing and not invested enough to find out all those pseudoscience-ish wording they throw in this episode.
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