“Dr. Ken,” the ABC sitcom produced by Sony starring Korean American comedian Ken Jeong, comes back Friday for its second season.
The show, which chronicles the life of Ken Park, a narcissistic joke-cracking HMO physician, made its debut last October and features other prominent Asian American actors like Suzy Nakamura and Margaret Cho, who play his wife and sister, respectively.
As the season unfolds, Ken will find himself working at the same hospital as his wife Allison, who has taken up a well-paying position there, and also deal with his father moving into his home. The show will also feature a special crossover episode featuring cast members of ABC;s “Shark Tank.”
“Dr. Ken” looks to bounce back after suffering poor reviews in its first season, with a 26 percent approval rating on Metacritic and a 7 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Jeong, who is known for his roles on “Community” and “The Hangover” trilogy, was a real-life physician before he took up a full-time acting career.
“[The show] is loosely based on my life working as a physician in Los Angeles, and loosely based on my family life,” Jeong told Variety in an interview. “My character name is my name, so there’s definitely more pressure to it.”
Jeong, who became a doctor in 1995 after receiving his medical license from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, had a successful medical practice before becoming an actor. He told HNGN that his roles in “Knocked Up” and “The Hangover” changed his life from black and white to technicolor.
“I was very happy working at an HMO,” Jeong said to HNGN of his previous life as an actual doctor. “The last six years of my life have just been a bonus. I’m ready for that bonus, I have this amazing once in a lifetime opportunity to do something of this magnitude, and I’m not going to let it go.”
