Early Access: Oh My Baby E1 (Patreon)

E1. This was quite an efficient first episode, I'd say. In just this first hour, I feel like I understand our female lead Ha Ri's biggest desire, what it means to her, and just how impossible it seems right now, for her to realize her dream of getting married and having a child.

We are also introduced, at varying length, to the various potential love interests and baby-daddies. Even though we spend different amounts of time with each guy, the general idea & impression of each one, seems pretty clear.

Young'un Kang Eu Ddeum is earnest but does not seem to possess any kind of social filter, and thoroughly embarrasses Ha Ri, while blissfully thinking that he's being super helpful. Ack.

Ex-best friend Jae Young is a single dad who seems to be a jobless, drunken slob who happens to have a young child to take care of. He would appear to be a potentially plausible match for Ha Ri, with an instant child to offer, as a bonus. Except she seems to hate his guts, and he doesn't even seem to care. I don't have a good first impression of him, so if Show wants to endear him to me, the turnaround is going to have to be quite dramatic and effective.

Star-photographer-on-a-break Yi Sang is an unfortunate and humiliating memory for Ha Ri, which isn't a great start either. Plus, he has expressed an emphatic lack of interest in marriage or kids. Also, he seems rather patronizing, as a general rule, though he does earn some goodwill from me, for stepping in to help Ha Ri, when he thought that she was in labor and in need of a ride to the hospital.

The comedy that Show is serving up - so far, anyway - is more of the physical kind, and while that's not my usual preference, I find that I'm jiving with Show's sense of humor more than I'd expected to. I'm laughing along, even as I'm cringing with secondhand embarrassment. Which there's a lot of. Eep. I sometimes have to literally pause the episode, just to shake off some of the secondhand embarrassment. Kudos to our actors for leaning in and rolling with it, with full dedication.

I was thoroughly bewildered, yet quite entertained, yet deeply sympathetic, as Ha Ri got mistaken for being in labor, then got manhandled and dragged all over the place until she finally lands in the hospital. How utterly mortifying, especially considering Ha Ri's worries and struggles. Ack.

When Ha Ri looks completely lost as she slowly drowns in the despair of the doctor's prognosis for her chances of becoming a mom, I feel her hopelessness acutely, and I feel for her.

Show does a solid job of pulling out silly-embarrassing laughs one minute, and then turning around, and pulling at my heartstrings and making me feel the pathos of a character. That's hard to do, and so far, I'm quite impressed.

I also feel like this entire episode was mapped out to be one complicated build-up to a punchline, on two levels. First, in terms of how Ha Ri gets mistaken for a pregnant woman in the throes of labor (so many narrative pieces had to be put in place, so that it'd make sense), and then, in how the period cramps that keep plaguing her all episode long, turn into a diagnosis for endometriosis, which culminates in her chances of becoming a mom dwindling to almost zero. Well done, Show.