Sitcom Review: ‘So Not Worth It’ (2021)
Korean Title: 내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어
English Title: So Not Worth It (Lit. Title: I Wish The World Ended Tomorrow)
Network: Netflix
Episodes: 12
Release Date: June 18, 2021
Genre: Situational Comedy
Language(s): Korean
Cast: Park Se Wan, Shin Hyun Seung, Choi Young Jae, Minnie, Han Hyun Min, Yoa Kim, Carson Allen, Terris Brown
Directed by: Kwon Ik Joon, Kim Jung Sik
Written by: Seo Eun Jung, Baek Ji Hyun
So Not Worth It is Netflix’s first original Korean situational comedy about the relationships of students living inside an international university dormitory.
The show was created by the same team who brought the early 2000s Korean sitcom series, Nonstop and boasts a diverse lineup of cast members.
Story
In addition to three of her other part-time jobs, Se Wan (Park Se Wan) is an RA (Resident Assistant) at a university international dorm. To keep her perks at school as well as keep order in the dormitories, Se Wan is strict towards the students when it comes to the rules. However, when the going gets tough and certain rules really have to be broken, Se Wan offers to let the offenders off-the-hook for a price.
At the dorm, Se Wan spends most of her time with dormmates, Sam (Choi Young Jae) from Australia, Minnie (Minnie) from Thailand, Hyun Min (Han Hyun Min) who lives a couple of hours away from Seoul, Hans (Yoa Kim) from Sweden, Carson (Carson Allen) from the US, Terris (Terris Brown) from Trinidad and Tobago and new Korean-American transfer, Jamie (Shin Hyun Seung). As you can tell, there are students from all over the globe and the show revolves around their interactions as friends, lovers and as individuals, how they adjust to college life in a foreign country.
The Verdict
Overall Rating: 5/10
So Not Worth It is Netflix’s first original Korean sitcom and boy, does it follows the American sitcom format to a tee. There’s a total of 12 episodes in Season 1 with each episode running for 30-35 minutes and features the most diverse casting I’ve seen from a Korean series/movie besides the one we saw in 2020 sci-fi film, Space Sweepers starring Song Joong Ki. It even has a laugh track, which isn’t something anyone’s ever seen in previous Korean sitcoms from the early 2000s (Nonstop & High Kick!).
In the beginning of the series, I was struggling to figure out what kind of identity the show trying to establish. The first episode in particular was borrowing so many elements from different sitcoms in the past (Saved by the Bell, Family Guy) and at one point, Hyun Min broke into song and dance so I couldn’t tell if each episode will have Glee moments, too. Luckily, as I kept watching more episodes, the way the stories were executed started to stabilize and it got a lot better at being its own type of show instead of one that just copied from other American sitcoms.
One of the main reasons I picked this series up was because of its diverse casting. While watching, I found that the script was quick, snappy and witty - which is spot-on, given the fact that we’re watching a bunch of college kids go about their lives. There’s a lot of interesting Korean slang used across the script which was really refreshing in comparison to dialogues most Korean drama watchers would be accustomed to. Unfortunately, however, a lot of the scenes where laugh tracks were used weren’t actually that funny.
Which brings me to my next point: if the Korean title is translated into literal English, it would be, “I Wish The World Ended Tomorrow”. Using many elements of the Roommate Com trope, each episode of So Not Worth It focuses on and draws laughs from unfortunate events that happen to college students living in dorms as well as foreigners adjusting to the South Korean way of life. Since the characters were in constant distress about anything and everything, there was a tendency for the actors to be extremely whiny in a majority of the scenes.
Now, I should mention that I’m also not a huge fan of situational comedy tropes in general. Through and through, I’ve had issues with the way sitcoms used stereotypes as a means of comedy and So Not Worth It was not an exception to that. While it’s always a great thing to create space for foreigners to be on Korean television, it’s hard to go through one episode of So Not Worth It without finding at least one microaggression towards a marginalized identity group. I wasn’t expecting that so many of the jokes in So Not Worth It would be drawn from a person’s skin colour or the country they came from - so I found that highly problematic, given the fact that So Not Worth It is streamed on such a widely available platform such as Netflix.
Given So Not Worth It was Netflix’s first jab at producing a Korean sitcom, I think the show did relatively okay (hence the half-score). I think the pros and the cons are relatively equal given the circumstances. Like I said previously, the cast’s chemistry and the show overall got progressively better near the end of the series. As such, if Netflix ends up renewing the show for a second season, I’m hoping they’ll be able to build on how Season 1 ended.
