Dramas like
Hyper Knife

A brilliant professional who is also the problem, and the man who cannot stop watching her. Same two-hander tension and the same refusal to tell you which of them to trust, over eleven episodes that keep the pressure on. Difference: it is a real murder investigation with a trail to follow, where this is mostly two people talking to each other.

Hooks early Episode 1. A profiler is the prime suspect in her own uncle's murder, and the puzzle cards start arriving immediately.

A senior figure who has to consider that the person he trained is capable of anything. Shares the mentor problem exactly, and Han Seok Kyu does the same quiet, cornered work Sul Kyung Gu does here. Difference: it is family rather than faculty, and much slower on purpose.

Hooks early Episode 1. The profiler finds his own daughter inside his case before the first hour is out.

An absurdly competent surgeon against a hospital that would rather not. Same operating theatre, same interest in genius as a management problem, and eight episodes with nothing wasted in them. Difference: it is a comedy at heart, so the pleasure is competence rather than dread.

Hooks early Episode 1. A surgeon arrives from a war zone and starts breaking hospital policy inside twenty minutes. There is no slow build anywhere in the eight episodes.

A woman the show refuses to soften. Both hand a lead permission to be monstrous and then keep the camera on her, and neither asks you to approve. Difference: the register is tragic rather than clinical, and it covers twenty years.

Slow start Episode 3, when the lead is recast and the show reveals it is a relay race across three actresses rather than one story.

Clever people making the worst available choice, at speed. Six episodes, no filler, and the same view of intelligence as something that mostly helps people hide. Difference: it is an ensemble with a mechanism rather than a duel.

Slow start Episode 3, once the separate timelines start colliding and the structure becomes the point of the whole thing.

The mentor and protege relationship, done as a reason to keep going instead of a wound. Same medicine, same senior surgeon with impossible standards, and it is the best in that mode here. Difference: twenty warm episodes about saving people, which is the opposite of this show's temperature.

Hooks early Episode 1. The operating theatre and the ethics are both live inside the first hour.