One beneficiary of the coronavirus pandemic has been the video streaming service Netflix. Stuck at home with free time on their hands, many people, rather than finally clean out the attic or write that book, turn to effortless pastimes. Bingeing TV serials is custom-made for these times.

The South Korean romantic melodrama "Crash Landing on You" is the one that has received the most attention, at least in Asia. As far as “Korean Wave” exports go, it's standard fare: True love beset by extraordinary forces arrayed to keep our protagonists apart. Fate figures decisively in every episode. Plot twists are the rule rather than the exception. Dei ex machina run riot.

What makes "Crash Landing" generative of not only gushing fan tributes and magazine profiles but also scholarly analyses is its high-concept premise. Yoon Se-ri (Son Ye-jin), an heir to a South Korean conglomerate, goes paragliding and is blown into North Korea, where she lands in a tree and is discovered by Ri Jeong-hyeok (Hyun Bin), a handsome army captain and the scion of a powerful political family.