Categories: K-dramas

Viewers Frustrated with SBS Scheduling Decision to Preempt Kim Nam Gil Weekend Drama Through the Darkness for 3 Weeks to Air Winter Olympics

K-actor Kim Nam Gil definitely owes SBS for giving him his first major male lead role in Bad Guy after he broke out with MBC drama Queen Seondeok. But the network bungled BG a bit by preempting it multiple times for sports coverage and each time it came back the episodes ratings would drop. It’s hard to watch a drama herky jerky in airing pattern. For his latest SBS drama Through the Darkness (Those Who Read Hearts of Evil), it’s only a 12-episode police thriller and so far has aired 4-episodes. After this coming weekend’s episodes air, SBS will preempt the drama for 3 straight weeks to air the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. That makes it so the first half airs then a three week break before the second half airs, but the drama wasn’t filmed with that gap in mind unlike recent season split dramas like Penthouse. Kim Nam Gil’s last drama for SBS in The Fiery Priest, he was injured filming but reportedly insisted on resuming filming before his full recovery because he didn’t want the drama to have to be preempted thereby impacting the momentum and ratings. K-netizens are frustrated SBS isn’t taking care of Kim Nam Gil’s new drama and think the entire drama should have aired after the Olympics. Can’t disagree here.

ockoala

View Comments

  • It's such a good drama. It's very frustrating and one month of airing and 3 weeks of break don't make sense. It's not like they really made use of the last aired drama ratings on the same days...

  • I don't blame them. Its an excellent drama and a 3 week break like this will hurt its momentum especially with the kind of genre and subject matter the drama deals with. This is going to be the most frustrating wait. People who haven't started it yet are lucky.

  • agree with knetz on this one. should just airs drama specials or rerun of whatever dramas instead of airing a new one. I can understand one week preempt but 3 weeks? that sure will affect the rating and momentum. and I just finished watching all 4 eps right before I read this news.. dang it

    • Same here, I just finished all four episodes. I finally found a drama as good as Beyond Evil with a cast equally as good.

      KNG was never a favorite of mine but his character here really got to me. I feel like if am his mom I would like to comfort him with a hug. He feels so deeply for the victims.

      And now a three week break...

      Maybe SBS should have just premiered this after the Olympics instead. Sigh.

  • Currently it’s the only drama that I m waiting every week to watch. I find the one week waiting long, imagine if I have to wait 3 weeks.I can see why Korean viewers are not welcoming this decision.

  • The drama that will air after this one, Why Oh Soo Jae, will benefit from having more time to film though. I read that filming for that drama was cancelled for 2 weeks due to the director contracting Covid. Hopefully they have a chance to catch up. I was going to start watching this one but I think I might as well wait until it's finished airing now.

  • I agree. It's not like they didn't know the Olympics were coming and they would have to preempt. They could have aired something else in the timeslot for a few weeks. This goes for MBC and Tracer too, which is also doing quite well. A three week preemption is going to hurt both.

  • Bad Guy also got shafted because of games (the 2010 World Cup), causing Kim Tak-gu to gain an enormous amount of momentum that it was propelled to 40+%. That year was such a blast for an early-Hallyu KDrama fan, though. Wow, that was 12 years ago already?

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