"The Legend Of The Blue Sea" got off to an explosive start after the SBS drama's premiere episode, which aired on Nov. 16, Wednesday, posted impressive TV ratings. However, despite the show's early success, it is being criticized for copying certain scenes from the British TV series "Sherlock."
The highly anticipated series, which stars Lee Min Ho and Jun Ji Hyun, recorded a viewership rating of 16.4 with its first episode, according to Soompi. However, angry netizens called out the show's writer for plagiarizing certain scenes from the British drama series, which stars actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
"I was a bit confused watching it because it was obviously from Sherlock...why is she copying such a famous TV series," AllKPop quoted one such social media user as saying. While another viewer wrote, "When I saw that scene, I thought it was a Sherlock parody."
The scenes that viewers found to be too similar to the British drama series were shots that made use of text overlays over a person's body as the individual is being examined. The concept has been used often in "Sherlock," which debuted in 2010. Here's a scene-to-scene comparison between both dramas.
This is not the first time the "Legend of the Blue Sea" writer has been accused of plagiarizing content from foreign material. The scribe was also in charge of writing duties for the hit Korean series "You Who Came from the Stars," which many felt contained scenes that were copied from an American TV series called "New Amsterdam," which aired in 2008.
"Legend Of The Blue Sea" follows the relationship between a mermaid named Shim Chung (Jun) and a con-man named Heo Joon-jae (Lee). The period drama will return with the third episode on Wednesday, Nov. 25, at 10 p.m. KST on SBS. Check out the promo of the upcoming episode below:
