‘The Legendary Army Cook’ and ‘Brave New World’ are totally winning over viewers with their hilarious ‘B-grade comedy’ vibes.
The ratings for the Tving original and tvN Mon-Tue drama ‘The Legendary Army Cook’ (Written by Choi Ryong / Directed by Jo Nam-hyung) are soaring. Starting at 5.8% for the first episode on the 11th, it steadily climbed to 7.9% by the fourth episode aired on the 19th.
It’s proving its massive popularity by achieving the highest subscription contribution for any Tving drama in the last three years within its first week of release.
‘The Legendary Army Cook’ is a military cooking drama about Private Kang Seong-jae (played by Park Ji-hoon), who transforms from a “soldier of interest” into a legendary cook at the Gangrim Outpost. Based on a web novel of the same name, the cast includes Park Ji-hoon, Yoon Kyung-ho, Han Dong-hee, Lee Hong-nae, and Lee Sang-yi.
The secret to its success is its ‘B-grade comedy.’ Kang Seong-jae, who knew nothing about cooking, completes quests that appear as auditory and visual hallucinations, almost like a game character, to acquire recipes. The way the show depicts the “taste” of the food is unlike anything we’ve seen before.
The laughs started when soldiers reacted to cook Yoon Dong-hyun’s (Lee Hong-nae) soup as if they were falling into hellish lava. Since then, the unique reactions to Kang Seong-jae’s delicious meals have gone viral. From soldiers fighting a war with bean sprouts instead of guns after eating bean sprout soup, to Battalion Commander Baek Chun-ik (Jung Woong-in) parodying the masterpiece ‘The Creation of Adam’ with Kang Seong-jae wrapped in seaweed, the scenes have been an absolute riot.
Especially in the third episode aired on the 18th, a scene where a North Korean defector transforms into a rocker to praise the taste of Kang Seong-jae’s tonkatsu has been recreated in countless short-form videos, heating up the internet.
There’s another drama heating up the living room with ‘B-grade comedy’ just as much as ‘The Legendary Army Cook.’ It’s the SBS Fri-Sat drama ‘Brave New World’ (Written by Kang Hyun-joo / Directed by Han Tae-seop, Kim Hyun-woo), which has been airing since the 8th.
‘Brave New World’ is a high-tension romantic drama featuring Shin Seo-ri (Lim Ji-yeon), an unknown actress possessed by the soul of Joseon’s greatest villainess Kang Dan-sim, and Cha Se-gye (Heo Nam-jun), a malicious chaebol known as a monster of capitalism. Starting at 4.1% for the first episode, it hit a series high of 6% in the fourth episode on the 16th.
The charm of ‘Brave New World’ lies in its strategy of using parodies of various dramas for laughs. In a fight scene between redevelopment thugs and Kang Dan-sim (possessing Shin Seo-ri), Shin Seo-ri dressed up as Kim Du-han from ‘Yainshidae,’ creating a hilarious battle that caught everyone’s attention.
Additionally, a scene where Shin Seo-ri, while watching the drama ‘Women of the Court,’ claps and says “Wonderful,” reminiscent of the “Bravo, Park Yeon-jin” line from ‘The Glory,’ drove viewers wild. By actively incorporating various online memes, ‘Brave New World’ is praised for giving a fresh twist to the common time-slip and possession tropes.
While many recent dramas lean toward serious and heavy atmospheres, ‘The Legendary Army Cook’ and ‘Brave New World’ have taken a completely different approach by putting ‘B-grade comedy’ front and center. With both shows seeing a rise in ratings and buzz, it seems this strategy has successfully carved out a niche market.
Now that both have aired four episodes, the big question is how they will unfold from here. The key will be whether they can maintain the humor that captured viewers’ hearts while also delivering a compelling story. This is why there’s growing interest in whether they can achieve both goals and leave a mark as major hits of the first half of 2026.
