Dramas like
Chief Detective 1958

A squad that closes cases by intimidation, and the gap between then and now is the whole show. Sixteen episodes where a data-driven detective lands in 1988 and has to work with methods thirty years out of date, mined for comedy first and then for something much colder about what policing used to be. The best match here by a distance. Difference: Life on Mars turns genuinely bleak about the era it is set in, where this keeps 1958 affectionate.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the 1988 precinct stops being a joke to him and starts being a place.

A procedural built to be fun in every single hour, and the cleanest example of the form here. Snappy dialogue, cases that close, action staged rather than edited, and a partnership that grows without a romance forced into it. Same promise: no homework. Difference: Flex X Cop is contemporary and slick where this runs on period texture, and its unit takes violence seriously.

Hooks early Episode 1. A rich heir gets dumped into a violent crimes unit and the tone is locked in immediately.

Old-fashioned police work dropped into a world it does not understand. Sixteen episodes with the premise delivered in twenty minutes, a competent policeman whose methods are obsolete, and a rulebook the show keeps faith with all the way through. Difference: Tunnel is chasing one serial case rather than a case a week, and its back half gets careless enough that it should have stopped at twelve.

Hooks early Episode 1. A 1986 detective lands in 2017 inside the first twenty minutes.

An unlikely team taking apart a corrupt district, and the funniest action comedy Korea has made. Forty half hours, rage played as slapstick, and a conspiracy that stays remarkably tidy for the length. Same pleasure in watching bad men lose to people who should not be able to beat them. Difference: The Fiery Priest is contemporary, much louder, and a far bigger time commitment.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the priest, the prosecutor and the detective are stuck in the same room.

Period crime with a comic double life and twelve fast episodes. Investigation kept light, an ensemble that carries it, and a Joseon setting played for enjoyment rather than accuracy. Difference: Knight Flower is a household comedy as much as a crime show, so half its running time is spent on a deception this show has no equivalent for.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the masked night work and the household deception start colliding.

The same decade, taken completely seriously. Sixteen episodes of 1960s political machinery and two men whose partnership is doomed by history, grounded by Song Kang Ho. Difference: Uncle Samsik is slow, talky and dense with period politics, so it is the version of this era that asks for full attention.

Slow start Episode 4, where the political machinery behind the partnership becomes visible.