8 K-Dramas Start in August 2026 — All Air Times

Eight Korean dramas start or return in August 2026. They are spread across six channels, and start times run anywhere from 7:50 pm to 11:00 pm. Two of them have no schedule at all — Netflix opens every episode at once at 4:00 pm Korea time. If you are watching from outside Korea, those two facts (which channel, and what time) matter before the cast list does. Together they decide whether you can watch at all.

At a glance — the eight August dramas

One cell in that table needed a decision. English-language August round-ups list the premiere of My Bias, My Boss as July 4, while Korean outlets and tvN's own schedule say Monday, August 3. This article follows the Korean schedule. Dates slipping by a slot in English-language coverage of Korean entertainment is not rare, so for any number where being wrong costs you something — a ticket, a booked evening — it is worth checking the Korean announcement once more.

What each of the eight actually is

My Bias, My Boss · tvN Mon–Tue 8:45 pm · from August 3. Nam Da-reum (Kim Hye-jun) has organised her life around one member of the idol group D.N.X, Lee Chan (Cha Woo-min), and takes a job at the fashion platform Apello to get near him. What she runs into every day at the office is not her bias but the company's CEO (Kang Hoon). An office-set growth romance adapted from a webtoon. Choe-ae (최애), the Korean fandom word in the title, means the member you love most, and is usually rendered in English as bias.

Our Sticky Love · Netflix · August 7, 4:00 pm, all 12 episodes at once. A romantic comedy about Ko Eun-sae (Ha Young), a prosecutor who has lost her memory, and Jang Tae-ha (Jung Hae-in), a boxing coach who insists he is her boyfriend, living under one roof. Directed by Kim Jang-han, with Heo Sung-tae, Kim Young-ok and Lee Jae-won in support. The yeot in the Korean title is a traditional Korean confection boiled down from rice or grain — sticky enough to pull a tooth out. The title applies that property to a relationship.

Flex x Cop 2 · SBS Fri–Sat 9:50 pm · from August 7. Season two, two years on. The premise is unchanged: Jin Yi-soo (Ahn Bo-hyun), a third-generation chaebol heir working as a detective, throws money at an investigation whenever it stalls. New this season is team leader Ju Hye-ra (Jung Eun-chae), who trained him back at the police academy. Season one peaked at an 11% rating (Nielsen Korea, Seoul metropolitan area) and was built on self-contained cases — a yacht murder, a cult, a film-set killing. Yoo Seung-ho, Kim Eui-sung, Lee Hak-joo, Heo Sung-tae, Jung Chae-yeon, Jeon Hye-bin and Kim Hye-eun make special appearances. SBS scheduled a season-one recap special ahead of the premiere.

A Trap Called Desire · KBS2 weekdays 7:50 pm · from August 10. A revenge drama about a woman framed for murder who sets out to take her life back. Jang Seo-hee plays Ju Mi-ran, PR director of the Cheongma Scholarship Foundation; Jeon Hye-won plays Ko Eun-seol and Yoon Hae-young plays Kim Jung-sun. Directed by Lee Dae-kyung and Jung Kwang-soo, written by Ku Ji-won. It takes the slot vacated by Red Pearl.

OK, Let's Get Divorced · KBS Drama Wed–Thu 11:00 pm · from August 19. A couple who run a wedding dress shop together decide to divorce. People who prepare other people's weddings dismantling their own. It is Lee Min-jung's first drama in six years, opposite Kim Ji-seok.

New Recruit 4: Sabotage · ENA Mon–Tue 10:00 pm · from August 24. The fourth season of a comedy about life inside the Korean military. Park Min-seok, now a corporal, and Choi Il-gu, back as a staff sergeant, anchor it; Lee Hyun-kyun joins as new battalion commander Byun Hyuk-jin and Lee Won-jung as recruit Kim Hyun-wook. Written by Yoon Ki-young and Kim Dan, directed by Min Jin-ki and Jo Je-wook. Beyond ENA it also runs on KT Genie TV and TVING. Military service is compulsory rather than optional for Korean men, so the comedy this series sells is the recognition of having been there.

Mousetrap · Netflix · August 28, 4:00 pm, full drop. Reclusive novelist Mun-jae (Ryu Jun-yeol) has his name, his face and his entire life taken from him by something called a field mouse. The chase begins when he becomes entangled with Noja (Sol Kyung-gu), a loan shark trying to recover money. Lee Kyu-hyung plays Sun-yong. Written by Lee Jae-gon, whose credits include The Good Bad Mother's genre neighbour Model Family and Special Affairs Team TEN.

Four Hands, Two Sonatas · tvN Sat–Sun 9:10 pm · from August 29. Four hands is the term for two pianists seated side by side at a single piano. The drama follows friendship, love, rivalry and growing up among students at an arts high school, with Song Kang, Lee Jun-young and Jang Gyu-ri.

The Korean title of Mousetrap comes from a folktale

The production has said the motif is a Korean folktale called The Field Mouse That Ate Fingernails. A man clips his nails at night and throws them into the yard; a field mouse eats them and turns into a person identical to him, then moves into his house. The real owner is denounced as the impostor and driven out of his own home, and the mouse is only exposed at the end, in front of a cat.

The reason Koreans still say do not clip your nails at night is this story. So the premise — a man whose name, face and life are taken — is not a genre device bolted on afterwards. The title has already said all of it. A Korean viewer starts the series knowing roughly how its shape resolves, from two syllables.

The English title is Mousetrap. It carries the meaning but loses a layer. What the Korean title points at is not the trap but the mouse itself, and that mouse is a creature that puts on someone else's whole life. Korean dramas have a lot of these places that subtitles cannot reach.

The title is already the spoiler.

Why the start times are all different — Korean scheduling has layers

But eight titles across six channels is not an accident. Korean broadcasting sits on tiers with different characters, and each tier tends to work a particular part of the evening.

The five- and ten-minute offsets — 8:45, 9:10, 9:50 — are the part that catches the eye. The common explanation is that starting slightly before a rival grabs the remote first, repeated over many years. No broadcaster has ever stated that officially. What is confirmed is only that the numbers do not overlap. Which tier takes which hour is laid out as a table in a map of the Korean evening.

Daily dramas run on different arithmetic entirely. The KBS2 7:50 pm slot that A Trap Called Desire occupies airs five days a week and usually passes 100 episodes. That is a different object from a 12- to 16-episode miniseries, and it is built so that you can pick it up in the middle and still follow it.

Why both Netflix titles land at 4:00 pm

Our Sticky Love and Mousetrap both open in full at 4:00 pm Korea time. Work that back and it is exactly midnight on the US West Coast. Korea is UTC+9 and the US West Coast is UTC−7 during daylight saving, so 16:00 minus 16 hours is 00:00.

Netflix has never explained the choice. But if the reference point for a simultaneous global release is midnight over there, the numbers land precisely.

Midnight in California decides your afternoon.

For anyone outside Korea this is practically good news. Broadcast dramas air during Korea's evening, which becomes the small hours in distant time zones. The two Netflix titles open in the middle of the day across most of Asia.

What this means where you are

A few cautions about using that table.

• For the two Netflix titles the time zone maths is the whole answer. They are simultaneous global releases and open at exactly the hours above.
• For the other six, the converted time is not your viewing time. The local hours above only mean it is airing right now in Korea. Outside Korea each title appears on whichever platform holds the rights in your country, and a tvN drama does not always land in the same place — the global deal differs title by title, so check at release.
• OK, Let's Get Divorced is not on a terrestrial main channel but on KBS Drama, a paid drama channel. Titles from channels like that often get an international release later than terrestrial dramas, or not at all. Check before you commit to waiting.
• A Trap Called Desire is a daily drama: five episodes a week, 100-plus in total. With that volume, subtitles can appear on a different rhythm than for a miniseries. Confirm subtitle availability before you start.
• The 11:00 pm Korea slot is 9 to 10 pm across Southeast Asia. Of the eight, that is the one that gains the most from the time difference.

The cells still empty in that table

• Only Our Sticky Love has a confirmed episode count (12). The totals for the other seven are unconfirmed.
• International platforms for the six broadcast titles are announced individually per title. What is public so far covers Korean scheduling only.
• The total run of A Trap Called Desire and the episode count of Mousetrap are both still open.

Read next

• What exactly is ENA? Korean drama channels sorted into four tiers
• A 4.6% rating is number one? How to read Korean drama ratings
• Two dramas at once where the fan is the protagonist — how choe-ae became bias
• The word chaebol — how one Korean noun entered the English dictionary
• Why seasons came late to Korean drama
• Two rivals sitting side by side at one piano — Song Kang and Lee Jun-young in Four Hands
• A couple who run a wedding dress shop get divorced — Lee Min-jung and Kim Ji-seok
• Love that sticks like yeot — Jung Hae-in and Ha Young in Our Sticky Love

Sources

• Soompi — 8 New K-Dramas To Watch In August 2026
• TV Report — SBS returns after two years with Flex x Cop 2 (Korean)
• Newsen — Kim Hye-jun takes the job for her bias Cha Woo-min (Korean)
• Daum News — Lee Min-jung returns to drama after six years opposite Kim Ji-seok (Korean)