In its latest review, Korea's top film magazine, Cine21, had deemed "Queen of Tears" the most overrated K-drama of the year so far, causing a stir among K-drama fans and critics.

While the series garnered sweeping commercial success — as it was dubbed the "most buzzworthy" K-drama of the year — Cine21 critics highlighted how many of the series' plot points played into cliched tropes.

Critic Kim Sun-young said the drama too often lifted from earlier programs, especially correlating it with the KBS series "The Clinic for Married Couples: Love and War," which ran from 1999 to 2014.

Others criticized the series for not dealing with a handful of social issues correctly.

Bok Gil slammed its pervy obsession with class and status versus the orientation of the common loser, and Park Hyun-joo totally nailed it in the lack of social commentary factor.

Adding to this, Jin Myung-hyun commented that the series' humor has also gone down a downward path without providing any freshness with the use of rehashed jokes.

By contrast, Cine21 called "A Virtuous Business" the most underrated K-drama of the year.

Starring Kim So-yeon, the series is a rare story about married women, single mothers, and divorced women peddling adult toys in a small country village back in the early 1990s.

Critics pointed out that it adeptly wove themes of sexuality within larger structures of society, a new and rather feminist approach.

One critic, Kim Hye-ri, praised "A Virtuous Business" for its ability to deliver an uncompromising narrative that tackles complicated issues without dodging difficult truths.

Despite tackling feminist issues that feel ageless, the historical context allows the narrative to pass optically without being criticized too harshly, Bok Gil complimented.

The disparity in the reception of these two dramas points to a larger discussion in the Korean entertainment industry on maintaining artistic integrity while appealing to the mass market.

"Queen of Tears" and "A Virtuous Business" keep the conversation going in late 2024: Both keep the K-drama conversation churning well into late 2024, perhaps indicative of K-drama storytelling changing with the times.