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| TvN series "Mr. Queen" reached its highest viewership rating, Saturday. Courtesy of tvN |
By Lee Gyu-lee
TvN series "Mr. Queen" is seeing a continuous rise in its viewership rating despite controversy over "distorting history," scoring its highest rating with Saturday's episode at 11.3 percent.
The historical fantasy drama, set in the Joseon Kingdom period, is about a modern-day chef Jang Bong-hwan (Choi Jin-hyuk) who mysteriously slips through time and becomes trapped in the body of Queen Cheorin (Shin Hye-sun). He as the queen now has to keep his secret from the people in the royal palace, while struggling to fulfill the queen's royal duties.
The comedy series' rating, since kicking off at 8 percent Dec. 12, has been steadily growing with each episode.
However, soon after its airing, the series met with criticism. In episode 2, Queen Cheorin referred to Korea's national treasure the Veritable Records of the Joseon Kingdom as a "tabloid."
This drew criticism for "belittling" the designated national treasure. About 700 people have filed complaints over the issue with the Korea Communications Standards Commission.
The series' exaggerated portrayal of its characters, named after known historical figures, also stirred anger.
The decedents of Queen Shinjeong expressed strong criticism on its depiction of the character as someone who is obsessed with and lives by superstition.
"Not just from the series but also on its website, it says the character 'believes in all sorts of superstitions,' which is disgraceful to the actual historical figure," a representative of the Pungyang Jo clan told Hankook Ilbo, sister paper of The Korea Times, Dec. 15.
The representative said he demanded TvN remove the scene from online platforms and vowed to take legal action if the show continues to depict her as such.
As criticism has continued to grow, the network released a statement Dec. 16, apologizing for the "inappropriate" line in which the national treasure was called a tabloid.
"We took this seriously and deleted that part," TvN said. "We also did not intend to depict any historical event or figure negatively but wanted to give a laugh to people through our work. But we apologize for making it uncomfortable to watch and will be more careful in the future."
