Avengers Social Club is steadily gaining more viewers every new episode and has set an impressive record in tvN’s history this year. On Wednesday night, the revenge series achieved a remarkable nationwide audience share of 5.249 % according to Nielsen Korea and became the first ever tvN drama in 2017 to surpass the 5 percent-mark in just three episodes.

The second Wednesday-Thursday drama of tvN this year, Avengers Social Club centers around three ahjummas who team up in an effort to take revenge against those who have wronged them. The drama does not seem to present an attention-grabbing premise one would expect to become a hit among viewers, especially if three older actresses are headlining the show. However, it premiered on October 11 with 2.900 %, a quite satisfactory pilot episode rating for a cable drama. This figure then rose to 4.636 % the next day and finally climbed to over 5 % last night, making a record and indicating that Avengers Social Club is getting the interest of more viewers than expected.

The drama is the first tvN series this year to make such an achievement within three episodes into its broadcast, a distinction that sets it apart from the 10 dramas which already aired on the cable network this year. Secret Forest, the critically acclaimed crime thriller that impressed Descendants of the Sun writer Kim Eun-sook, does not even compare with Avengers Social Club despite being a high-rated drama itself because it took 12 episodes to surpass 5 %. Its predecessor Live Up To Your Name managed to pull in almost 6 % in the fourth episode but failed to reach 5 % in ratings prior to that.

Overall, the first Korean cable drama to achieve more than 5 % in nationwide viewership ratings within just two weeks of its broadcast was OCN’s Voice which got 5.406 % for its third episode. It was followed by Strong Woman Do Bong Soon, JTBC’s supernatural romantic comedy that obtained a whopping 5.758 % during the second episode alone. Avengers Social Club may be trailing these two dramas in terms of the actual numbers but the fact that about half of its episode compete directly with the major broadcasters’ dramas makes its recent success all the more remarkable. It starts airing at 9:30 pm Korean Standard Time while the ones over at free-to-air channels begin at 10 pm.

Based on a webcomic “Buam-dong Boksooja Soshyeolkeurub” by Sajatokki, Avengers Social Club is written by Kim Yi-ji and directed by Woman With A Suitcase PD, Kwon Seok-jang. The revenge-seeking ahjummas in the series are played by Lee Yo-won, Ra Mi-ran, and Myung Se-bin.

Meanwhile, KBS2’s Mad Dog and SBS’s While You Were Sleeping also made a notable improvement in nationwide viewership last night and renewed their highest ratings. Mad Dog enjoyed an increase to 6.9 % from the previous episode’s 4.8 % while While You Were Sleeping recorded 8.6 % and ended the night with a double-digit rating of 10.0 %, beating Hospital Ship‘s 8.3 % and 8.6 %.