‘Jewel In The Palace’ Star Lee Young Ae’s Comeback Drama ‘Saimdang’ Fails To Delight Viewers
After a long hiatus from the South Korean entertainment industry, Lee Young Ae returned to the small screens with the drama titled "Saimdang, Light's Diary." However, the "Jewel in Palace" actress' new SBS series has been steadily losing viewership shares over the past few weeks.
"Saimdang" made a promising debut when it released its first episode in late January. With double-digit TV ratings of 16.6 percent, many fans expected Lee's new drama to become a huge hit similar to "Jewel in the Palace" including some of the recent SBS series such as "Romantic Doctor Teacher Kim" and others.
However, "Saimdang" has since posted declining numbers with episode 5 registering the drama's lowest TV rating to-date. Aired on Feb. 8, Wednesday, the said episode only reached nationwide viewership ratings of 10.7 percent, according to Nielsen Korea, as cited by Yonhap News.
The said rating marked a 1.6 percentage point decrease from the SBS drama's previous episode. Released on Feb. 2, Thursday, episode 4 posted TV ratings of 12.3 percent.
Meanwhile, Lee's competitor drama in the same primetime schedule continued to gain the support of more viewers. "Good Manager" episode 5 saw an increase of 1.7 percentage points with a viewership share of 15.5 percent.
At this time, it is still unclear if "Saimdang" will be able to recover from its TV ratings slump. Recently, producers of the SBS series even made some revisions to Lee's comeback drama.
A source from the SBS production told local reporters that they decided to re-edit the drama to improve the flow and tempo of the story, OSEN quoted the representative as saying. Moreover, the said revisions were described as necessary yet non-critical adjustments given the drama's pre-filmed episodes.
Similar to "Descendants of the Sun," the SBS drama completed its filming activities before the series was released. Lee and her co-stars already finished shooting all their scenes in September 2016.
"Saimdang, Light's Diary" airs every Wednesday and Thursday on SBS.
