Lead cast: Seohyun, Ok Taec-yeon
Latest Nielsen rating: 3.3 per cent
K-drama formulas can be pretty rigid, but for many viewers, it is precisely the comforting sense of familiarity that they offer that keeps them coming back for more. This also applies to the popular webtoons and web novels that many of these shows are based on and their readers.
The fantasy drama The First Night with the Duke begins with just such a reader, a nameless college student – played by Seohyun from K-pop group Girls’ Generation – who loves to lose herself in her favourite period romance, the tawdry and clichéd webtoon Lord Tyrant’s Obsessive Love.
When the webtoon announces it will go on hiatus, the woman lambasts the writer during a drunken comment rampage before falling over and knocking her head just as the writer responds: “Since you’re so great, why don’t you try writing it yourself?”