The Matchmakers Ep 16 earns highest ever rating as international viewers quibble about ratings

Photo courtesy KBS2

The series finale of the Korean historical romance drama The Matchmakers aired on KBS2 earlier tonight and, happily for the cast and crew, The Matchmakers, Episode 16 ended the series with the drama’s highest ever rating.

That rating was 5.8 percent of the audience share, which was quite a jump from its previous episode’s 5.0 percent, and a nice way to end what has been an excellent drama series throughout its run.

The rating also means the average nationwide rating the K-drama received for each episode was a 4.2 percent.

Ratings for The Matchmakers from international viewers

Meanwhile, over on Viki, the drama ended with that platform’s subscribers rating The Matchmakers a very high 9.4 out of 10 rating.

Over on My Drama List, however, where the drama is currently ranked a quite low 7.8 out of 10, some viewers are complaining about the low rating and intimating it was brought down by people judging the K-drama because they were “offended” by certain parts of it or thought they were “inappropriate”.

People who don’t realize, or care is more like it, that the way society operated hundreds of years ago doesn’t fit neatly into 21st century so-called “morals”.

Or that not everyone is “offended” by the things they supposedly are offended by.

And neither is every culture.

Ratings like those for The Matchmakers on My Drama List are why I always warn not to pay attention to them when considering watching a drama, or you could miss excellent K-dramas that have been deliberately downrated because they don’t fit what a minority of people think is “appropriate”.

The Matchmakers, by the way, stars Rowoon and Cho Yi Hyun.

The Korean drama is nicely written, features an interesting and unusual plot, has main leads who not only give superb performances but have great chemistry with each other, and has some of the prettiest cinematography, costumes and sets I have seen.

It also features some very funny, and quite clever scenes.

In other words, pay no mind to the ratings and make up your own mind.

And, if you want to do just this, all 16 episodes of The Matchmakers are now available to watch via Viki.

 

About Michelle Topham

Brit-American journalist based in Austria, former radio DJ at 97X WOXY, and Founder/CEO of Leo Sigh. I've covered K-drama, K-pop, J-pop and music news for over a decade.