8Asians | An Asian American collaborative blog

Dr. Ken, Season 2, Episode 5: “D.K.’s Korean Ghost Story”
Original airdate October 21, 2016.

Open up and say aaaah.
Allison is heartbroken because Dave seems to be in a rush to grow up.  No longer his mother’s little boy, he eschews trick-or-treating on Halloween, and he insists he’s too old to be frightened by spooky stories anymore.  D.K. tells Dave and Ken a scary Korean ghost story, which Ken chickens out on before its conclusion.  Molly has thirty minutes to find something to wear to a costume party.

Here goes his funny bone.
There are several chuckles near the beginning, but most of this episode is really unfunny.  Dave gets a meaty plot for the first time this season, and although he has a strong start, his exaggerated, cartoonish fear at the end doesn’t play to Albert Tsai’s strengths.  There was a way here for D.K.’s silly story to put some believable Dave-specific fear into him, the kind that his mother could have been a real comfort for, and it could still have been kid-safe and fun.  Dave could have been unaffected by the intended spookiness but found something fearsome in some other level, thereby keeping the story from veering off into wacky land while developing Dave’s character and strengthening his relationships with Allison and D.K.  What he does instead is horribly unconvincing, which then makes Allison’s response unconvincing.

Doctor, doctor, is this love I’m feeling?
I admit I like the old plot device of having the characters in the show perform the in-show narrated story.  It may be old, but it’s not yet tired.

The beginning of the story-in-the-story, with Allison playing the Korean mom and Ken playing the young boy, is the episode’s best moment.  D.K. has his strongest episode this season, and if his contribution to the show is to inject some old-culture Koreanness like this once in a while, his being added to the main cast could work after all.  And darn it if I also didn’t like Pat’s extremely weird, pathetic loserness in both the main story and the ghost story.  No idea why.

Every week, I resist commenting on the actors’ physical appearances because Joz doesn’t like it and because it’s just tricky terrain with landmines everywhere, but can I be forgiven for saying that Suzy Nakamura looks great in her witch costume?  Because wow.

Post-mortem.
Not very funny doesn’t always mean bad.  And this isn’t bad.  2.5 thermometers out of 5.

Dr. Ken, Season 2, Episode 4: “Dr. Ken: Child of Divorce”
Original airdate October 14, 2016.

Symptoms?
Ken learns that his parents have been divorced for a couple of years.  He pretends to take it in stride, but it makes him wonder how confident he can be in his own marriage.  Dave has similar feelings, being now the “child of a child of divorce,” so he ends things with his new girlfriend Emily.

It hurts when I do this.
D.K. still hasn’t found his space in any of the dynamics, except for one-on-one conversations with Ken, which he’s always been great with.  I understand the temptation to pair him with Pat because the awkwardness could be enormous fun, but in this case it’s just weird and unpleasant.  Clark and Damona, lately a strength, are not great in scenes with Ken or D.K.  Everything seems exaggerated and clownish.

Reflexes normal.
There are a few highlights in this episode.  Ken Jeong’s flair for physical humor is on lovely display, as when he drops silently to his knees and then collapses, face down, onto the kitchen floor.  Molly’s playing psychologist is cute, and it works well within the framework of the story.  It also works toward developing her as having interests or inclinations similar to her mother’s, a first for this show.  I also like some of the call-outs to some Korean stereotypes: a love for golf, for example, and “Hardcore Koreans never smile for pictures: it’s a sign of weakness.”

Condition: fair.
This episode is not great, but its consistent storyline with no subplots just to keep everyone involved is an improvement over recent installments.  Call it the lowest degree of just all right. 3 forehead reflecting thingies out of 5.

Dr. Ken, Season 2, Episode 3: “Ken’s Banquet Snub”
Original airdate October 7, 2016.

Doctor, doctor, gimme the news.
Pat is asked to host the Welltopia banquet this year, instead of Ken, who has done the honors for the past five years.  Allison counsels him to “take the high road” and allow someone else to have the spotlight for a change.  Damona and Clark reconsider their relationship instincts and briefly swap strategies, Damona holding her tongue in check with her boyfriend, and Clark speaking his peeves with his boyfriend.  Dave has an admirer in the girl next door, who has a creepy way of hanging around.

Prognosis negative.
This episode is all over the place, and the only thing holding it together is the well-established chemistry of the characters.  Each of the plots is thin and uninteresting, although the A story had some potential.  Tapping into Pat’s continued confusion over his now-ended relationship with Damona can pay off, not to mention what could be some remorse by Ken over what might have been a career in standup comedy.  The resolving scene in Ken’s car is a good effort, but it lacks any of the heft it shoots for with these characters.  It’s also becoming clear that the writers don’t know what to do with Dave, Molly, and D.K. at home.

I’m detecting a pulse.
Pat takes a well-aimed shot at Ken Park the doctor and Ken Jeong the actor when he says, “I guess maybe they wanted more a thinking man’s comedy, and less desparate man’s comedy.  You know, more cerebral humor and less of the rubber-faced clowning that is your trademark.”  It’s one of the few memorable lines.  Clark and Damona have a cute scene where they do some awkward mugging while they await Ken’s reaction to finding out that Pat’s taken his gig.  In fact, Damona and Clark are really the highlight this week: their relationship is turning into quite a nice friendship.

Refills: 20.
The nice thing about an episode like this is that, unlike the vibe last season, it doesn’t feel like it’s bombing the audition.  A bad-to-mediocre week is just a stone in the road now, and there’s no reason to get depressed about it, the way I might have last year.  We’ve got 20ish more to go, so let’s get some bed rest and come back in a week.  2 bedpans out of 5.

Dr. Ken, Season 2, Episode 2: “Ken and Allison Share a Patient”
Original airdate September 30, 2016.

What does the chart say?
Ken and Allison disagree on whether a patient’s ailment is physical or psychological, getting their professional relationship off to a prickly start.  Pat invents a new girlfriend in order to inspire Damona to take their friends-with-benefits relationship to the next level, but Damona is in the beginning stages of an actual new relationship.  D.K. gives Dave advice for reinventing himself, now that Dave is in middle school.

Side effects include drowsiness.
I knew it.  D.K.’s moving into the Park house mainly serves to give the kids a new center, now that Allison is working at Welltopia.  It’s not good.  It’s really not good.  I admit there are a few laughs, but everything that happens in this subplot happens somewhere else, sometime else, leaving us with lots of telling but very little showing.  This works when the relationships are strong, but the relationships between the kids and D.K. are still not well developed.  A much better subplot would have had the three characters spending real time together.

The other subplot, although straight from the sitcom factory, works really well for two good reasons.  First: against all probability, the Pat-Damona relationship is one of the most effective story ideas from season one, giving each character realness, believability, and pathos, a credit to the writers who didn’t cartoonify it, even while one of the characters is himself cartoony.  Pat admits he unexpectedly found himself enjoying the friendship part more than the benefits part, a moment of realness earned by consistent character development reaching back almost to the beginning of the first season.  And second: Clark serving as the glue holding together two of the three plots in this episode might be the magic formula.  He’s sympathetic and reactive, physical and sarcastic, and genuinely funny.  His delivery of lines like, “Okay, that’s literally what a CAT scan does” is somewhere betwen Greek chorus and Shakespearean fool, and comedically right on key.  Pat recognizes this when their scene together ends with Pat’s line, “You are very wise.”

Second opinions.
Oh man.  I love the main plot.  I’ve said from the beginning that this show’s strongest element is the Ken-Allison relationship.  Ken Jeong and Suzy Nakamura work together like they’ve always known each other, and in this new arrangement, the characters are each right and wrong in equal amounts, in believable (if somewhat exaggerated) ways.  Each accuses the other of not being professional.  Ken says, “No one’s ever questioned my judgment as a doctor.”  Allison says, “What about you questioning my judgment?  Don’t I deserve the same respect?”  Ken says, “Admit it: you’re treating me differently because I’m your husband.  Would you have told any other doctor to dig deeper?”  Allison says, “If any other doctor called me sweetie, I woulda punched him in the throat.”  This is their best argument since the Thanksgiving episode (“You’re a lapsed Korean!”).  It works.  It all works.

Signs of life.
It’s often a good idea with sitcoms not to hold the tag against the rest of the episode, so I’m going to pretend I never saw it.  The D.K.-Molly-Dave story is terrible, but the rest of the episode is quite strong.  I gave the season premiere a half-point bump for promising better things this season, but this episode doesn’t need the charitable encouragement.  Four stethoscopes out of five.