The Potato Lab with Lee Sun Bin and Kang Tae Oh Take Over the tvN Weekend Timeslot From When the Stars Gossip and Premieres in the High 1% Range
There is a new tvN weekend drama and it’s a world’s away from the budget and profile of its predecessor. The Potato Lab with Lee Sun Bin and Kang Tae Oh premiered this past weekend taking over for When the Stars Gossip and debuted with 1.705% and 1.811% ratings. That’s low but on par with what Stars did for the majority of its run, but without any star power in the cast and at a fraction of the budget. The Potato Lab may be a great drama, I dunno haven’t checked it out yet, but from the set up to the cast it feels like a small cable network ENA drama that accidently got slotted into the big leagues airing on the tvN weekend timeslot. At least the seminal disappointment that is Star is done and time to just watch dramas for simple value propositions of I like it or I don’t.
It was a fun beginning. To bad that they are stuck in the mess that WTSG left behind.
The Potato Lab’s first-episode rating of 1.705% is the lowest for a TVN weekend drama since Ex-Girlfriends’ Club 10 years ago! When the Stars Gossip was such a bomb that it even doomed its replacement. Let’s see if Resident Playbook would turn things around for TVN, but the loss of momentum for the time slot and its own postponement due to the medical crisis seem to be major stumbling blocks at the moment.
Maybe it is the time slot and maybe they feel the shows content does not inspire people to stick around during the time slot. But I imagine the previous show discouraged people to watch the channel during that specific time slot or maybe the channel itself. I know it is more private and not a public channel.
Yeah it’s unexpected for this time slot. I wonder if wtsg caused such big drop of trust from viewer. Although the story of this potato lab don’t excite me too, it feels like ordinary workplace romcom with cold iceberg male lead and outspoken female lead
I was hoping for more from this drama but after watching the first two episodes, it’s very meh. The comedy isn’t landing for me, the outspoken FL is too exaggerated, especially for the character’s age (she’s supposedly mid-40’s?), and we’ve seen enough one-note tsundere MLs for 20 lifetimes. All the typical tropes are showing up right and left. Le sigh.
There’s always going to be residual impact from a drama that rated 1% in a time slot that few months ago was getting 15%+ and less than a year ago gave tvN its highest rated drama ever. WTSG was such a miserable and colossal flop it’s hard to get viewers tuning back to tvN so quickly.
But also, this is a bad drama to slot in right after WTSG. It should have probably been a mon-tue drama tbh. Theres no big name writer or actor here and it’s far too campy to rate well. Theres an interesting comment I read from a knetz who said the title sounded like a variety show – it’s a pretty accurate observation imo. Anyway I feel Potato is in a bit of a disadvantage and if they can’t improve their numbers, tvN’s poised to have a terrible first half with Resident Playbook needing to make up a lot of ground. It’s interesting how a huge flop can start a bit of a domino effect.
WTSG really killed the tvN Sat-Sun time slot like no other – even with nothing on JTBC. Throughout its run, Korean audiences departed for shows in SBS and MBC, and the fact that WTSG hung around long enough for Buried Hearts and Undercover High School to debut means that those two have secured audience before The Potato Lab could present its case. Having said that, I agree that TPL feels more like a quirky ENA or JTBC weekday mini than prime time Sat-Sun TV – the ML and FL are have one slam dunk hits each (Extraordinary Attorney Woo and Work Later Drink Now), which won’t really draw in the general public unless it’s a truly good show. tvN has an uphill battle to recover what WTSG lost for them, and they may need a smash hit of the CLOY/ QOT level
Actually tvN’s line up for 2025 is extremely weak compared to last year. 2024 saw a blockbuster in QOT, huge hit in Jeongnyeon, popular pairing in LND and big surprise hits like LR, MMH. This year there are no huge stars or highly anticipated pairings. Seochodong with LJS/MGY and Unknown Seoul with PBY/Jinyoung are the only ones worth mentioning and these aren’t exactly hyped productions. Resident Playlist has been delayed for a while now and completed but pending productions almost never does well (see: Bogotá, Wonderland, WTSG for very recent references). But if I had to bet on one tvN drama this year, it would still be that over the others. Weak lineup overall. OTOH, OTT this year has some huge ones. I’m interested in seeing how tvN plans to recover their weekend slot to at least the 6-7 range. WTSG really left quite the mess behind.
tvN has some interesting promising dramas this year:
Confident man KR with Park Min Young and Typhoon boss with Lee Jun Ho. And yes, Resident playbook.
I personally waiting Spring Fever, although it sounds like typical romcom, and Divorce insurance.
To be fair, there’s not much interesting dramas on other channels, except JTBC. It seems OTT this year took the most anticipated ones.
Now, how can this low-key and cliched romcom go against Burried Hearts,The Witch, Undercover High School, and the upcoming JTBC’s business drama, The Art of Negotiation. The answer is it cannot do anything special, even with the oh-so-good-looking Kang Tae Ho. There are two things that TVN did wrong: 1. Airing WTSG 2. Follow-up with a cliched romcom (with no star power and the storyline is nothing to shout about) when they have already failed at delivering a romcom that collided in space. They can just air the Resident Doctors or the Divorce Insurance, which I am sure will be able to get at least a 3-5% for the first episodes.
I dropped it. Currently watching The Witch and Undercover HS, and this typical cliche romcom didn’t interest me. Boring. Nothing new and it wont reach anywhere with that kind of story.
It’s interesting how things changing every year.
2023 was a JTBC year, 2024 was a tvN year, 2025… I don’t know which year it is yet. This can be a Disney year, as it have one of the most interesting drama’s line up, but they’re weak at marketing.
tvN has some interesting promising dramas this year: Confident man KR with Park Min Young and Typhoon boss with Lee Jun Ho. And yes, Resident playbook.
I personally waiting Spring Fever, although it sounds like typical romcom, and Divorce insurance.
To be fair, there’s not much interesting dramas on other channels, except JTBC. It seems OTT this year took the most anticipated ones.
This was reply to Caro