When Your Old K-Drama Boyfriend Is Better Than Your New One

Whether it's a coincidence or part of a trend, sometimes drama themes imitate each other. Two currently running dramas explore the idea of lost relationships and what might have been done to make them work. "Discovery of Love" and "My Secret Hotel" both ask the same questions: Is your lost love  better than the one you have now? Might things have turned out differently with that ex if only you tried harder.

In "Discovery of Love," Jung Yu Mi's character used to date Eric Moon's character. They fell in love at first sight and were madly in love for five years. Then they fell out of love and now she's dating what seems like the perfect man. Sung Joon plays a handsome, charming, considerate doctor and Jung Yu Mi has no intention of giving him up for a guy she already broke up with.

Except that maybe Sung Joon's doctor is not so perfect after all. He lets his mom convince him to go on blind dates and he meets up with another woman. But the real issue is that Jung Yu Mi and Eric Moon still have feelings for each other. He is more honest about his but hers are just as real.

What should she do?

In "My Secret Hotel," Yoo In Na plays a wedding planner who is shocked to find that the wedding she is planning has her ex as a groom? She says she is no longer interested in him. She has caught the eye of the dashing hotel director played by Nam Goong Mi.  At first she and her ex, played by Jin Yi Han, are rude to each other, but her feelings for him were also never resolved. It takes him a while but he realizes he never got over her. It takes her longer to admit it but even before she does it interferes with her accepting Nam Goong Min's advances.

Is it a coincidence that these two dramas explore the implications of breaking up. They are certainly not the first as last year's "Emergency Couple" also played with the idea that breaking up or even divorcing may just be a phase in a relationship.

In both current dramas, the characters replay the previous relationship, including both the good and the bad moments. They wonder what they might have done differently and how they might have saved that precious love when they still had it. And they work hard to fix whatever went wrong so they can start the romance all over again.

In real life do-overs are rare but in k-dramas they can be oh-so-sweet.