‘The Killing Vote’ Ends Quietly After Various Broadcast Cancellations, Lim Ji-yeon Fails To Make 3 Hits In A Row
“The Killing Vote” wrapped up its prolonged broadcast of 15 weeks without a rebound in ratings until the last episode
SBS’s Thursday drama “The Killing Vote” aired the last episode on November 16th with an open ending by resetting the national death penalty vote. The final broadcast recorded a nationwide viewer rating of 3.1% and 2.9% in the Seoul area.
“The Killing Vote” was originally planned to be a Mon-Tue drama, but SBS decided to suspend the Mon-Tue drama broadcasting slot temporarily after “The Secret Romantic Guesthouse” ended. Therefore, SBS moved “The Killing Vote” to Thursday and released only one episode a week starting from August 10th.
Episode 1 started off well with a rating of 4.1%. However, the drama suffered three continuous delays due to the broadcast of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games and the 2023 KBO League playoffs and saw significant drops in viewership.
Airing after having broadcast canceled for two weeks in a row on September 28th and October 5th, episode 8 fell into the 2% range. The rating did rise slightly later on, but it couldn’t surpass 3% until the last episode. As such, the rating of episode 1 eventually became the drama’s highest rating record.
“The Killing Vote” raised high anticipation as the comeback work of actress Lim Ji-yeon, who became a rising star after starring in “The Glory” and “Lies Hidden in My Garden”. Moreover, it was expected to be a well-made drama with the joining of veteran actors such as Park Hae-jin and Park Sung-woong in the cast.
“The Killing Vote” is a drama with an intense genre, which consists of characters that are both good and evil or brutal murders and convey heavy messages, so the most important mission was to create high immersion and maintain it until the end. However, the broadcasting plan of releasing only one episode per week actually prevented viewers from enjoying the drama due to the long waiting time.
Despite the poor rating performance, the drama received favorable reviews for its new materials and the cast’s enthusiastic acting performances. In the case of Lim Ji-yeon, “The Killing Vote” may be a regrettable work but it marked her challenge of taking off the villain image and showing a new face as a righteous police officer.
Source: Daum
