Yitorok Chinmilhan Baeshinja

As of this review, 5 episodes have been released in this 10-epdisode drama. So far, it seems we have a winner. There's much to talk about, but I want to start by saying stylish the show was shot and edited. The dark tone throughout the show and background music adds to the suspense. This psycho drama about a veteran profiler trying to solve a potential serial murder case with his own daughter involved somehow in at least one of the deaths takes you on quite a ride.

This show is not for casual viewing, as you will need to pay attention to keep up with quite a few key characters introduced in the first few episodes. As I've mentioned, the first half of this show has been incredibly good. I certainly hope the second part can deliver what it promises.

The storyline is captivating and the acting is top notch. You'll find yourself immersed in this story from the get go and will find yourself trying to investigate and solve the case along with the characters.

Since the show has more episodes to be delivered and you never know if the show is going to go off a cliff somehow, so I'll reserve further comment. However, so far so good, in fact, very good.

The plot is very good, however, perhaps with the intention of adding more drama, the director presents us with excessively long scenes, so long that they even look like still shots, which makes the development a bit slow and boring. Despite this detail, the characters seem to adapt very well to this slow style of telling the story, where the performance of the suspicious daughter and the profiler stand out in an outstanding way, even giving the impression of having worked with this director in other opportunities. Describing the style as slow is not intended as a negative criticism, on the contrary, given that this is a drama and suspense series in which each episode gives us more questions than answers, it may be of interest to that audience that loves to be kept on the edge of the couch without a single clue about the outcome.

Doubt as a series is not a psychological drama, but an unnecessarily stretched-to-the-max attempt to a thriller. The profiler character is a police officer who sometimes paces away with -or utters- a clue (we will never know how he got to his conclusions, but he is a profiler so why question his methods). The daughter (who is a suspect) is someone who refuses to explain her actions to anyone. But is perma-angry that she is a suspect. The series pace is painfully slow, I fear that this is what some confuse with psychological. It completely ruined the story for me. I found myself skipping parts, skipping episodes and still very much able to follow the clue in the last part. So: poorly worked-out characters and motivations, super slow pace, nonsensical attitudes. The best actors to me are officer Gu Dae-Hong (played by Roh Jae-Won) and criminal Choi Young-Min (played by Kim Jung-Jin). I found the rest utterly forgettable.

I've watched the first two episodes of "Doubt" or "Such a Close Traitor" and I'd rate them as 9 out of 10.

It is veeery suspenseful and thrilling.

An unsocial but brilliant police profiler has been living with his 18 year old daughter in his big house but apparently only for a short time.

We don't know what happened to the mother, but she divorced the police profiler some time ago and seems to have died recently.

The daughter is very cold, meticulous and calculating. She does not feel empathy for anyone and when she shows emotions in public they are just made up to fool people to make them do what she wants - or to hide who or what she really is.

The police profiler has to solve one last case before he moves somewhere else with his daughter.

During the investigation of the murder of a young girl the police profiler begins to suspect his daughter of being the killer.

The longer the investigation goes the more evidence leads to her as the culprit.

We also learn that the police profiler has also been suspecting his daughter of having killed her little brother when she was about 12.

Then he discovers that during the current police investigation his daughter has been snooping around his files and then destroyed a piece of evidence (some little fuzzy red cat pendant) which would have linked her directly to the murder.

The police profiler then confronts his daughter and asks her directly if she had killed the young girl a few days ago.

She just stands up and without emotions asks her father instead: "Do you REALLY think my little brother died from an accident - and do you REALLY think mom committed suicide?"

Wooooooooooooo.......

I really can't wait to see the next episode!

Doubt... doubt... and more doubt. These doubts only lead to bigger problems.

Why can't people just ask directly instead of merely doubting? So many issues wouldn't arise if we simply asked and listened for answers. This TV show brilliantly captures the role of doubt in the world we live in.

Every episode is a masterfully crafted thriller. The scenes with the father and daughter are so intense that they leave the viewer breathless.

I've watched a lot of TV shows this year but I believe this one is the best of 2024. Sometimes, after watching shows, I found out I got something very helpful and valuable for my life. This is one of them.