Which Love Story Won The Ratings Battle This Week?

The top contenders in this week's ratings battle were once again the love stories "My Spring Days" and "My Lovable Girl." The drama that won the lead was "My Spring Days," starring Girls Generation's Choi Sooyoung and actor Kam Woo Sung. The MBC drama about a woman who receives a heart transplant and finds herself drawn to the husband of her heart donor, held first place again on Oct. 16. This time the drama earned 8.5 percent in the ratings. That was only 0.1 percent less than the drama's previous episode but it clearly remains the favorite in its time slot.

The drama's plot, which recently seemed to promise reconciliations and a happy ending, took a sad turn during this episode when the heroine, played by Sooyoung, falls ill and is hospitalized. It's too soon to know whether her body is rejecting the donor heart with potentially fatal consequences or whether she merely has a treatable complication. A heart transplant recipient's body can reject the transplant days or years after it happens. Will the poor condition of Sooyoung's character prompt her mother to reconsider and bless her relationship? Until now the drama has managed to be optimistic and lighthearted about the subject of heart transplants. But it could yet end tragically.

In second place was "My Lovable Girl," starring Rain, f(x)'s Krystal Jung and Infinite's L. "My Lovable Girl" and "My Spring Days" have a lot in common. They are both about love made problematic by family ties and the death of a loved one. Both dramas focus on couples in which the man is much older than the woman. But that's where the similarities end.

What "My Lovable Girl" is good at is depicting the dark side of the k-pop industry with problems, such as backstabbing rivalries and the kind of agency politics that can hamper creativity. "My Lovable Girl" again held second place, rating at 6.9 percent. That's an increase of 1.2 percent from the previous episode. And the drama may be gaining interest as the lead characters played by Rain and Krystal Jung are finding it too difficult to be apart.

"Blade Man," starring Lee Dong Wook and Shin Se Kyung also increased slightly but the 0.2 percent increase only brought the drama to 4.3 percent. The drama about a mutant whose rage prompts blades to project form his body has languished in third place for weeks.