Dramas like
Mr. Queen

Identical premise, five years later: a modern chef, a Joseon palace, a king who has to be fed. The cooking sequences are genuinely worth the runtime and Lee Chae Min plays the tyrant as a spoiled connoisseur. Difference: it is twelve episodes with about four hours of story, so the food gets the attention the characters needed, and the palace politics never mean anything.

Slow start Episode 3, once the cooking competition format kicks in. The ratings peak at episode 4 and never get back there.

The other palace comedy built on somebody being the wrong gender in the wrong room. Same pleasure of a court that runs on protocol being handled by somebody who refuses to respect it, plus real political stakes underneath. Difference: it is a sincere youth romance rather than a farce, so the comedy is gentle and nobody is doing physical comedy at this level.

Hooks early Episode 1. The disguise and the meeting are both set up immediately.

Fantasy sageuk that gets the comedy and the court politics into the same hour. Same trick of a soul in the wrong body, played for chemistry, with an ensemble that keeps the jokes running while the plot thickens. Difference: the swap is a tragedy rather than a gag, and it resets its own stakes between arcs, which is the comfort this show never offers.

Slow start Episode 3, once the training arc starts and the ensemble locks in.

A monarchy, a contract marriage and total commitment to the bit. Same understanding that a romcom works when it stops hedging: no reluctant will-they, no half-episode misunderstandings, and a second couple worth the screen time. Difference: modern Korea, no fantasy, no history, and the villains are cardboard where this show's court actually schemes.

Hooks early Episode 1, and it keeps climbing to episode 3. The contract is signed early and the show never stalls waiting for the leads to admit anything.

Same writer on the other side of the genre. Choi Ah Il again, on a supernatural being forced into a marriage of convenience with somebody who will not be handled. Difference: contemporary chaebol setting, comfort 1, and it is colder and hornier, with none of the ensemble farce that carries the palace here.

Slow start Episode 7, where the contract stops being a gag and the demon actually has something to lose.

For the performance, which is the honest reason anybody finishes this. Shin Hye Sun again playing somebody out of their own time, with the same control of comic timing and sudden sincerity. Difference: gentle contemporary melodrama with no politics and no engine, so it drifts where Mr. Queen sprints.

Hooks early Episode 2, once she is in the house and the two histories start touching.