Lee Min-jung's Return After 6 Years: A Decisive Mistake with 0% Ratings

The comeback of actress Lee Min-jung, marking her return to the small screen after six years, is facing much more lackluster results than expected. Despite boasting a star-studded cast featuring Lee Min-jung and Kim Ji-seok, along with veteran director Joo Seong-woo, the production has remained stuck in the 0% rating range since its premiere. Analysts suggest this is the result of a combination of a challenging programming environment, intense platform competition, and the narrative limitations of the work itself, making it difficult to overcome through the actress's name value or acting skills alone.

'Let's Get Divorced' made its debut on KBS Drama and GTV on the 19th of last month. According to Nielsen Korea, the viewership ratings for the first episode were 0.4% for KBS Drama and 0.2% for GTV. This is a significantly disappointing start, considering this is the first TV drama project for Lee Min-jung since her appearance in the 2020 KBS2 series 'Once Again.'

Looking at the basic premise of the work, there were many elements that could have targeted mass appeal. The story follows Baek Mi-young (Lee Min-jung) and Ji Won-ho (Kim Ji-seok), who jointly operate the wedding dress shop 'J& White,' as they decide to divorce after a long marriage and reflect on their mutual wounds and relationship during the process. Writer Hwang Ji-eon explained that the focus was on portraying the specific process of divorce litigation and the emotional changes of the couple.

In the early stages, a conflict structure more complex than simple marital disputes was presented. After experiencing a miscarriage in the past, the two grew rapidly distant, and their emotional rift deepened amidst clashes involving company management issues and appearances on couple-themed variety shows. Baek Mi-young eventually decides to divorce by throwing her wedding ring into a river, and the relationship becomes even more complicated as she reunites with her former lover, Calvin (Lee Hyun-jin).

The problem lies in whether these conflict devices are accepted by viewers as a fresh relational drama. The theme of divorce itself has been repeatedly consumed in Korean dramas. Therefore, simply arranging devices such as suspicion of infidelity, the appearance of an ex-lover, or the involvement of a new romantic interest makes it difficult to capture the interest of today's viewers. In the actual broadcast, misunderstandings are amplified as Ji Won-ho (Kim Ji-seok) gets entangled with Ahn Hee-ju (played by Lee Jin-yi), while the relationship between Lee Min-jung and Lee Hyun-jin also overlaps.

It is also difficult to conclude that the acting of the actors is the problem. Kim Ji-seok has been evaluated as expressing the temperature difference of his character, oscillating between his professional persona as a wedding dress designer and the image of a husband devastated by divorce litigation. In recent episodes, he has been serving as the central axis of the drama, handling both the psychological warfare surrounding the divorce and a kidnapping incident.

Lee Min-jung also carried significant symbolism as she returned to her main profession after a long hiatus. She significantly boosted her public recognition through the 2009 KBS2 series 'Boys Over Flowers,' and subsequently moved between romantic comedies, melodramas, and serious dramas through works such as 'Midas,' 'Big,' 'Sassy Divorced Woman,' 'Come Back Mister,' and 'Destiny and Anger.' In particular, in the 2020 drama 'Once Again,' she led a hit with peak viewership exceeding 30% by delivering realistic emotional acting at the center of a family drama revolving around divorce.

For Lee Min-jung, 'Let's Get Divorced' was a comeback work that contained a kind of paradox even from its title. While past works portrayed the recovery of a family through the lives of characters experiencing divorce, this time, the breakdown and renegotiation of a couple deciding to divorce are placed at the forefront. However, it is painful that the mass appeal and topicality she proved in her previous work are not being properly connected in this production.

Furthermore, Lee Min-jung had appeared in the TVING original 'Villains' during this interval, but her actual hiatus in acting activities was prolonged as the release of that work was later than expected. With external variables beyond her control overlapping, it took a considerable amount of time for her to reappear before the audience as actress Lee Min-jung. In the meantime, she maintained contact with the public through her personal YouTube channel, 'Lee Min-jung MJ,' sharing her daily life and tastes.

Therefore, this comeback was meaningful beyond just appearing in a single work; it was a test for Lee Min-jung to return to the center of TV dramas. However, the issues of platform and scheduling were cold. 'Let's Get Divorced' met viewers with an 11 PM slot on KBS Drama and GTV, which escaped the prime-time competition of terrestrial or general programming channels. The mass-market channels through which viewers interested in the work could naturally flow were limited. The fact that the ratings for the two channels reached only 0.4% and 0.2% respectively during the first broadcast clearly demonstrates these structural limitations.

However, it is also necessary to be cautious about attributing the low ratings entirely to 'scheduling luck.' If a work is good, there is room for it to climb the charts through word-of-mouth and online buzz even on limited platforms. Whether 'Let's Get Divorced' sufficiently varied the heavy subject of divorce and the provocative relational settings into a new dramatic language from the beginning is a separate issue.

In particular, recent viewers demand more than a simple good-versus-evil structure even in works dealing with infidelity and divorce; they require a depiction of character psychology, social context, and the specific process of a relationship collapsing. Competitiveness is gained by showing the legal procedures, property, family, wounds, and responsibilities surrounding divorce in a multi-dimensional way or by presenting a perspective differentiated from existing couple dramas. Since the work puts 'divorce' at the forefront from the title, how deeply it approaches this point is crucial.

Nevertheless, there remains room for a reversal in the work. In the current broadcasts, as the truth of past events is revealed one by one, the fact that Baek Mi-young and Ji Won-ho were in a relationship that could not be simply divided into perpetrator and victim is being highlighted. In particular, as it was revealed that Ji Won-ho was injured while trying to protect Baek Mi-young in the past, the interpretation of their conflict has also changed. The scene where Baek Mi-young collapses in tears upon learning that Ji Won-ho almost died because of her is a device that transforms the initial simple marital conflict into a more complex relational drama.

The chemistry between Kim Ji-seok and Lee Min-jung is also a part of the work that can be expected until the end. While playing a couple in sharp emotional conflict, the two actors are giving convincing weight to their respective characters. As the legal procedures and emotional relationships surrounding the divorce become fully intertwined, there is a possibility that the narrative density will increase in the latter half.

Ultimately, the biggest disappointment of 'Let's Get Divorced' lies not in the actors, but in the fact that both the environment surrounding the work and the competitiveness of the content itself are being tested simultaneously. For Lee Min-jung, returning after six years, it was a golden opportunity to prove her mass appeal once again, but the combination of low accessibility, limited scheduling, and the familiar grammar of the early narrative has failed to create the expected resonance.

However, it is too early to define Lee Min-jung's comeback itself as a failure. Viewership ratings are just one indicator for judging the success or failure of a work, and especially for non-prime cable scheduled works, there are limits to evaluating the value of an actor or a work solely based on absolute numbers. What is needed now is a cold evaluation of how well the work builds its own narrative in the remaining episodes, rather than the symbolism of a 'return after six years.'

The most bitter part for Lee Min-jung, who stood before the camera again after waiting six years, is not the performance of the work itself, but the fact that the fact 'Actress Lee Min-jung has returned' is not being sufficiently connected to public buzz. The extreme temperature difference between being the lead in a work that once exceeded 30% viewership and returning as the lead in a cable drama with 0% ratings is not an individual issue of the actress, but an example showing how rapidly the scheduling structure and consumption methods of today's drama industry are changing.

Now, what remains is whether 'Let's Get Divorced' can rebound from its low starting point. If it can persuade viewers with the quality of the work itself rather than the rarity of Lee Min-jung's return after six years, the current numbers may not be the final report card. Conversely, if it merely follows familiar clichés, this comeback is likely to remain an unfortunate memory for the actress and another case of 'good casting and bad scheduling' for the drama industry.