[HanCinema's News] Family Dramas in for tvN Following Fantasy Slump

Following a string of underperforming fantasy dramas last year, tvN appears to have made a conscious decision to skew toward more realistic programming for 2020. These new family dramas appear to be fortuitously timed, arriving right after the record-setting ratings success of "The World of the Married", which also dealt frankly with family life. Yet as is so often the case with television dramas, ultimate success remains elusive.

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"Oh My Baby", for example, seemed to be a perfectly socially relevant on-brand title for tvN. The drama features hitmaker Jang Nara in the leading role as a woman in her late thirties who scrambles to find a sexual partner upon discovering how low her fertility rate has gotten. But in practice "Oh My Baby" has been received quite weakly, its core concept largely being ignored in favor of a more generic romantic comedy genre styling.

Genre dramas that try to delve into social issues are nothing new, but such hybrid projects require a fair amount of nuance to properly connect with viewers. Statistically speaking, the situation faced by Jang Nara in "Oh My Baby" is nothing remarkable, as the ratio of never-married women her character's age in South Korea passed 12% a few years back and may break 20% within a decade. But such women tend to have rather different motivations than "Oh My Baby" presents.

"My Unfamiliar Family" presents a somewhat more relatable situation, as its younger characters struggle with more dysfunctional relationships. This is contrasted to the eighties-era love story of their parents, which is being told gradually through memory recovery on the part of the family's amnesiac patriarch. After just one week of episodes the drama's ratings hover in the 3% range. It's doing well given the relatively unknown cast, although the drama's overall impact remains uncertain.

But then even mainline family dramas regularly incorporate modernized elements into the premise. In "Once Again", for example, all four adult children are divorced. What once was scandalous has now become mundane. This has left tvN with yet another possible closed off avenue when it comes to producing another on brand major hit.

Written by William Schwartz