I expected "Doom at Your Service" to easily become a new drama favorite of mine. It stars
Seo In Guk as an attractive and mysterious male lead, which is his specialty and almost a guarantee that I'll get hooked, but his storyline is hijacked by a mediocre love triangle/fractured bromance that made me lose any interest I had. Instead of getting a fully fleshed-out-fantasy- romance about Doom itself going against character and falling in love with a depressed woman, I got a boring office drama about writers and editors with way too much dialogue and not enough plot. This is also meant to be a tear-jerker yet my eyes remained dry the entire time. This drama went from addictive to barely watchable fast. I almost dropped it in the last episodes because it dragged so much. Maybe a more dynamic female lead could have kept me interested longer. Even though Park Bo Young may be cute, and even likable, she annoyed me as the Tak Dong Kyung.

Dong Kyung as a character starts off amazing. She does the unexpected, she appears brave and considerate and clever, but as the story loses direction so does the character. There were too many Park Bo Young scenes with her crying/whining before I had a chance to fully connect with the character's situation. I also felt declining chemistry between her and Seo In Guk as Doom/Sa Ram. What started with an interesting connection turned into long conversations and repetitive fantasy sequences but not a love story I could connect with. I'm just gonna say it, Seo In Guk is much better at passionate scenes and showing depth (like in "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes"), and he tried to carry many of their scenes with subtle choices I loved, but having Park Bo Young play so innocent, almost childish, missed the mark for me. She also seemed too indifferent about literally dying for too long. The denial in the beginning aside, which worked well, as episodes evolved I just didn't believe she was a woman making life or death choices which stopped me from caring enough to cry or just fall in love with the story. I can't say she was bad in the role, she just wasn't good enough to make me buy into this unusual plot. Big Park Bo Young fans may feel differently and be more forgiving, which would make a huge difference in whether you like this drama or not. She is in 2 unique concept dramas that I loved "Strong Woman Do Bong Soon" and "Oh My Ghostess", where being cute worked much better, but not this time. I was unimpressed.

The next problematic character for me is Jeong Ji So as "God". I didn't mind the whole Dora The Explorer Diety Gardner thing, or her performance, but her esoteric unclear presence in the story was more frustrating than interesting. Mainly, again, because she talked too much and showed too little (besides random plants). Maybe some things were lost in translation, but her long conversations and observations may be good in a novel, or a webtoon, but on screen, it just drags and bored me almost to sleep at times. I'm wondering if the dialogue sounds so "beautiful" in Korean that the writer fell too in love with their own words to cut any of it down and remember that showing is more compelling than telling on screen. Yes, there were a few well-done visual scenes but they were still mostly overwhelmed by talking. Too many scenes of the leads just staring at each other in bed (together and apart) was a huge romantic disappointment too. They were damn near platonic for such an epic fated love story, with too much narration. It lacked enough passion to sustain the story to the end and by the time things resolved I barely cared.

Oh, and about that extra love triangle, usually even a cliché love triangle has exciting scenes and chemistry but nope... these 3 characters also just have lots of conversations about the past, about each other, about what they may want to do or should have done, with very little actual progress. I think Lee Soo Hyuk as blunt and straight-faced Cha Joo Ik was supposed to be funny, but I found those banter scenes to be flat. I'm sure much of that intended dry humor was lost on me as well. For me, just having two attractive men isn't enough to fuel a love triangle romance plot. It also has nothing to do with the Doom plot, which makes it seem like unnecessary filler or a different drama.

I did like her brother's character, mainly for cute comic relief, but most of the other characters are just ok, and pretty forgettable (Shout out to poor Kevin who didn't even make the cast list lol).

Would I watch this again? I wouldn't torture myself like that. I'm sure a lot of these actors will go on to better dramas that I'll watch and I will probably forget this drama even exists after a while.

The OST is also forgettable but oh how I love Seo In Guk's voice. Rather, I just love him and his beautiful voice is a bonus. I didn't fall in love with any songs though... or his hair color.

Overall this drama is a huge miss. Maybe it's good if you want to hear more Korean dialogue than usual as language practice (it's A LOT y'all) but I can't call this drama good. It is an ambitious and pretty original idea but that's not enough to make this drama work as a whole. Characters saying how they feel instead of showing it for me felt like a romance buzz kill and lazy. If this drama had no Doom character I would have dropped it almost immediately. I also expected tears, since sadly cancer scenarios are too familiar in my real life, but my eyes remained dry the entire time. And what's worse than abusing flashbacks... describing flashbacks as you abuse and overuse them. I looked up the last drama written by this writer and it was "The Beauty Inside", another drama with all concept and zero plot. Another movie plot idea stretched beyond its means. Another missed opportunity to create a really interesting love story. Maybe I should have double-checked who the writer was before I decided not to drop this. Sadly, those who don't learn which drama writers create shows they should have dropped are doomed to repeat it.

I guess Seo In Guk was too good at his Doom role because he doomed me to complete this.