10 Most Disappointing K-Dramas 2023 Cursed Us With

Who would have thought that in the same year that we got such hit K-dramas as The Good Bad Mother, Celebrity, and Crash Course in Romance, we would also get some of the worst shows ever created.

All of the dramas we are going to talk about here received very low ratings and largely disappointed fans, whether it was due to poor writing, miscasting choices, or bad air time. Here are ten of the year's biggest K-flops.

10. Pandora Beneath The Paradise

When it was announced that Kim Soon Ok, the writer of the hit series The Penthouse, was working on a new project, it was widely assumed that Pandora: Beneath The Paradise would also be a success. But this never happened.

After a great start with a rating of 4.8, the drama turned out to be a big disappointment. Viewers pointed out that the writing was so bad that they thought the crew didn't understand how logic works at all, leading to an overall rating of 4%.

9. The Secret Romantic Guest House

The plot of this K-drama is in fact quite intriguing: the owners of a boarding house called Guest Summer Palace, which is actually a mystical place filled with secrets, gather to find someone who disappeared 13 years ago. The drama stars South Korean A-listers Ryeoun, Jung Gun-joo, and Kang Hoon, and at first it seemed that the show would be a success.

However, the ratings never improved during the entire time the show was on the air and ended up with a 3.9% viewership.

8. Joseon Attorney

Joseon Attorney is a historical revenge drama that failed for the most bizarre reason. The story of the series follows an attorney whose parents were wronged by their anime during the trial.

The main characters shined thanks to passionate acting, and the show's storytelling and directing was actually not bad. However, the reason that turned this K-drama into a flop was... bad airtime.

7. Our Blooming Youth

Despite the fact that Park Hyung-sik, one of the most popular actors in romantic K-dramas, was the main star of the show, it couldn't save the show from disappointing reviews. Fans didn't like the plot at all. The story about a cursed prince and a genius girl felt forced and not entertaining. In addition, fans said that Jeon So Nee's acting wasn't up to her character, so many viewers just dropped the drama in the beginning.

6. Kokdu: Season of Deity

This is probably the most controversial K-drama of recent years, which received a bad reputation even before it aired. The main reason for this was the fact that the show's creators cast Kim Jung-hyun as the lead two years after he was caught in a huge manipulation scandal. It turned out that viewers weren't ready to see him on screen again so soon. And the strange, unrelatable plot didn't help either.

5. Island

Park Kwang-Hyun's Island was probably the most anticipated K-drama of the year, only to end up as a huge disappointment after the premiere. The show's main characters are portrayed by popular actors Lee Da Hee, Kim Nam Gil, and Cha Eun Woo, but that didn't help.

Although the writing was okay, viewers were not impressed with the ridiculous amount of CG used in the drama and found the directing to be quite poor, which led to extremely low ratings.

4. The Heavenly Idol

Kim Min Kyu became a popular actor after his performance in Business Proposal, so fans were waiting for him to land bigger roles in the future, which he did in The Heavenly Idol. However, the fantasy romance drama ended up being a big disappointment. The first episode's rating was a little over 3%, but the second episode ended up receiving only 1.8%.

3. Strangers Again

The drama tells the story of a divorced couple trying to rekindle the spark that once existed between them. Strangers Again brought Kang So Ra back to the small screen and paired her with Jang Seung Jo. Their on-screen couple was amazing and they showed real chemistry and gave their best performances, but it wasn't enough to make the K-drama a success.

The main reason for the show's failure was the predictable and unoriginal plot that left nothing to the imagination. All episodes received a consistent rating of 1%.

2. Bo-ra! Deborah

A typical light-hearted romance drama was supposed to be this great comeback for the show's star Yoo In-na after her three-year acting hiatus, and it seems like nobody expected that the show would end up as a huge flop. The story of the drama revolves around a young girl's transformation, and frankly there wasn't anything terrible about the acting or directing of the show. However, it received a rating of 0.6%.

1. Oh! Youngsim

The story of the drama revolves around two childhood friends who reunite after 20 years and become a couple. The series, which stars two popular actors, Donghae and Song Ha Yoon, ended up with a rating of only 0.3%, which dropped even lower towards the end of the series. This is the worst rating in the history of South Korean television. The most common point of criticism was that the show felt so old as if it had been filmed 10 years ago.