I owe Kim Eun Sook a mea culpa, I thought she wrote the narratively most frivolous time-travel/parallel universe drama with The King: Eternal Monarch but now the crown goes to Sisyphus: The Myth. The other wacko time-travel drama Alice was actually quite good for 2/3rd of the run and then fell apart like a flaming train wreck in the final 6 episodes. Dramas like TK:EM and now Sisyphus just don’t make sense from the start and there are too many gaps and loopholes to even present a passable take on the subject matter. Episode 6 of Sisyphus starts with bro Tae San’s scene where he encounters a future traveler on the subway tracks and wastes all his time yelling at the unconscious dude about why he has a picture of him with Tae Sul. Then the guy just hobbles off and that’s the end of it, sigh. Bad dreams plague both Tae Sul and Seo Hae but they are always getting lucky, including armed guards getting called off and they leave the apartment to keep investigating. It all leads to the “big scene” at the Chairman’s house for the party – we get Tae Sul admiring Seo Hae all dressed up, and then EVERY SINGLE PERSON at the party turning to stare/ogle Seo Hae as she slow walks through the entire party because clearly they have never seen a beautiful woman dressed up before and all the other women at the party are hags in comparison.
Then we have Eddie hitting on Seo Hae (yawn), before he gives a speech about Quantum and Time where Tae Sul hides upstairs in broad view of Eddie down in the lawn despite him the only figure in the second floor but Eddie is mentally stunted and doesn’t see him. Anyhoo, it all leads to the reveal that the Chairman AND clearly shady ex-girlfriend Seo Jin are in on whatever the big conspiracy is and they sedate and capture Tae Sul. Seo Hae fights her way out while the Control Bureau is swarmed outside to kill her include angry sniper dude who lost his mom. She hits the power out magic button Tae Sul gave her and then gets lifted from the place by Chinese Restaurant Boy who is BACK BABY and driving a bomb ass expensive sportscar. Tae Sul gets majorly gaslighted by Seo Jin that he’s insane and dreamt up the whole thing but she and the Chairman just want the key. He wises up at the end and breaks out and jiggers a phone he found on the street and calls up Seo Hae with a meet cute on the bridge. Cue real evil dude watching the entire scene from a gazillion monitors with bro Tae Sun tied up. Game on!
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Crap, my first comment is not appearing again.
Also, did anybody get a chance to watch Mouse yet? Early reviews would be appreciated.
Mouse is so so awesome. It got me on toes and give goosebumps. Be aware of gore scene if you have weak heart like me. But I love that drama. They already revealed the psychopath but they want us to guess the modus, how, why, where etc. Definitely watch it. So much drama airing, but only beyond evil, mouse and time that made me hooked. And all 3 tells story surrounding psychopath.
Yeezus, I’m exhausted from just reading the cliff notes version, imagine actually watching this trainwreck. Lol. Wait, why was Eddie hitting on Seohae when he’s dating shady Seojin? Never mind, I don’t care.
Looking at the declining ratings, it looks like K-viewers are just about done with this drama.
In more exciting news, I saw a teaser for MBN sageuk drama Bossam: Steal The Fate starring Jung Il woo and Kim Tae woo and it looks interesting.
Also saw more teasers and stills for Joseon Exorcist and I could not be any more psyched for the drama!
CEW is reportedly considering a priest role in Island and I’m like “Oh gawd, not him again.” But he’s popular so what can you do?
Then I read that Princess Hours, one of my favorite dramas from way back when will be remade. If it’s true, I dunno how I feel about that yet. Nothing beats an original classic but maybe it will be awesome. Off to check out the manhwa.
i drop sisyphus after 4ep. I just cant waste my time watching this. If only time travel happend in real world, i will travel back time and warn myself not to bother watch this drama.
Before this drama start, i was really excited to see jsw and i think i was momentarily blinded by seeing psh doing action scene in the teaser. I thought that maybe this time she will be different. Pftt…i was wrong!
I cant even stand jsw character. This make me miss hwang simok blank face even more. ?
? ? ? ?, ok this is the best comment in weeks. I’m sold about not watching this drama.
Even my love for jsw couldnt make me watch it. Because how stupid the story is. They want to make grand drama with big budget but without proper storyline. They should learnt from Kairos.
I’ve dropped this drama, I can’t believe how badly written and directed this is. I really tried to hang in there for the leads but I just can’t take it anymore lol.
4.9 is still fine but definitely not what JTBC is hoping for ratings wise for their 10th anniversary special drama.
If it continues to drop it will be such a shame since despite the problems with the story, the actors are still doing their best according to how their characters are written.
When it was a fave’s drama aka Start-up. Ratings were not that important, right? The low ratings were not mentioned at all. But since you don’t like the leads of TKEM and now Sisyphus, all of a sudden “ratings” is a big deal. LOL!
The Sisyphus script is of such a quality that it is worth taking notes of it. An exceptional drama, both difficult to access concerning the main plot, and easy to follow thanks to its fluidity.
The drama avoids most of the mistakes that TKEM made, too.
The article in this blog makes no sense.
In hindsight TKEM’s rating was actully quite good despite airing 11 months ago. It’s because of the changed landscape and the new ratings reality makes TKEM a successful rating when you look at it in hindsight and compared to the current standard
Can anyone explain to me how Taesul is able to communicate with Seohae after he are medicube given by his ex GF in his house? Kinda confusing here..
Mouse dropped from 4.9 to 4.0. It seems that Trot Lovers affected the ratings as a whole.
But things are not looking good for this drama. A pity. I was looking forward to this and now I don’ think I would even start watching.
**mr trot
The difference of .9 from the previous episode of Mouse is a bigger drop than the .3 decline of Sisyphus but of course this blog won’t mention that! She is too focused on her rant against Sisyphus and the cast. SMH!
Do you know the broadcast timing of this, mouse and Ms Trot. One drama is in direct competition with Ms Trot compare to the other, other than the .3 and .9
FYI
Sysiphus 21:00
Ms. Trot final 22:00 (rating 30%)
Mouse 22:30 (Rate 19+)
It’s funny how your whole tantrum, complete with tears and snot boils down to “Hey, that show’s ratings dropped more than my show’s ratings so why are you only picking on my show?” FYI, the highest rating of Sissypuss is 6.6% in EP2 and it’s now at 4.9% in EP6 so you do the math on the drop. For your own peace of mind, it’s probably best you stay away from this blog until the drama is over.
I like this show! I mean Ep 1’s plane crash was ridiculous, so perhaps people wanted something darker/serious lol? That being said, jumping straight into the action last week w/o much explanation prob. put some viewers off. I think it was a mistake, but alas Ep 5/6 did pick up the story again.
No one wants their show to fail, the actors don’t have much clout nor much to do w/ the storylines/how the drama goes so blaming them for it makes no sense to me. I do hope since this was expensive to make, that this doesn’t end on a thud. JTBC’s ratings this yr haven’t been so hot, keep in mind, Sisyphus’s ratings are the highest for JTBC (2021) so its not as bad plus cable equals more than public ratings.
Is anyone blaming the actors, though? Cos the criticisms I’ve seen is mostly on the writing and direction. Even Koala’s scathing review in this post is blaming the writing, not the actors.
Considering the high budget, star power of the leads and the fact that the ratings started off high with 5.608%, then rose to 6.677% for EP2 which is still the drama’s highest rating after 6 episodes, I’m pretty sure the drop to 5.2% (EP5) and now 4.9% (EP6) is troubling for jTBC (the same network that delivered a one-two punch with SC, WOTM and ratings gems like IC.) It is bad and indicates waning K-viewer interest. Since this is pre-produced (I’m guessing), the only thing one can hope for is that the story straightens itself out to hook K-viewers again for the ratings to rise.
For the quality of this drama, the ratings it is getting is quite generous.
@bbc
True that!
Your right, not blaming the actors per-say but I guess most people expected better from the mains esp. CSW. I’m in the minority here that while this isn’t a masterpiece, there are aspects to it, that still compels me to stick by. I feel like knowing how this ends might make this come together?!
Its a bummer. SBS fought for this show back in 2016, before going through a lawsuit and losing this show. Then JTBC picked it up in 2019, so I wonder how much of this was re-written since? How a show that took 4-5 yrs/pre-produced/big names get mixed reviews? For JTBC, this is competing against Mr. Trot, so that doesn’t help. Sci-fi isn’t a hot ratings pick. I do hope the ratings stay in the 5-6% range, anything below that would be crushing. Even Alice’s ratings dropped around this point too, until Ep 16 where it rose up to finish at 9.1%. So this show has to hope Ep 16 finishes at 7-8% to consider it not a complete fail.
@Pam
So according to Wikipedia, this is what happened:
“In May 2016, screenwriting duo Lee Je-in and Jeon Chan-ho signed a contract with SBS’s Studio S to write a 20-episode television series which could not be broadcast on another channel. Studio S provided the writers a workplace where they worked on the script for Sisyphus: The Myth, but the production was eventually cancelled due to the difficulties in casting directors and actors. In December 2018, the duo were put in charge of writing the remaining 36 episodes of Fates & Furies when the previous screenwriter left after writing 4 episodes. However, Studio S did not pay the ₩60 million writing fees which were to be paid within 15 days after the conclusion of the series. The duo terminated their contract with Studio S and turned to JTBC for the broadcast of Sisyphus: The Myth. Studio S filed a lawsuit which they lost in November 2020.”
If the writers signed a contract and SBS gave them the necessary support to write Sisyphus, I get why they fought hard for it. But they shot themselves in the foot for not paying the writers for their work on F & F. Makes me think that might be why its original writer left? I bet someone at SBS must be cackling with glee at the declining ratings.
It doesn’t look like it’s in direct competition with Ms. Trot, though. And K-viewers have also expressed dissatisfaction with the drama. As the early high ratings show, Sisyphus has everything going for it to be a big hit, despite being sci-fi. It’s a shame the execution turned out like this. But hopefully, the future episodes will be better and get high ratings.
@SpyCastle Hey! Thanks for the explanation! SBS was guilty for not paying their writers for their leftovers.
I still see they kept Studio S, which is SBS’s own version of Studio Dragon. Oof, that prob. explains a lot lol. Cable ratings while smaller actually has a bit more viewership, so this show has over a million viewers watching. For SBS that would translate to 9-10% ratings, so its average. Of course, had the script/directing/editing been stronger, the ratings for this would’ve gone up to 7-8% before hitting double digits by Ep 6.
I also echo your sentiments too, perhaps the 2nd half will pick up the pacing and get its ratings back up again. I notice that most K-dramas if they improve their 2nd half, their finale ratings go up considerably.
i want to watch this drama but after read the review,i want to hold first until the final before i decided whether watch or pass this drama.
I dropped both Sysiphus and TKEM. The only drama that I managed to finish starring Park Shin Hye is Pinocchio.. However it is funny that how Ms Koala forgot abt ratings of Start Up when it started going downhill..She never posted abt Start Up’s abysmal ratings despite it airing on a prime time slot.
Before someone jumps at me by saying that this is her blog, she can write what she wants..Chill!! I wasn’t complaining but just pointing out the inconsistency..?.
Lol. I remember. I was one of those who called her out on it and even posted the aforementioned abysmal ratings in the comments which got me into quite a few spats with butt-hurt fans of that drama. LMAO. Here though, I agree with her on how sh*t this show is. And since she posted its high ratings from the beginning, it makes sense that she continues posting even if it drops.
My question: why are you still watching Koala?
Sisyphus the myth ratings in Korea might be dropping but its still top 10 worldwide on Netflex. In some Asian countries, its number 1. Im in the US, and Im watching it. Im enjoying the drama series.