Lee Min Ho's mermaid drama "Legend of the Blue Sea" has been posting strong TV ratings since it released its first episode in November 2016. Recently, the SBS series' penultimate episode reached high viewership shares following Cheong's (Jun Ji Hyun) health scare.
"Legend of the Blue Sea" episode 19 recently reached its highest nationwide TV ratings to date. Aired on Jan. 19, Thursday, the said episode registered viewership ratings of 21 percent across the South Korean nation, according to Nielsen Korea, as cited by OSEN.
The said episode's nationwide ratings marked the second time that Lee's drama crossed the 20 percent mark. Episode 17 that was released on Jan. 12 posted viewership shares of 20.8 percent.
Meanwhile, the SBS drama's penultimate episode also achieved strong ratings that reached 22.2 percent. If compared to the previous episode's viewership shares, the said ratings are higher by 2.3 and 2.7 percentage points in Seoul and nationwide, respectively.
With Lee and Jun's fantasy series set to air its final episode, many viewers are looking forward to learning about Cheong and Joon Jae's (Lee) fate. However, given Cheong's ailing health, she may need to revert to her mermaid form and return to the sea.
At this time, it is still unclear whether Cheong will be able to find her way back to Joon Jae should she return to her underwater home. Despite Joon Jae's willingness to wait for her along with a promise to find her again, it appears the Cheong would rather erase his memories of her to ease his loneliness and give him a chance to live a happy life.
In other news, "Legend of the Blue Sea" nabbed the second spot on the Content Power Index for the period from Jan. 2 until Jan. 8. The SBS drama scored 236.9 points on the said TV popularity chart, according to CJ E&M and Nielsen Korea, as cited by Yonhap News.
"Legend of the Blue Sea" will air its series finale on Jan. 25, Wednesday on SBS. Watch a clip from the drama below: