Duty After School (Review)
(방과 후 전쟁활동; Part 1 released on March 31, 2023; Part 2 released on April 21; 10 episodes)
While Duty After School gained some popularity on social media, ultimately, in my opinion, the whole show is a waste of time. The show doesn’t really know what it is, and often switches between genres: horror or sci-fi thriller, action series, and comedy, with little consistency.
The premise is nearly identical to that of Netflix’s All of Us Are Dead with a difference that instead of zombies we have an alien invasion. So, the main characters are high school students who are enlisted into the South Korean army and have to defend the country against aliens (at least in theory).
However, if you expect a Korean sci-fi series in the vein of Independence Day or War of the Worlds, you would be disappointed. In fact, after a couple of the initial episodes the series transforms into a post-apocalyptic story, where war with aliens serves only as an excuse to isolate the characters. So, for most of the series our high schoolers armed with M16s wander aimlessly through post-apocalyptic Korea, occasionally encountering aliens or somebody else. Short action sequences are divided with long scenes when we learn how our characters deal with difficult conditions and their lives in the new reality. In addition to that, we have a lot of dialogues and debates among those characters, when they discuss what to do next. It is quite apparent that the show creators had the same problem: what to do next?
The prevailing theme of the show is the underlying assumption that the high schoolers will return to regular high school life at some point and will have to take Korean CSAT exams (however peculiar it is against the background of alien invasion). The Army command lured them into military service promising extra points for CSATs (although I would imagine that is hardly necessary in a total war situation with alien invasion). In a sense then the show is about Korean obsession with high school education and students living under pressure (like recent Crash Course in Romance), but in a bizarre setting of post-apocalyptic world swarmed with hostile aliens.
The show has numerous problems. The main cast of the show is enormous: more than twenty students, plus soldiers and a teacher, and that doesn’t count additional supporting characters. While the show slowly eliminates some of the characters, as is usual for horror shows, the cast is still too big to keep up with everybody, and distinguishing between characters is difficult. Also, most of the characters do not have much time on screen, so in general they have little to no back stories, motivations, etc.
There is also no consistent plot in the show, there is no endpoint or goal characters aim towards, no overarching villain besides impersonal aliens (who also have no apparent goals besides the destruction of humanity). There is really no tension in the entire series, besides short action scenes which are resolved very quickly. In addition, the whole show suffers from numerous plot holes and moments that defy logic, or internally established rules. Also, as I mentioned, there are problems with pacing, often making the show literally boring. The tone of the show is not consistent, it jumps from horror or personal tragedy into goofy comedy: while to some degree this is typical for K-Dramas, it also prevents viewers from taking any events in the show seriously.
The show intended a surprising finale, and while it is unexpected or even shocking, it also sends an unclear message, so it’s not entirely certain what the intention of the show creators was. And its message, however serious, is immediately undermined by cringe pre-credit and post-credit scenes.
In sum, Duty After School is a show troubled by problems with consistency and pacing. In the end, the viewers would find better use of their time elsewhere.
Duty After School on Wikipedia and MyDramaList
