I knew that The Virus was wretched when the first of ten episodes used the framing device “How We Got Here” or In Medias Res-starts with the late middle of the series then flashes back to the beginning of the story. Also The Virus isn’t my first South Korean television series. That honor goes to the delightful Vampire Prosecutor. Unfortunately The Virus uses similar narrative techniques as that show, but to far less charming effect: shots of corpuscles moving through a main character’s veins, main character suffers a tortured past with the loss of an important child in his life, wears stylish tight fitting clothes, random rap/electronic music, absolute loyalty of staff, randomly really good at hand to hand combat, coworker crush on the leader that is largely dropped by the middle of the series. I love pandemic story lines, but this show didn’t seem to think that a deadly virus was enough of a pull. They threw in corporate/government conspiracies, international criminals, The Happening complications, and multiple manhunts. Even with all of that, the budget seemed to be limited and towards the middle and end of the series, despite being told by talking heads that all hell is breaking loose throughout the world, we don’t see it. It didn’t help that this CDC was the worst CDC in history: the leader kept shouting in loud exclamations and causing panic in crowded rooms, long stares exchanged between characters, declare protocol then break it and didn’t seem to have any protocol in most circumstances, long sequences of overly emotional responses to stress, constantly exposing themselves to the virus with emotional outbursts that require covering his face with latex glove covered hands. By the middle to end of the series, the supporting staff generally stays in the office and acts like a Greek chorus reacting to the events on the outside. One woman never left the computer. Never! Her outfits changed, but she never left her desk once. The only enjoyable characters who seemed to have an iota of common sense were a journalist and the cops. One key character never showed emotions. Never! Was he told to act that way or was he a horrible actor? I have no idea. It was so melodramatic and ridiculous that I should have stopped watching The Virus as soon as I started, but as a completist, I decided to finish it. It was only 10 episodes after all. Don’t watch The Virus thinking that it is so bad that it is good—even for all the scenes where a white character speaks English and the Korean characters speak Korean, and there is no one interpreting, which does not happen all the time. Just not worth your time.