‘The Flower in Prison’ retreats; ‘Oh Hae-young Again’ soars

Scenes from the MBC series “The Flower in Prison” (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — A TV series about a woman born in prison and trained to be a spy has fallen from the meaningful 20-percent mark in viewership, data by Nielsen Korea showed Monday.

“The Flower in Prison” on the terrestrial network MBC stayed on top of the Saturday-Sunday night drama game with 17.1 percent last week, the data showed. But the figure was a significant downturn from the 20-percent plateau it surpassed in the first week, an accomplishment that gave rise to premature hopes the show would continue to soar in viewership.

“Beautiful Gong Shim,” which debuted in the same time slot two weeks ago, appeared to be on a solid path to challenge the period drama, posting an average of 10.5 percent last week. The SBS series about an unconventionally poor lawyer moving in with two low-income sisters had started with just 8.9 percent in the first week.

Scenes from the tvN series “Oh Hae-young Again” (Yonhap)

On the Monday-Tuesday night front, “My Lawyer, Mr. Jo” surpassed the 15-percent mark for the first time since premiering in March. By doing so, the KBS 2TV series about a prosecutor-turned-lawyer set itself apart from the rest of the shows sharing the time slot, which continued to languish in the single-digit territory.

Meanwhile, a cable series about two women with the same name but vastly different traits finally took off after five episodes. “Oh Hae-young Again,” starring Eric Mun of the 2000s boy band Shinhwa, was viewed by an average of 5.5 percent of the TV-watching population on Monday and Tuesday, with anything above 5 percent considered impressive in the cable sector. In the tvN series, heroine Oh Hae-young falls in love with a lovelorn audio director who was dumped by another woman named Oh Hae-young who seemingly has everything the protagonist lacks.

Another tvN series featuring mostly middle-aged actors, “Dear My Friends,” continued to smash the preconception that a show must cast 20 and 30-something actors to be successful. It captured an average of 4 percent of the TV viewers on Friday and Saturday, down 0.4 percentage point from the previous week but nonetheless significant for a young cable series.