Reviews: Human Body Wonders, The Frog, Pachinko, Made in Korea

We Might Regret This (BBC Two) | iPlayer
Michael Mosley: Wonders of the Human Body (Channel 5) | channel5.com
The Frog (Netflix)
Pachinko (Apple TV+)
Made in Korea: The K-Pop Experience (BBC One) | iPlayer

Who knew comedy was missing a catheter chandelier? It hangs proudly in Freya’s bedroom in the opening episode of the new six-parter We Might Regret This (BBC Two), which doesn’t flinch from disability themes. Created and written by Kyla Harris and Lee Getty (Getty once Harris’s carer, AKA personal assistant), it stars Harris as Freya, a semi-autobiographical version of herself (also Canadian, tetraplegic, and an artist), coming to the UK to live with lover Abe (Darren Boyd). The first scene features Freya’s initial witless PA walking in on them having sex (“I always wondered whether it worked with… down there”).

Later, Freya has a catheter inserted in an alleyway because there’s no disabled toilet at a venue, and urine hits her friend Jo (Elena Saurel) in the face (“It’s salty!”). At other points, Jo massages a stool out of Freya’s anus (“Are you gagging?”) and trims her pubes (“What about a centre parting?”). So it goes with We Might Regret This: a darkly comic carnival of ramps, motorised wheelchairs, and emotional needs colliding with bodily functions.

While the show is about disability, including savage lampooning of diversity photoshoots (“Give me ‘I just killed someone’ eyebrows!”), it addresses other things too. When chaotic, lairy Jo becomes Freya’s PA, it distorts their friendship. After Freya moves in with starchy Abe, it’s not as she thought it would be. Older than Freya, he has a dry ex-wife, Jane, portrayed by Sally Phillips, and a grown, snarky son, Levi, played by Edward Bluemel (“I’m not the one having a midlife crisis, albeit a very inclusive one”). Their own family backstory is buckled with loss and sorrow.

We Might Regret This becomes a hum of connections, dysfunction, and disappointments. There’s everything from secret trysts in food vans to volcanic rows (“You argue like you’ve got fucking word count on!”). Throughout, Freya deals with the relentless psychological admin of other people’s reactions to her disability, even involving her shoes (“I wondered whether these might look better on someone standing”). Featuring guest appearances from the likes of Lolly Adefope, Youssef Kerkour, and Tim Key, the show deserves your attention. It’s genuinely (easily, ceaselessly) funny – but also so much richer, more surprising, than you think it’s going to be.

Many were shocked by Michael Mosley’s death in Greece in June. He was an integral part of the medical TV firmament, dealing with health and fitness (he popularised the 5:2 diet in the UK). I’d sometimes catch his programmes, in which he’d bustle around chatting to people or having a peek in their shopping trolleys.

Now Channel 5 is showing the last series he filmed before he died: Michael Mosley: Wonders of the Human Body. Initially, it gave me a start to see it in the schedules (of course, Mosley’s wife agreed for it to air). In the event, it’s nice to see him beetling around, brimming with his customary eccentric enthusiasm: “We’re heading off an extraordinary journey around the human body.”

The three episodes are fast-paced, hopping through topics (brittle bones, essential tremors, cold water swimming, and more). At one point, after receiving a new kind of cardiac check, Mosley expresses relief that he’s unlikely to expire of heart difficulties as early as his father did. Which of course feels sad. Mosley had a knack for simplifying complex health subjects and being able to communicate with people. You never saw him talking down to anyone – a rare gift on television. He will be missed.

I watched all eight episodes of Netflix’s new K-thriller The Frog, created by Son Ho-young, but I may only be able to recall it under hypnosis. It’s so murky and labyrinthine, especially the first half, like a bad dream with stilted dubbing (though I could have turned that off).

In the early 00s timeline (I suppose I should give you spoiler alerts, though the gore is heavily signposted), a murder in a motel destroys the owners’ livelihoods and, ultimately, their sanity. In the same scenic region, 20-odd years later, a man (Kim Yoon-seok) with a holiday rental property is plagued by a macabre female guest with devilish intent, as well as his own guilt.

As a mark of how maddening and opaque The Frog is, it took me a few episodes to work out there were two (linked) timelines. The rationale for the “frog” theme is feeble, and to call the plot “implausible” doesn’t do justice to its plummeting credibility. By the end, the show is a deranged, blood-soaked hot mess. Still, I can’t help but have a sneaking admiration for how unhinged it’s happy to be.

Over on Apple TV+, a much classier Korean series, Soo Hugh’s generations-spanning international hit drama Pachinko, based on the Min Jin Lee novel, returns for a second eight-part outing. Set in Korea, Tokyo, and the US, it has its own twofold timeline: one running through the second world war, as young families struggle to survive in increasingly impossible circumstances, the other shadowing ambitious businessman Solomon (Jin Ha) in the 1980s.

Looking ahead, Pachinko continues to be a beautifully conceived family saga, blessed with heartfelt performances and major themes (love, death, revenge, grief, racism). Then there’s the poetic photography evoking wartime desperation and the brash 80s (when the titular arcade bars were popular) with equal zeal. Pachinko is prestige drama with a big, fat neon “p”.

Finally, still in Korea, take a look at the reality series Made in Korea: the K-Pop Experience, airing on BBC One on Saturday afternoons. Five members of a wannabe British boyband travel to Seoul to be trained in the billion-dollar industry of K-pop by leading company SM Entertainment, which has the likes of Aespa on its books.

It soon becomes clear that K-reality shows have higher standards in the dark arts of synchronised dancing/crooning. An unimpressed super-executive called Hee Jun Yoon makes Simon Cowell resemble Father Christmas. The boys keep looking crestfallen (in K-pop hell, no one cares about your Instagram numbers). Watch this at your peril: the tinny song they’re learning (something about feeling “the vibes!”) has burrowed deep into my eardrums and may have to be removed with tweezers.

Star ratings (out of five)
We Might Regret This ★★★★
Michael Mosley: Wonders of the Human Body ★★★
The Frog ★★
Pachinko ★★★★
Made in Korea: the K-Pop Experience ★★★

What else I’m watching

Brian May: The Badgers, the Farmers and Me (BBC Two)
The Queen guitarist has fought against badger culls for years. In this passionate documentary, he argues that they aren’t the answer to stopping the spread of bovine TB. Beleaguered farmers are also allowed a voice.

Dating Naked (Paramount+)
It’s Love Island meets Naked Attraction in a sun-swept Colombian villa, where all anyone wears is a coating of fake tan. Trashy, entertaining reality TV. Rylan Clark hosts.

Sven (Prime Video)
Documentary about Sven-Göran Eriksson, the former England football manager, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. David Beckham is among the interviewees as Eriksson muses philosophically about his life.

Source: The Guardian, Channel 5, Netflix, Apple TV+, BBC One