Disney+ Fantasy K-drama Twelve Tops Joynews Industry Poll of Worst K-drama of 2025
It’s nice of Joynews to confirm that K-ent industry insiders also view the same turkeys in K-drama land sucking as bad as regular viewers thought of them. If you wasted any time on watching these then my condolences, for others please use this to avoid hurting your brain. Topping the poll of 110 industry insiders on worst K-drama of 2025 was big budget and big cast fantasy Disney+ K-drama Twelve with 28 votes. Second please went to When the Stars Gossip with Gong Hyo Jin and Lee Min Ho with 15 votes, and to date when I see or hear anything about this drama it still gives me PTSD. Squid Game season 3 had 10 votes and I think this one just let down so many fans with a frustrating ending more than it was badly produced. And lastly Tempest with 7 votes came in fourth and the collective star power of Jeon Ji Hyun and Kang Dong Won could not bring in viewers or avoid controversy.
Not surprised for most of the list, except for Tempest. While the viewership was low compared to the star power, it didn’t seem offensively disappointing. And I thought the controversy was only from mainland China and this is a South Korean poll.
Since it’s poll by industry insider, they rated exactly by the budget and promotion poured into the works versus the result.
Ah, that makes sense it’s the return on investment, which is data that I often wish we could have right next to ratings.
Disney hardly promoted Tempest though! One magazine cover for Jun Jihyun and that’s it
It’s actually a Disney+ problem with all their kdrama exclusives, not just Tempest. They hardly promote the dramas, make them unavailable in many major kdrama markets worldwide, don’t even put new kdramas on the homepage like Netflix does…
I’m shocked Moving managed to be successful despite that but it would have done Squid Game level viewer numbers if it had been promoted.
SK reviews were really bad and got nothing to do with the controversy. Most think spy romance dramas belong to the 2000s like Iris.
I found Tempest very boring. It had pretty low buzz in SK and elsewhere. IMO, KDW cannot act well and has no screen presence.
I liked it but I see why others didn’t. I thought it was well made, more like a U.S. drama though.
Funnily enough I did not understand the appeal of KDW but Tempest has grown his popularity amongst viewers who hadn’t seen him in a kdrama before. Tall and protective (stalkerish). I consider JJH to be a chemistry queen with all her male co-stars though. I hope her next works are a big hit.
Maybe Ma Dongseok should just stick to acting rather than writing. I was looking forward to Twelve, but it was terrible.
Twelve was awful. I watched for PHS but even he couldn’t save it. I kept watching hoping it would redeem itself, silly me.
When the Stars Gossip – maybe slightly better than Twelve, but still awful lol and made next to no sense at all.
From the full article insiders rated it by the budget and promotion vs the result. So you can see it make sense
Think about last year, some people said love next door shouldn’t be rated badly, but if you compare the promotion poured into it, it made sense. Same reason why impossible heir is not on the list, the leads are on the level of rising rookie, the budget is small enough (although on report it was written big budget, probably disney inflated it lol)
Oh dear! It’s impossible the Impossible heir isn’t on the worst list. LOL. But I’m still rooting for my boy Lee Jae Wook. I’m currently following his new drama, Last Summer. I’m watching LS purely for LJW cuz I’m not the one for slice-of-life stories.
For those interested, the other dramas listed as the worst are: “Crushology 101″ (six votes), “Kick Kick Kick Kick” (five votes), “Gyeongseong Creature” season 2 (four votes) and “Confidence Queen” (three votes).
The other comments here speak of the premise of budget/promotion versus result, but there are many listed dramas that have very low budgets and very low domestic ratings and international viewership. Crushology 101 and Kick Kick Kick Kick, in particular, hold the record for the lowest average ratings ever (a whopping 1.0% and 0.7%, respectively). These apparently are not merely ratings flops but critically reviled as well.