[HanCinema's News] "Military Prosecutor Doberman" Does Well in Ratings Despite Sharp Turn From Apparent Premise

In its most recent episode, the eighth on March 22nd, "Military Prosecutor Doberman" had ratings of 8.791%. The legal military procedural has maintained fairly strong ratings even as it was preempted last week for a World Cup qualifying soccer game against the United Arab Emirates. This is in spite of, or possibly due to, the fact that contrary to the show's initial marketing "Military Prosecutor Doberman" veers far closer to wacky plotting than realism.

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"Military Prosecutor Doberman" follows the exploits of the unusually name Do Bae-man, who deliberately gets expelled from school to avoid mandatory military service, earns a law degree at a very young age, but ultimately has to work as a military attorney due to a lack of other competitive job offers. Corruption is a central theme. In the first episode Do Bae-man prosecutes a young man for receiving preferential treatment- which had been deliberately offered to him without prompting.

But the first episode also contained the introduction of a conspiratorial subplot wherein Do Bae-man's new rookie co-worker is revealed to be an undercover operative of unknown allegiance. By the end of the second episode, Do Bae-man himself is also getting in on gratuitous action scenes, where he almost single-handedly does battle with a huge group of assassins. These two oddly discordant tones exist alongside each other, creating a program of bombast coupled with legalisms.

The effect is similar to how "Vincenzo" from last year fused a serious mafia storyline with screwball South Korean style situation comedy. In that vein, the success of "Military Prosecutor Doberman" is not a big surprise. But with "D.P" and "Juvenile Justice" as recent military and legal dramas, the scattershot approach for "Military Prosecutor Doberman" caught many off guard. The ninth episode of "Military Prosecutor Doberman" will premiere on April 4th on tvN in South Korea and Rakuten Viki worldwide.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Military Prosecutor Doberman" is directed by Jin Chang-gyoo, written by Yoon Hyeon-ho, and features Ahn Bo-hyun, Jo Bo-ah, Oh Yeon-soo, Kim Young-min, Kim Woo-seok, Kang Mal-geum. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2022/02/28~Now airing, Mon, Tue 22:30 on tvN.