Lee Min Jung’s highly anticipated return to television after six years is quietly fading from the spotlight. Her timeless visuals, reminiscent of her Boys Over Flowers days, remain intact, while her acting continues to be steady and convincing. Her chemistry with co-star Kim Ji Suk has also received a passing grade. Everything seemed to be falling into place, except for one crucial factor: the drama’s unfortunate scheduling and broadcasting circumstances.
Lee Min Jung currently stars in OK! Let’s Get Divorced, which airs on the cable channels KBS Drama and GTV at 11 p.m. every Wednesday and Thursday. The drama was initially considered for an MBC time slot before moving between major broadcasters, including SBS, and eventually landing on paid cable channels.
Based on Kim Hyun Kyung’s novel of the same name, the series follows Baek Mi Young, played by Lee Min Jung, and her husband Ji Won Ho, played by Kim Ji Suk, who built the wedding shop J&White together. After seven years of marriage filled with accumulated resentment and a lack of communication, the couple decides to divorce. Rather than portraying their separation simply as the collapse of a marriage, however, the drama uses the process as an opportunity for the couple to reflect on themselves and their relationship.
The series also had considerable weight behind the camera. Director Joo Sung Woo is a veteran who previously helped lead the golden era of MBC weekend dramas. He scored major successes with A 100-Year Legacy (2013) and Legendary Witch (2014–2015), both of which surpassed 30% in peak ratings. He has also worked across both long-form family dramas and miniseries, including Hooray for Love (2011), Monster (2016), and Man Who Sets the Table (2017), demonstrating a particular strength in delivering accessible, melodramatic entertainment.
However, OK! Let’s Get Divorced reportedly received disappointing assessments from industry insiders even during production. Critics have pointed to its reliance on outdated clichés that feel more suited to early-2000s weekend or morning dramas, including the sudden appearance of an ex-boyfriend, another woman lingering around the husband, and conflicts with a mother-in-law who pressures the couple to have a child.
The current television landscape has also worked against the drama. Major broadcasters have increasingly moved away from Wednesday-Thursday dramas while concentrating their prime-time lineups on Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday slots. Despite putting Lee Min Jung at the center, OK! Let’s Get Divorced has reportedly failed to demonstrate the level of quality needed to compete in the increasingly fierce weekend drama market. This is also believed to be one reason the series struggled to secure a stable broadcast slot despite having completed filming last year.
Its production budget was also reportedly smaller than that of comparable dramas. For production companies, securing revenue through sales to global OTT platforms has become essential, but the series apparently struggled to secure pre-sales to major streaming services for various reasons. As a result, it ultimately had little choice but to accept a cable broadcast deal under highly favorable terms.
One broadcasting industry insider explained, “When global OTT platforms evaluate a project and decide whether to purchase its rights, they consider whether it has actually been broadcast on a television channel to be an important factor.” The insider added, “Even if the initial profit is not substantial, pushing ahead with a cable broadcast at a low price could be a strategy to first secure the title of being a ‘TV-broadcast drama’ and then resell the rights to numerous overseas OTT platforms.”
At present, OK! Let’s Get Divorced is available for VOD streaming on only two domestic OTT services, TVING and Wavve. The global streaming market extends far beyond Netflix and Disney+, with platforms such as Rakuten Viki, Amazon Prime Video, and iQIYI serving international and regional audiences. The drama could potentially use its television broadcast history as a stepping stone toward secondary sales to these overseas platforms.
