Cancellation delayed for MBC’s Stormy Lovers
by javabeans
MBC attracted some ire for cutting its daily drama Stormy Lovers, which recently got slashed from 120 planned episodes down to 50, drawing particular anger from its writer and some of its cast. A few days after the initial announcement, the station amended their decision, giving the drama 70 total episodes before its early cutoff.
The drama has been pulling in pretty low ratings for an evening daily drama, with numbers in the 5% to 7% range despite its well-known writer (Na Yeon-sook of East of Eden) and PD (Go Dong-sun of Queen of Housewives).
It has reportedly earned the backing of fans for its self-professed avoidance of the “makjang code” (and since people keep asking what that is, I’ll direct you to the glossary, which is linked in the footer) with its tales of reconciliation, forgiveness, and tolerance. I can’t tell you if the drama was successful in that respect; perhaps regular viewers can speak to that. (Funny, since I’d actually thought it was supposed to be fairly makjang. But I could be wrong.)
I don’t think there’s something inherently wrong with cutting loose a show that isn’t performing, and in the States, shows are cut much more brutally. However, I think the issue isn’t the cut itself, but the way it was handled: The show airs its 40th episode tomorrow, and news about the cut to 50 episodes was released last week, giving the drama a mere two weeks to wrap up stories it thought it had half a year to complete. It’s odd that with MBC struggling so much with its programming, it then goes and seems to deliberately set its shows up to fail.
There’s also something to be said for the industry culture; despite the ease with which shows are cancelled in Hollywood, that isn’t the norm with K-dramas. It’s considered a rare enough occasion when miniseries are cut a few episodes, but dailies are almost never given that treatment, and certainly not in such drastic quantities. So the anger makes sense to me.
Furthermore, I wonder if the move will hamper the follow-up drama, which suddenly has a lot less time to prepare. It’s a traditional melodrama titled I Trusted Men and comes from writer Joo Chang-ok of 2007’s Lobbyist (from high-budget action dramas to dailies? Interesting switch) and PD Lee Eun-kyu, who produced Coffee Prince, HIT, and Woman of Matchless Beauty Park Jung-geum.
In any case, this means means that Stormy Lovers will now wrap at the end of February. Actor Jung Bo-seok said, “Recently, the plot has improved… The relationships between the characters are also getting more interesting. I’m sorry that we’ve been thrown into chaos. I hope you’ll remain interested in the drama through the end.”
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Tags: drama production, drama ratings
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1 florance
January 16, 2011 at 2:16 PM
Oh, dear!
That´s really brutal but since MBC has compromised it´s less annoying at least
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2 snow
January 16, 2011 at 2:17 PM
well, i'm glad that it's now on 70 rather than 50, and jung bo-seok is right that the storylines are picking up somewhat, although it's generally still a bit of a mess. it is a pity, though, because the cast is fairly strong and if the story had been tighter and had been 50 episodes from the start, it'd have been quite a good daily. as it is, i'm only watching for hwanhee, who's done a decent job so far.
hopefully this will give the writer some time to advance the plot properly and tie up loose ends in a satisfactory manner (though given the writing so far, that's quite a bit of hope).
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3 juliannanow
January 16, 2011 at 2:40 PM
"PD Lee Eun-kyu, who produced Coffee Prince"
Do you mean he produced "Prince's first Love" ?
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Javabeans
January 16, 2011 at 2:42 PM
No, I mean he produced Coffee Prince. Prince's First Love is also on his resumé.
http://search.naver.com/search.naver?where=nexearch&sm=tab_txc&ie=utf8&query=%EC%9D%B4%EC%9D%80%EA%B7%9C&os=217447
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4 floralnori
January 16, 2011 at 3:16 PM
I've been following the drama through zealioner's recaps at http://justdramas.wordpress.com/
I don't know about "reconciliation, forgiveness, and tolerance" but Stormy Lovers definitely has murder, birth secrets, and rape in it's storyline. That seems pretty makjang in my book.
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5 Lacey
January 16, 2011 at 4:18 PM
Hmm i guess cutting to to 70 is better than 50!
I would laugh sooo hard if another company bought the rights to air Birdie Buddy and it turns out to be a huge hit with high ratings, i bet MBC would regret it a lot but sadly i doubt this would happen.. I wish it would though .... sorry that this is off topic.. I hate MBC
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6 Alvina
January 16, 2011 at 8:26 PM
I think THIS announcement has come fairly late into the game too. After all, I'm sure viewers definitely dropped after the first announcement.
I really do think if this was a 50 episode drama to begin with, it would have done much better. It has the elements of a classic makjang but it handles it differently. For example, Choi Won Young plays a pretty sleazy character but you feel for him and his family still obviously loves him despite his faults. No character is written as "evil" which is refreshing.
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7 safa
January 17, 2011 at 3:19 AM
120 and then 50 to 70
the Important is it worth all this series of decisions!
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8 ar_arguably romantic
January 17, 2011 at 8:20 PM
i'm glad that MBC was willing to compromise, but still feel sad for the cast of Stormy Lovers. 50 episodes cut is still a lot! I wonder what will be the new show to fill the timeslot after this is over.
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