Lee Hye-ri's ENA Drama 'Dear.M' Opens to Network's Lowest-Ever Rating

Singer and actor Lee Hye-ri's new drama on ENA, "Dear.M" (Geudaeege Deurim), opened at a 2.7% viewership rating. The number is the lowest first-episode rating ever recorded for a Monday-Tuesday drama on the network.

"Dear.M" premiered on the 13th. Lee Hye-ri plays Ju I-jae, a woman who once dreamed of becoming a film director but has buried that dream to work as a jobbing broadcast reporter. At the production presentation, Lee Hye-ri had said she felt "confident" about the show, making the soft launch a disappointing start.

In her teenage years, Ju I-jae was a girl who filmed her daily life with a camera and dreamed of directing movies. In the premiere, Lee Hye-ri played a young I-jae who was caught filming Woo Su-bin (played by Hwang In-yeop), a transfer student from Seoul. She hid in a panic and blushed at his every word, capturing the fresh, shy feeling of a first crush.

Fifteen years later, I-jae has become a reporter traveling the country, and for reasons the drama has not yet explained, she wants nothing to do with Su-bin. Lee Hye-ri showed I-jae growing uneasy when she heard that Su-bin, now a film director, had won an award. When they crossed paths again at the broadcasting station, I-jae greeted him with sharp, cutting words, a version of the character far removed from her teenage self.

Near the end of the episode, Su-bin proposed that the two finish "Gyeongseong Yeonga," a screenplay they had once written together. I-jae refused firmly, spilling coffee on the script. "You should have just stayed as my first love. You aren't a regret. Woo Su-bin, you're my regret," she said, a line that pointed straight at the pair's shared history.

Throughout the premiere, Lee Hye-ri moved between the teenage Ju I-jae falling in first love and the cynical reporter she becomes 15 years later. A scene that cut between a younger I-jae sobbing outside Su-bin's house and her present-day self hurling resentment at him raised the biggest questions about what happened between them. Attention now turns to how Lee Hye-ri will carry the rest of the story.

Episode two of "Dear.M" airs at 10 p.m. KST.