The Producers (Season 1)

The Producers (Produsa, 2015) is the Korean comedy-drama series you can watch online on iFILM. It plays out behind the scenes at the KBS broadcasting network, where ratings decide everything and the crew fights for every fraction of a viewership point. Into this chaos walks rookie Baek Seung-chan, who quit a near-certain career as a prosecutor and chased a job in TV all for a girl.

He's taken under the wing of Ra Joon-mo (Cha Tae-hyun), a producer of ten years who has carried plenty of hit shows but never once seen one air under his own name. Beside them is Tak Ye-jin (Gong Hyo-jin), once shy, now hardened by a decade in the music department into someone who tells her bosses exactly what she thinks. Pop singer IU plays a diva idol here in one of her first big acting turns.

The show is shot in a mock-documentary style, with characters talking straight to camera like a reality program, which gives it a rhythm unlike most Korean romance dramas. Tangled love lines run alongside genuinely sharp satire of how television gets made. Stream The Producers online on iFILM.