Big Cast Could Not Save Ratings for “Kids’ Lives Matter”
Despite high hopes, the first week viewership ratings for TVB series Kids’ Lives Matter <星空下的仁醫> and Take Two <換命真相> in Hong Kong yielded mediocre results.
With Shaun Tam (譚俊彦), Gloria Tang (鄧佩儀), and Jonathan Cheung’s (張頴康) Take Two only averaging about 19.1 points during the first week, it was lower than Come Home Love: Lo and Behold <愛．回家之開心速遞>, which averaged 20.7 points.
Performing even worse than Take Two, Kevin Cheung (鄭嘉穎), Kenneth Ma (馬國明), and Linda Chung’s (鍾嘉欣) medical series Kids’ Lives Matter only garnered 18.5 points.
What shocked viewers most was the fact that Kids’ Lives Matter received a great amount of media buzz before last Monday’s premiere. With two TV Kings starring in the pediatric-themed drama, as well as Linda’s comeback role, many thought the drama would be a big hit.
Although the two dramas were slated to be TVB’s grand productions this year, ratings were even lower than long-running sitcom, However, it is still too early into the broadcasting run to determine whether they will become major flops or pick up viewership in the following weeks.
In contrast to Hong Kong’s lukewarm reception, Mainland Chinese viewers were bigger fans of the show. Chinese netizens gave excellent feedback, and the series received 9 points in critical reviews.
Not all of TVB’s productions have been met with mediocre ratings lately. In fact, during the typhoon warning two weeks ago, long running entertainment news program The Scoop <東張西望> received a rating of 29.2 across seven days of broadcast. Come Home Love also received a 28.5-point rating, and even peaked at 28.7 on October 13.
“Kids’ Lives Matter” Fails to Please Hong Kong Viewers
Source: HK01
This article was written by Su for JayneStars.com.
Linda and kenneth can’t act so how can they save the drama ? Kevin isn’t great either so….I’m not surprised lol
I was watching Take Two when few ep in I decided to stop and watch Demon Slayer which was more believable, believe it or not. Take Two didn’t bother with story build up, whether he reincarnated as he called himself or traveled back in time or in a dream or whatever. There’s no proper storytelling and it switched between funny, cute, morbid, tragic, etc with actresses I do not care about and Shaun Tam looking gaunt and emanciated. At same time I switched to some scenes in succession war and he looked handsome and healthy there. As for worst titled TV series ever, Kids Lives Matter, I’m still watching. The only actor who actually grew as an actor is Him Law whose character Max is right now intriguing to me. The rest has yet to do anything. Sure Kevin is the jokester, Linda the chirpy one and Kenneth the misunderstood and Catherine the somewhat tragic one, drama wise the series is what tvb does best. But on the technicalities, I wonder was hospital consulted? Do interns, residents, even patients and families behave that way? Do chief of surgery actually take complaints from nurses and where is the head nurse? We all know hospitals are almost most hierarchical workplace, so I find their behaviours unrealistic. The surgical scenes are seriously unrealistic but maybe in hk doctors do hunch over that much, not much blood and there’s no specialisation involved because everyone does everything. If you want a somewhat more realistic portrayal, it’s Hopistal Playlist and it’s sequel. There’s a believability to even how they use their feet to push over doors, something this series don’t have. At least tvb series have doctors killing patient..Well we don’t know yet until later. It would have been OK if the interns are all better actors. They aren’t. They act haughty, didn’t even look like they are over worked, under rest or under pressure. The interaction between heads, suegeons, chiefs, residents and interns are so…how shall I put it? Unrealistic. Kids lives matter fails in being credible. Drama wise, it fails for being unoriginal. Some emphasis and scenes are so similar to Hospital Playlist. Because tvb hospital drama never shows all that until the k drama as I’ve seen it. The only guy who looked like a doctor was the A&E doctor who was a doctor before becoming actor. Maybe now he’s part time actor, full time doctor. He’s a good actor and should have been given prominent role than given to those who butcher the English. For a serious drama about picu and nicu and pediatrics, where children die, cured, live, comatose, everything now is so Rose tinted.
I get why china like it tho. Because believe it or not, at least at this point this series isn’t preachy or oversentimental, 2 factors which cdrama are champions of. I will continue to watch for Him and why his Max is so tortured and the poor tragic Catherine and her handsome comatose husband and hopefully we get to see her growth as a chief because right now she’s so inept. In fact I wished Shaun Tam was Amos. At least something fresh.
As for Linda’s big comeback, nothing to shout about since so little is focused on her. The casting from young to old I this series is to me a huge fail. Not surprised thr ratings not ok right now. And the waterworks have yet to begin.
You wrote how I feel about the two dramas! TVB has no idea how to write a proper script, as we see in Shaun’s drama. Horrendous editting with an incoherent storyline and boring dialogue. Not to mention lots of illogical plot holes. Seriously? Y’all just gonna walk into a wind damaged building with broken glass with no safety gear?
Kids’ Lives Matter is so over the top. I really doubt residents have free time to stand around and gossip and chat to their patients about the weather. Again, boring dialogue. I only watched like two episodes of it so I can’t comment on Catherine and Him Law, but Kevin/Kenneth/Linda are just like being themselves. It’s really hard to become engaged and feel nervous (or anything) for the doctors.
All dramas from tvb this year have been dull, except Shaun’s earlier drama.
Looking at where TVB is focusing on now (CN), i guess this is a victory in their eyes. Income/ratings from CN is apparently more important than that from HK or the rest of the world.
Like i said previously, TVB was the station for all Asians on a global basis but is now only one of the many stations of CN. TVB wants to appease CN audiences and their censorship board. If this is TVB vision for the future, than ratings in HK or our opinions does not matter anymore
This statement above is a 100% truth!!! That’s why tvb series have been blah imo.
Wow I’m shocked at the good results in mainland. This drama is by no mean a “bad” series, but it is boring and generic. It is possible that the younger mainland audience have never seen old TVB dramas so they don’t realise this is just following overused plot lines the HK audience has seen time and time again. I’ve seen redditors say they won’t watch old drama (anything before 2010).
This drama is alo realistic which alot of modern viewers prefer over drama.
Kevin is actually not bad in this, I enjoy his character but it’s so damn obvious they are making this show overly dramatic for Linda’s character who barely speaks Cantonese now and it’s half English. I think her acting has gotten even worse.
Him’s character has potential. I like Catherine’s character. Bowie is TERRIBLE. Tvb is honestly going down the drain and can’t be saved anymore.
no difference from Nokia, who went from being everything to nothing
That’s a great comparison lol
Tried to watch it twice on different days with different episodes but don’t find it interesting. The younger actors and actresses were stiff and the plot is boring and quite unbelievable. Kenneth’s character actually remembered the full name of his patient from more than a decade ago. I don’t know what the patient did to leave such a deep impression.
I’m surprised. I’ve been watching and am enjoying it!
Linda acting is not great & Kenneth’s acting has not progressed. Not sure about Kevin as I haven’t seen in acting for quite a while.
I kind of only watched around 10 minutes of a particular episode and lost all interest……………Linda Chung is not the least bit interesting or attractive to watch on TV, and should have just stayed retired back in Vancouver………..As for Kenneth and Kevin,……..well, they didn’t really portray themselves as doctors as well as they should have.