Lee Ha-na has been confirmed to return in the new season of OCN’s crime series Voice, a representative of the drama said.

News outlet Ilgan Sports reported on January 15 that the actress and Lee Jin-wook, her co-star in the second season of the drama, will be back for Voice 3. In response, the representative of the series confirmed Lee Ha-na’s appearance but clarified that Lee Jin-wook is still in talks to headline the upcoming season.

Lee Ha-na will reprise her role as a voice profiler whose character is crucial in the new story that has connections with the previous season. Just like in the first two seasons, she has the special ability to hear extraordinarily weak voices related to the criminals and their surroundings which can be used to find leads and evidences that could eventually solve the cases. Thus the title ‘Voice.’

Voice is a crime and thriller drama which started in 2017. The first season stars Lee Ha-na and Jang Hyuk (Bad Papa) as police officers who have lost their loved ones to the same killer and work together to put the killer in jail. Data from Nielsen Korea show that it received decent viewership ratings during its run (January 14 to March 12, 2017), achieving a nationwide peak rating of 5.4 % and holding the record of being the highest-rated OCN drama in the network’s history until Tunnel surpassed it in May 2017.

Voice 2 premiered on August 11, 2018 with a story that picks up where the previous season left off. The show centers on the Golden Time Team, led by Lee Ha-na’s character, a special task force made up of police call center workers, crime specialists and detectives who deal with life-and-death situations. The series is likewise is a success as far as cable TV viewership is concerned, garnering a peak rating of 7.1 percent on its finale that aired on September 16, 2018.

OCN announced the third season of the series in September 2018 just a day after Voice 2 surpassed the peak rating of the first season. However, its viewership success was not the primary cause of the extension. PD Lee Seung-yeong said that the second and third seasons were planned together from the beginning. “[Season 2] couldn’t be wrapped up in just 16 episodes, so a third season was brought into the picture, and Season 2 was changed to 12 episodes,” he explained.

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