“Arthdal Chronicles” part 2 aired its first episodes this week to mediocre ratings, the high budget tvN drama has been struggling to pull an audience in since its been released.

According to Nielsen Korea, June 22 episode recorded 5.7% in viewership rating which is a significant drop from part 1 finale which recorded 7.2% in ratings. June 23 episode saw a slight rise in ratings recording 6.5%.

Despite the initial hype the drama was not able to crack the double-digit in viewership ratings, the drama premiered to mixed reviews from both Korean and international fans but managed to gain the love of many throughout its run time as the story progressed.

June 22 episode had a cameo appearance by BLACKPINK Jisoo, you can check it out here.

What do you think of the drama so far? Do you like it?

My Personal Thoughts

I plan on writing an article to discuss why the drama failed to get better ratings but will wait until part two wraps up and see if the ratings go up.

Its not an exaggeration to say many people were disappointed. The way the drama was marketed made it look like it was going to be the next IT but that didn’t happen.

I personally think one of the reasons tvN took on such a chance was the immense success of 2018 “Mr. Sunshine,” it also had a huge budget (not nearly as big as Arthdal but still big) and did amazing, it became one of the best-rated cable dramas of all time.

“SKY Castle” then aired in 2019 and broke even more records ratings wise and I believe that gave hope and determination to people that it is possible to get a cable drama to the double digit ratings.

My biggest personal issue with the drama is the length of each episode, it’s almost always 1 hour and 20 minutes and I find that too much, you have to always stay focused so you don’t get lost and sometimes, that’s just not fun to do. It felt like homework rather a fun thing to do.

I found myself dozing off or getting bored while watching wondering if I should continue or not. I will check out season two and I might do a review. But in short, the drama didn’t live up to my expectations, and my complaints are not about what everybody else is saying but rather about the storyline and how slow it can get at times.