I hope you return to Bad Guys at some point. I recently finished it, and would rank it among the top of my all-time favorite K-dramas. And I think think PHJ is fantastic in both this and Cheese. I was watching them at the same time, but found that he portrayed the two dark, mysterious, and confusing characters very differently, making each one unique and compelling.

also, wow @the SFD ratings - Yoo Ah-in really is having a fantastic year, two hit movies (one the biggest hit of the year) and a drama with those numbers in an age where even double digit ratings are considered decent.

I agree about "Cheese in the Trap", and I think that if it was given "Signal's" time slot, it would've gotten even higher ratings. Also I saw the online ratings for this, and while I'm not sure what the difference is (I'm thinking that online ratings measure how many watched the episode online, as opposed to watching it on their tvs?), anyways it is hitting 80% in online ratings, that is insane. I think "My Love from the Stars" was hitting 60-65% in online ratings. So I think "Cheese" is getting the highest online ratings of any drama.

watch it. you will not regret it

It has those cry-hard moments, for example, I was bawling in the middle of episode 6... then the investigation got back on track, I found myself intrigued instead of weepy.

I'd say the show has a balanced diet of drama and suspense. Please try the first two episodes! I was kinda hesitant to follow it at first but the show kept being good after each episode. I want to be a profiler now lol.

Now if only Remember's Jin Woo and Signal's Hae Young meet and work on Oh Jung Ah case together... then we'd be spared all the makjang stuff on Remember.

Somewhat, yes. People you like actually die. But since this involves time travel (sort of), are they really dead?

Eh. I think it's verging on slick but soulless territory. If you don't get emotionally involved in tertiary characters whose sole purpose is getting fridged for the case of the week, you should be okay.

yeah, Signal is good in its own right.

It's reaping some of the benefit of being the Answer Me followup just as Emergency Couple did back in early 2014 after AM1994, but at least this time I don't want to throw things at the screen because people are being stupid.

Your nickname cracks me up!

Signal is a drama by tvN, which is a cable channel, while SFD is by SBS, one of the Big 3 of Korea. Big 3 channels' hit dramas at weekday prime time usually sees ratings in the teens, but for cable channels, hitting 1% is usually considered a good rating. Of course, this trend is currently changing with tvN successfully getting much higher ratings comparable to the Big 3, eg its successful Reply Me franchise.

Shows like Please, Mom is a completely different story. Please Mom is a weekend drama, and weekend drama traditionally gets extremely high ratings in the 20s to 30s. Extremely successful ones like Wang's Family and What Happens To My Family even get 40s or 50s. Comparing weekend dramas' ratings to weekday prime time drama is unfair because the demographics are so different.

I get confused by ratings … Why are (say) signal’s ratings talked about when SFD or please, mom have double, triple the ratings ?

SFD runs on a public channel, Signal on a subscription cable channel. That's like comparing CBS and HBO ratings.

SFD is doing a very good job on weekday prime time, 16% is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not something extraordinary either.

Signal on the other hand is one of the most successful cable drama shows ever (in terms of ratings).

… And why are there so few shows ? Does korean tv have only 2 or 3 shows in a day ?

No, they have additional shows, daily dramas for example, typically one in the morning and another one in the evening.

However, these shows are not in the scope of Dramabeans, they are usually produced rather cheaply and are typically not considered on the same level as the so-called prime-time shows (typically two episodes per week).

Thank you all for clarifying my doubts. I had no idea how korean broadcasting actually works and what the numbers mean... It all makes sense now - how ppl are astounded by cheese and signals's numbers

Continue if you have time it gets really good after episode 1, I sometimes even watch the episodes more than once, it really is an addicting show.