Beauty and Mr. Romantic Ep 16 earns highest ever rating but international audiences not enamored
Michelle Topham 
The Sunday evening episode of the ongoing weekend drama Beauty and Mr. Romantic, Episode 16 grabbed its highest ever rating last night, while also seeing a huge ratings jump versus its previous episode at the same time.
The latest data from Nielsen Korea shows Beauty and Mr. Romantic, Episode 16 garnering 18.3 percent of the nationwide audience on Sunday.
That is a massive increase of over 3.0 percent, compared to Episode 15’s audience share of 15.2 percent.
It also made the Korean drama the most-watched show of any kind airing on Sunday on South Korean broadcast TV.
The KBS2 drama experienced a similar jump in ratings with viewers in Seoul, where it grabbed 17.1 percent of the audience — again its highest ever rating — and a substantial increase from Saturday’s 14.6 percent.
International viewers and Beauty and Mr. Romantic
The ratings from international viewers, however, have been mixed at best.
My Drama List (MDL) users are currently rating it a low 7.6 out of 10 — which is low even for that site.
Take into account, though, weekend dramas don’t tend to do as well on MDL as they demand a big time commitment, and tend to be overly dramatic.
Something that doesn’t always work for people outside South Korea.
So much so, even over on Viki, which is streaming the K-drama, users are rating it a very low 8.2 out of 10.
And yes, that is low considering a huge percentage of dramas on the streaming service are rated well over an 8.8 out of 10.
Most of the low reviews seem to be due to both the terrible writing (it is bad, by the way) and the intense dislike of the female lead’s character (played by Im Soo Hyang).
Both are also a big reason why I dropped the drama early on as watching hour after hour of a weak woman with hardly any redeeming qualities, mixed with some of the most annoying situations and supporting characters in a while, meant a “No” watch for me.
If the drama is your sort of thing, the next episode of Beauty and Mr. Romantic will air next Saturday on KBS2, with Viki streaming it at the same time.
It is just a pity the writing isn’t better.
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