Even Park Seo-joon’s guest appearance couldn’t save Jung Yu-mi and Choi Woo-shik’s reality show Summer Vacation from tanking in the ratings – what went wrong?
TVN’s escapist reality show Summer Vacation, starring Parasite’s Choi Woo-shik and Jung Yu-mi, hit its lowest viewership rating with its 8th episode last week, even with guest slots from heartthrob Park Seo-joon and fellow Parasite actor Lee Sun-gyun – can it pick back up?
The prime-time show’s viewership rating, which started at 5 per cent (July 17), continued to fall and hit its lowest at 2.5 per cent with the latest episode last Friday (September 4).
It has been a big disappointment especially for those who had expected something better from Na Young-seok, a star producer behind many successful TV shows, including 1 Night 2 Days (also known as 2 Days & 1 Night).
The show revolves around two friends spending their summer holiday together at a remote place in the countryside. It intended to offer a “healing” time for viewers by giving a glimpse of what it is like to relax and enjoy long holidays far from city noise.
As Na’s shows are known for a fly-on-the-wall format that brings out A-listers’ off-screen, real-life personalities, many of his fans looked forward to getting to know the actors' personal stories through the show. But it did not take long for them to be disappointed with a tasteless plot and dull, unnatural chemistry among the actors.
Worse, after the first episode, the production team was accused of plagiarising the house’s design from the Japanese video game My Summer Vacation.
Staff denied the allegations, but said they would make changes after “humbly accepting viewers’ opinion”.