TV Bonanza Part 3: Welcome to Wrexham, Magpie Murders, Business Proposal

Do you want to spend less time in America when you watch TV? Well then today I am taking you on a journey to Wales, England, and South Korea. Strap in, it’s gonna be a fun ride.

Welcome to Wrexham: I love a sports documentary. I don’t really love watching sports (except the second innings of a cricket match) but I am always down to watch a documentary that edits all the highlights together for me in a way that gets my blood pumping and makes me want to jump off the couch and scream in support of a team I had never even heard of before I pressed Play. Which is what will happen to you when you watch Welcome to Wrexham, the story of how Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought a struggling Welsh football team and decided to invest in it so that it could move up into the next league in the English football league system.

The show is perfect for a novice like me who knows nothing about how English football works. It gives you a rigorous primer in the background of this team, the town, the players, the coach, the support staff, the fans, the local pub owner, just every damn thing that goes into the ecosystem of running this team. It is comprehensive and empathetic, effortlessly weaving in individual stories into the grand narrative of this team’s quest for promotion into League Two, and it finally made me understand why people get so passionate about football. Every match that is played is a nail-biting extravaganza, and this show is beautifully shot and edited, cutting away at crucial moments and giving you just the right context you need to appreciate every moment for its grace and pathos. And it’s also a story about the bromance between Reynolds and McElhenney, two very non-English men, who earnestly share a desire to help this Welsh town and its people (along with having a healthy fear of losing the millions of dollars they've poured into this venture). If you love football, you will love this show. If you don’t know anything about football, you may love it even more. 

Magpie Murders: I just recently finished reading Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz and then discovered they adapted it for TV this year. So I promptly binged the whole series and found myself just as charmed by the show as I was by the book. This is the story of Susan Ryeland (the marvelous Lesley Manville) who is Alan Conway's editor. Alan (Conleth Hill) is an arrogant mystery writer and while Susan doesn’t love the man, his books are a reliable bestseller for her publishing company. However, the latest manuscript she has received, the latest in a series starring fictional detective Atticus Pund (Tim McMullan), is missing the final chapter, containing the grand denouement of the murderer. And before she can get that chapter, Alan turns up dead, due to an apparent suicide. Heavy emphasis on the “apparent.”

The show does an ingenious job of taking the twisty structure of the book and successfully adapting it for TV. Because what we get are two separate murder mysteries - the one involving the author of the book, but also the one contained within the book itself, which is set in the 1950s in a sleepy English village where the lord of the manor has been killed. Alan wrote people from his real life into his books, so the casting is doing double duty here to make those connections. If you’re looking for two compelling stories for the price of one, I highly recommend you watch this show, though even more than that, I highly recommend you gobble up the book like I did first. I will say the book was allowed to be a bit more liberal with its language, so the show got a bit laughably prudish at times. But the acting and production design are, of course, impeccable, because the British know how to pull off a murder mystery series like no one else. This story is an ode to Agatha Christie and Poirot but is still fresh and fun, so you can get your daily dose of nostalgia along with six episodes of murderously entertaining television. 

Business Proposal: I was looking for something light and fluffy to watch and my friend Candice suggested this show. As I hadn’t watched a Korean show in a while, I figured I should dive back into that world, and oh what a treat. For twelve episodes, you will get a screwball comedy that is full of twists and turns but never fails to delight. Kim Se-jeong and Ahn Hyo-seop star as Shin Ha-ri and Kang Tae-moo. Ha-ri works as a researcher for the food company where Tae-moo has been newly appointed as the CEO. His grandfather is desperate for Tae-moo to get married and insists he go on blind dates with the daughters of other wealthy Korean families. Meanwhile, Ha-ri is best friends with Jin Young-seo (Seol In-ah) who is the daughter of a wealthy Korean family (can you see where this is going?). When Young-seo's father asks her to go on a blind date with Tae-moo, she begs Ha-ri to take her place instead and act crazy so that he will want nothing to do with her. And from there we get a classic tale of mistaken identities and absolute hilarity.

This show brightened my day in hourly installments. I would dole it out to myself when I needed a boost and it never failed to charm me. It's a steady romcom, where you’re desperately waiting to see when these people will figure out who they really are and acknowledge their feelings for each other. The side plot involving their best friends also stumbling their way into love means that you get even more lovely romance than you were expecting. And you will also get plenty of laughs from the supporting cast who make up the family and colleagues of the main characters. As with any Korean show, the production design and costumes are stellar, and there’s even more emphasis on food than usual given that the leads work for a food company. If you’ve been looking for a breezy way to get acquainted with Korean TV, this is definitely the way to go. But maybe grab some fried chicken and kimchi before you start.