Today saw the premiere of fully pre-produced KBS prime time melodrama Uncontrollably Fond by screenwriter Lee Kyung Hee, arriving on a hot July Wednesday while shelling freezing winter temperatures onscreen. I didn’t know for certain whether domestic Korean viewers had the appetite for an old school type melo romance even with well known big name stars Suzy and Kim Woo Bin as the leads, but it looks like episode 1 did well enough to be considered a successful start. Episode 1 of UF garnered 12.5% AGB nationwide ratings, a big gap over second place finisher Wanted on SBS with 7.0% while MBC‘s Lucky Romance fell to third place with 6.6% and ending Hwang Jung Eum‘s successive drama hit streaks.
UF’s first episode ratings is nearly the same as Park Shin Hye and Kim Rae Won‘s current SBS Mon-Tues hit drama Doctors, which got 12.9% AGB nationwide ratings before rising in each successive episode to nearly breaking 20% AGB nationwide in this week’s most recent episode 6. I loved episode 1 of UF but am not sure this drama has the buzzy story line to keep bringing in the greater viewing population, for me the allure is in the slow burn and it’s off to a perfect start for me.
Uncontrollably Fond is off to a better start than Lee Kyung Hee’s last prime time drama Nice Guy (The Innocent Man) with Song Joong Ki and Moon Chae Won. NG’s first episode got 10.5% AGB nationwide ratings before the run settled into the mid to late teen ratings, a decent showing that was more notable for the fantastic chemistry and acting of the leads. I’m not seeing the chemistry yet between the leads but they haven’t a lot of direct scenes together yet in the first episode, but hopefully Suzy’s character tones down and Kim Woo Bin starts to figure out what he wants to do with his life going forward after the big reveal right off the bat.
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As long as they stay ttrue to the melodrama route, I'll keep tuning in to this drama. I wanna cry drama gimme that.
i recommended doctors for you
For dramas, I think the difficulty it's not to have good rating at the start but in the end. Because the stories often are dragged on and lost their appeal.
actually, it was boring... "Wanted" is much better, but people always choose romance than thriler
Wanted was a surprise hit for me. The first episode was a bit boring but Im glad the story is now picking up. And episode 5 was executed almost perfectly. It has the right angst, thrill, excitement, and mystery. I like Ji Hyun Woo before but his performance in episode 5 blew me away and I now love him. Looking forward to episode 6.
Wanted is so good ! Love it ! Watched the first episode of UF and it was actually fine ,typical plot but interesting, the acting from both leads are below average bUT not so bad that I want to pull my hair out
KBS started promoting this drama a good six months ago, was media played to death, has a renowned writer....and they stillll couldn't get a higher premiere rating than Doctors that has a first time pd and is live shooting right now. I was expecting a good fifteen percent tbh.
They'll get higher ratings than Descendants of the Sun, journalists said?
For all this hype about pretty production, star writer and hyped cast, it's a bit below average but like someone said, KBS has hyped it enough to get those ratings.
Cold numbers and stats such as ratings are the only objective way of evaluating a drama. Everything else is subjective and biased shit.
Suzy has so outgrown her group miss a lmao Why did JYPE even bother to cast irrelevant and non existent unmarketable idols Fei, Jia, Min?
Cold numbers are just for evaluating the popularity of a drama not the quality.
For any person who claims a drama has no quality one can find another person who claims the exact opposite. That's why such claims are biased shits with no objectivity. Hence, cold numbers are real unbiased criterias free of personal preferences.
My following analogy may not be perfectly applicable to drama. But in general for any commercial goods (I think including TV drama) in a free market, sales =/= quality. For example, everyone knows products sold by Walmart and furniture by Ikea are crappy. But these two whole sale stores have higher sales in average than other brand names. LOL
Yes your analogy is not applicable here. I don't think a drama having good ratings is because "it's cheap and has lower prices" lol
well think about it this way Do you remember how well Twilight sold and how every tween was obsessed? but it was criticized and hated everywhere. Also can be applied w/ most songs on the radio. Im not saying thats the case w/ UF because ive only seen the 2 ep. But ive seen some dramas get super high ratings because they have simple and cheap AF plots because people dont like to even take risks w/ other dramas w/ intricate plots
I thought you were going to recap this drama since you were so excited.
I actually enjoyed it. It leaves a lot of questions to be asked and there is a nice underlining melo feel to it. Ep 2 should hanker back to rom com era. I wondering how they are going to do this. Ep 1 is now, ep 2 is highschool, ep 3 is present, ep 4 is uni? The ep 5 has misunderstanding then ep 6 with connect both timelines and show us how they got to where they are?
Like Momento. Awesome movie.
It's 16 episode long so I wouldn't mind that format but not everyone wil like it.
I like the 1st episode, it made me more curious and anticipate more the next episodes.
Well, for the marketing noise, journalist prediction, star power, and "famous scriptwriter", and high budgjet, the rating is far below the expectation. The PR said it's better than DOTS, so the expectation for the rating is high too, at least 15%. Watching the preview and 1st episode, I only can say I haven't seen anything in KWB other than another CYD. And suzy is toooooooo noisy that reminds me if HJM in KMHM. The good thing is Suzy is pretty.
Omo. I love that they introduced the more characters in this episodes. Suzy even improved alot, so much emotion in the last part.
i know it... When some of netizen keep telling that Suzy was bad.. I think she improved than when she was in Dream High...Oh yeahh i recommended Doctors for you and please support Kdrama...??