ENA’s Monday-Tuesday drama “Love Doctor” (Yeonae Baksa) has finally found its late momentum. Episode 8, which aired on October 27, drew 2.7 percent nationwide among paid households, according to Nielsen Korea, setting a new series high for the show and lifting it out of the low-2 percent range where it had spent most of its run.
The episode was up 0.5 percentage points from the previous episode, Ilgan Sports reported, and the drama’s turnaround is now visible beyond South Korea as well. According to global streaming tracker FlixPatrol, “Love Doctor” climbed to No. 4 on Disney+‘s global TV shows chart in the tally dated October 28, a striking result for a cable romance that opened to far quieter numbers.
The ratings climb caps a slow, steady trajectory. “Love Doctor” premiered on October 6 to 1.8 percent, then moved through the low-2 percent band in its early weeks: episode 2 posted 2.4 percent, episode 3 slipped to 2.1 percent, and episode 4, which aired October 13, drew 2.25 percent. Episode 8’s 2.7 percent — reported more precisely as 2.737 percent by Newsen — is therefore not a one-night spike but the top of a gradual upward slope, arriving just as the story heads into its final stretch with four episodes remaining.
Episode 8 put its leads through the kind of reality check the drama has built its reputation on. Park Min-jae (Choo Young-woo) faced opposition from Im Yu-jin’s older brother, Im Yu-seong (Kim Min-seok), who learned that Min-jae lost a leg to illness and wears a prosthetic, and demanded that he break up with Yu-jin. Min-jae refused to back down, telling Yu-seong that he would not give up Yu-jin even if he gave up everything else, and he turned down a postdoctoral position at a university in the United States so he could stay by her side.
Yu-jin (Kim So-hyun), however, did not want his sacrifice. She told him she did not want him to abandon his dream for her sake and said she would wait for him and become a better person in the meantime. The episode then jumped forward in time: Yu-jin was shown at an airport after four seasons had passed, waiting for someone with a bright smile — only for the person to turn out to be Lee Ji-hoon (Jang In-sub), not Min-jae, leaving viewers to wonder how the triangle has shifted in the intervening time.
The drama has also drawn praise from an unexpected quarter. Actor Kim Hee-ae, who starred in director Ahn Pan-seok’s earlier works “A Wife’s Credentials” and “Secret Love Affair,” wrote on social media that she kept wondering whether the drama’s power came from the script, from Ahn’s direction, or from the cast’s craft, adding that all of those elements seemed to blend together and that she was looking forward to the next episode. Ilgan Sports noted that the endorsement helped draw attention from viewers beyond the drama’s existing fan base.
“Love Doctor” carries extra weight as the final directing work of Ahn Pan-seok, who died in August 2026. Written by Min Hyo-jung, the 12-episode series follows Park Min-jae, a robotics doctoral student who is sincere in his research but hopeless at romance — a former high school swimmer who lost a leg to illness — and Im Yu-jin, a master’s student who lost her way career-wise, as an awkward romance blooms in their robotics lab. The supporting cast includes Park Hyuk-kwon, Seo Jung-yeon, Kim Min-seok, Lee Chang-hoon, Jang In-sub, and Ryu Kyung-in.
The show’s premise has always been quieter than the makjang-style twists that dominate much of Korean prime time. Its characters carry ordinary anxieties — career pressure, family opposition, and the fear of being a burden to someone they love — and the drama has played those conflicts at a deliberately patient pace. A broadcasting official quoted by Ilgan Sports said Ahn approached youth not as teenagers or people in their early twenties, but as people in their late twenties and early thirties, which gives the same worries a heavier, more adult weight.
That patience appears to be paying off now. With the leads separated by distance and time, and a new question hanging over Yu-jin’s airport reunion, the final four episodes will determine whether the series-high rating was the start of a genuine late surge or a peak before the finale. “Love Doctor” airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 10 p.m. KST on ENA and streams on Genie TV and Disney+.
