Kim Ji-won's Doctor-X Jumps From 11.4% to 14.9% in Two Episodes

Kim Ji-won's new SBS Friday-Saturday drama Doctor-X: The Age of the White Mafia rose from 11.4% for its premiere to 14.9% for episode two, according to Nielsen Korea's nationwide figures. The first number was the best debut for a miniseries this year; the second, from the episode that aired on the 10th, was the highest rating of any Saturday miniseries.

The start fits a pattern SBS has cultivated for years: weekend dramas built around a protagonist who dismantles institutional corruption through competence alone. Kim's character, a freelance genius surgeon named Kye Soo-jung, belongs to that lineage, and the early numbers suggest audiences are still receptive to it.

In the Seoul metropolitan area, episode two scored 14.7% and peaked at 17.4%. The 2049 demographic rating, the metric advertisers and buzz-watchers follow most closely, averaged 4.6% with a high of 5.4%, the best of any program aired that week.

A surgeon who does not wait for permission

The drama is adapted from TV Asahi's Doctor-X: Surgeon Daimon Michiko and marks Kim's first role in a medical series. Soo-jung is dispatched to fill a gap in the surgical department at Gooseo University Hospital, a place where a patient's status and a director's favor outweigh clinical judgment.

She challenges the director, Kim Myung-seob (Kim Jong-goo), on her first day, objecting to a surgical approach she considers unsuitable for the patient. When he collapses mid-operation and leaves a patient lying open on the table, she steps in and finishes the procedure.

The second episode pushes the conflict further. To transport an emergency patient, Lee Joo-hee (Yuna), Soo-jung takes the wheelchair of VIP patient Park Kwang-chul (Kim Ki-cheon), the hospital's chairman, and puts her in it. The surgeons who see her as a threat order intern Park Tae-kyung (Kim Woo-seok) to monitor her every move.

The question that closes episode two

The episode ends on a hook. Suspicious of how remarkable her technique is, the surgeons search online and find a news article about a doctor known as "Doctor-X" who used the same method. The patient in that report died two months after surgery, and Soo-jung's face appears in the article photo.

Kim Ji-won's shift in register

The casting also carries weight because of what came before. Kim's last major project was Queen of Tears, in which she played a chaebol heiress, an elegant and polished figure. Here she wears a surgical gown and plays someone blunt and unsentimental.

Reviews of the first two episodes point to restraint as the key: a low, steady voice, a cold stare, and precise expressions and hand movements in the operating scenes. Whether the show can sustain these numbers will depend on how far the hospital cartel storyline goes, and how the mystery of Soo-jung's past is resolved.