KBS2’s weekend melodrama “A Love Other Than Yours” has come to an end, closing a 14-episode run that finished where its premise promised it would: with its decade-long couple apart, and its characters choosing new loves instead. The finale, which aired on November 1, recorded 2.4% nationwide among households, according to Nielsen Korea figures cited by MK.
That final number was a recovery of sorts, up 0.8 percentage points from the series low of 1.6% in episode 13, but it still fell short of the show’s peak of 2.8% in episode 2. Across its full run, which began on September 12 at 2.6%, the drama never once broke the 3% mark, a trajectory that frames the finale as a modest rebound rather than a late surge.
The ending followed the logic of the title. Namgung Ho, played by Seo Kang Joon, and Lee Mi Do, played by Ahn Eun Jin, had been together for ten years but accepted that they could not return to the way things were, and parted. Two years later, the people each of them had dated during their month of other relationships were back beside them. Returning from the Paris branch, Namgung Ho sought out Park Soo Ah, played by Jo A Ram, and confessed feelings he had never been able to forget, while Lee Mi Do began a new love by kissing Han Tae Seung, played by Lee Joo Ahn, first.
TenAsia’s finale report focused on Lee Joo Ahn’s performance as Han Tae Seung, the role that marked his first leading part. In the final episode, Han Tae Seung’s change was shown first through his work, as a lawyer offering free legal help who urged a client to cry, then softened to comfort that client by saying he would have protected them had he been there. With Lee Mi Do, the performance turned on a different register: playful teasing that hid insecurity, a face that hardened at the mention of Namgung Ho, and a direct plea for certainty when he finally told her, in the report’s account, to give him reassurance that their relationship would continue.
That arc was built across the series, from a sharp, guarded presence early on to tears at the prospect of a breakup and, finally, a man who openly declared his relationship in front of Lee Mi Do’s family. Lee Joo Ahn traced Han Tae Seung’s growth step by step, TenAsia noted, from someone shaped by hurt to someone who learned to look at other people through love. The finale gave that journey its payoff: after hearing Lee Mi Do’s true feelings, Han Tae Seung spoke honestly about his own, and the couple moved a step further together in the closing scenes.
The ratings story, however, ran in the opposite direction for most of the run. After the 2.6% premiere and the 2.8% peak in episode 2, the series drifted downward, falling to 1.9% by episode 8, then sitting at 1.8% for episodes 9 through 11, 1.9% for episode 12 and a low of 1.6% for episode 13. TenAsia attributed part of the disappointment to storytelling rather than acting, pointing to repetitive misfortune in the plot and emotional lines that viewers found hard to empathise with, with reactions to the ending itself divided.
That context matters because the drama arrived with high expectations. Seo Kang Joon and Ahn Eun Jin were presented as a trusted melodrama pairing, and the premise itself was bold: a couple of ten years agreeing to date other people for a month. Early on, the show found a different kind of audience, ranking fifth worldwide in Prime Video’s television category and entering the top 10 in 35 countries, according to MK’s finale coverage. That international footprint never translated into domestic ratings momentum, and the gap between the two audiences became one of the defining features of the run.
KpopFizz previously covered the show’s slide in October, when episode 8 fell to 1.9%, then a series low. The finale confirms that the pattern held to the end: a promising start, a long stretch in the 1% range, and a closing episode that lifted the number without changing the overall verdict. The series aired Saturdays and Sundays at 9:20 p.m. on KBS2, and its 14 episodes are now complete.
For Lee Joo Ahn, the finale still marks a personal milestone, a first leading role carried through to a full ending. For the drama as a whole, the legacy is likely to be its experiment rather than its numbers: a story that asked whether a ten-year love could survive a month apart, and answered, in the end, that it could not, but that something new could begin in its place.
