General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

So Not Worth It (내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어)

So Not Worth It (내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어, literally "I Wish the Earth Would End Tomorrow") is a South Korean television sitcom that premiered on Netflix on June 18, 2021, and ran for one season of 12 episodes. It follows a group of Korean and international students living in a college dormitory in Seoul, and it was the first sitcom produced by Netflix in South Korea.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Korean title	내일 지구가 망해버렸으면 좋겠어¹
Premiere	June 18, 2021, worldwide on Netflix; all 12 episodes released the same day³
Format	Scripted sitcom, Korean language, average runtime about 32 minutes⁴
Creators	Kwon Ik-joon and Kim Jung-sik; screenplay by Seo Eun-jung and Baik Ji-hyun¹
Production	Mystic Story; released worldwide only on Netflix¹
Status	Ended after one season; no second season³
Audience rating	6.9/10 on IMDb from about 1,700 user votes⁵

Spoilers

Premise and setting

The series is set in the international dormitory of Daehan International University in Seoul, where students from Korea and abroad live together, make friends, fall in love, and stumble through everyday mishaps.⁶ Netflix's own synopsis describes a sitcom about "the youthful adventures of students with multicultural backgrounds who live in a college dorm in Seoul," with characters who say "everything is SO NOT WORTH IT" but cannot give up on love and friendship.⁷

Producer Kwon Ik-joon said he wanted the show to convey a word of encouragement to young people, a message summarized as "live and enjoy today."⁸ The title itself reflects that mood: the Korean title wishes for the world to end tomorrow so that today's worries lose their weight.⁹

Cast and characters

The eight main dorm residents pair Korean actors with foreign residents of Korea, several of whom played characters sharing their own names.¹

Se-wan (Park Se-wan), a third-year business major and the dormitory's resident assistant, the only Korean among the residents; she works constant part-time jobs, including at a meat restaurant and in a mascot costume, because she needs the money.¹^•⁹
Jamie (Shin Hyeon-seung), a Korean-American free-major freshman and the dorm's new face, who gets dragged into Se-wan's schemes and gradually develops feelings for her.⁹
Sam (Choi Young-jae of the K-pop boy band GOT7), a Korean-Australian design student whose bluster sometimes tips into near-fabricated stories, at which point his ears turn red.¹^•⁹
Minnie (Minnie of the girl group (G)I-DLE, in her acting debut), a Thai student who came to Korea because of K-dramas.¹
Hyun-min (Han Hyun-min), a Korean model-turned-actor playing a Black mixed-race Korean student who secretly squats in the international dorm because his home in Icheon makes his daily commute a five-hour round trip.¹^•⁹
Hans (Joakim Sorensen), a Swedish graduate student in cultural anthropology who knows Korean culture better than many Koreans and sticks rigidly to his principles.⁷^•⁹
Carson (Carson Allen), an American senior architecture student with blond hair, blue eyes, a temper, and a fondness for buldak stir-fried noodles, waiting for her boyfriend to finish military service.⁷^•⁹
Terris (Terris Brown), a master's student in business from Trinidad and Tobago, knowledgeable about many subjects and cheerfully self-assured.⁷^•⁹

The foreign students on screen represent Thailand, Australia, Sweden, the United States, and Trinidad and Tobago.⁶ In interviews, Carson Allen, Terris Brown, and Joakim Sorensen said the hardest part of filming was delivering emotional performances in Korean; Allen noted that after years of speaking polite Korean she had no experience raising her voice or arguing in the language.¹⁰

Production

Netflix confirmed production on September 25, 2020, assembling a team associated with the classic Korean sitcoms Three Guys and Three Girls, Nonstop, and High Kick: creator Kwon Ik-joon, producer Kim Jung-sik, and writers Seo Eun-jung and Baik Ji-hyun.¹ The show was produced by Mystic Story and filmed in Seoul.¹^•⁵ At the time, Korean streaming drama was dominated by one-hour series, and the 30-minute American-style sitcom format was unusual for Korean content; director Kim Jung-sik argued the format's arrival on Netflix came at the right moment.⁸

Filming took place during the COVID-19 pandemic; the cast held script readings over Zoom when they could not meet in person, which Choi Young-jae described as markedly less effective than reading together in a room.⁹

Reception

Critical and audience responses were mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 78% Tomatometer from only two reviews, with too few audience ratings for a reliable Popcornmeter score.¹¹ IMDb users gave it 6.9 out of 10.⁵

Reviewers singled out the laugh track as a recurring problem. The South China Morning Post wrote that the canned laughter seemed to have been "dropped in at random intervals using a computer program," and found it hard to discern a theme beneath the constant yelling and slapstick.⁶ The Review Geek called the season "a real mixed bag of quality," citing heavy exposition, an episodic format, and the laugh track.¹² On the positive side, Joel Keller of Decider wrote that the show tries to make its characters more than goofy stereotypes, and Daniel Hart of Ready Steady Cut gave it 3.5 out of 5, praising its portrayal of a vibrant community.¹³

The Korean Culture and Information Service, the government agency promoting Korean culture abroad, credited the show with winning international fans through its multiethnic cast and with portraying a more diverse image of life in Korea.² An academic thesis on Korean media likewise notes that the show's episodic storytelling engages with the experience of being non-Korean in Korea with lightheartedness.¹⁴

The show was not renewed. It ended after its single 12-episode season, with the final episode airing on June 18, 2021, the same day the season premiered.³

Significance

As Netflix's first Korean sitcom, the series marked an experiment in format for Korean streaming content, which had otherwise consisted of hour-long dramas.²^•⁸ Its casting was also notable: it put foreign residents of Korea, including Carson Allen, Terris Brown, and Joakim Sorensen, in main roles of a major Korean production, and gave K-pop idols Choi Young-jae and Minnie acting roles alongside their music careers.¹^•¹⁰

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Korean contemporary drama › Comedy and slice-of-life series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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