Shield Me, Please

"Faith," available as "The Great Doctor" on Netflix

I've been enjoying the Korean time travel drama "Faith", in which a general, the loyal retainer of Korean prince in the Goryeo period, travels forward in time. His task is to find a doctor who can save the prince's intended, a Yuan dynasty princess who was injured in an assassination attempt. He has to save his bride. Otherwise there will be Mongol trouble, and he will not become king.

The general passes through the time portal that connects a shrine in medieval Korea with a location in contemporary Seoul. He thinks he has arrived in sagely Heaven; he kidnaps the first doctor that he can.

Unfortunately for the general, the woman he kidnaps is an extremely whiney plastic surgeon, not some gifted physican-immortal. But he won't learn that until it's too late. The general fights the local police, grabs one of the fallen cops' plastic riot shields, and heads back through the portal with the shield and his doctor. Adventure ensues in the past. The intrigue of a jealous elder prince, bomb throwing assassins, an evil flute playing bishonen sorcerer, and much, much more lay ahead for our general and his heavenly physician.

The most important shield in Korean history

I love the detail that the general brings the riot shield into the past. It takes a beating. I'm about eight episodes into the series, and the shield is a mess of spiderweb cracks, and there's a fist-sized hole where a chunk of plastic has fallen out entirely. The shield is so Gamma World. But without the apocalypse.

That whole post-apocalyptic thing is starting to get really tired.

We need more of this kind of thing: the past, contaminated by relics of the future.