Dramas like
When the Camellia Blooms

Same writer, sixty years instead of one. Im Sang Choon again on a woman the world has decided to underestimate, with the same ear for how a village talks about somebody behind her back. It is one of the ten highest rated Korean dramas ever made and it earns that without doing anything clever. Difference: no thriller and no mystery, and it is far more interested in time passing than in anything being solved.

Hooks early Episode 2, where the childhood section pays off.

Same writer, younger and funnier. Four friends in their late twenties who are not winning, written with the same generosity toward people who have been told to lower their expectations. Same instinct for a supporting cast you actually enjoy. Difference: no small town, no child and no threat, so it is comfort with nothing dark underneath it.

Hooks early Episode 1. The friendship is fully established in the first twenty minutes.

The seaside village show that everything else gets measured against. Eight or nine supporting characters with real arcs, and the setting doing half the emotional work. Same pleasure of a community deciding to be on somebody's side. Difference: the darkness is one man’s private grief rather than a live threat, so it is much safer television.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the village cast is established.

Same director, the hometown half done properly. Cha Young Hoon on Jeju, a disgraced woman returning home, and a village full of people with opinions about it. The back half is excellent and the per-episode ratings pick up with it. Difference: the first seven episodes are a career scandal plot it should have dropped much earlier, and there is no crime anywhere in it.

Slow start Episode 8, when the show finally drops the career scandal plot and becomes the hometown drama it was always trying to be.

Motherhood written as damage and love in the same gesture. A woman who raised her son cruelly because the world was crueller, and Ra Mi Ran playing both halves at once. Same refusal to sentimentalise a mother who has been failed by everyone. Difference: it earns its tears with one unavoidable loss, so it is a considerably heavier watch than this one.

Hooks early Episode 2, once he wakes up changed and the pig farm becomes the whole world.

The same community, split into chapters. Jeju, an anthology, and middle-aged characters written with real patience, including a storyline about a woman the island has judged for decades. Difference: there is no continuous plot and no antagonist, so the propulsion that keeps Camellia moving is deliberately absent.

Slow start Episode 3 closes the first chapter and sells the anthology format.