On June 1, at SBS’s “NEXT EPISODE” drama media day in Seoul, the network confirmed that “The Judge from Hell” — the demon-possessed-judge drama that hit a peak rating of 13.6% and topped its timeslot across every channel — is getting a second season, with lead actress Park Shin-hye returning after the birth of her second child, expected sometime in 2027 (Tenasia, Tae Yu-na, June 1, 2026). What’s notable isn’t just that a hit got a sequel. It’s that SBS announced the renewal before its star has even given birth, let alone shot a single scene of new material — a level of advance confidence that would have been unusual for Korean network television a decade ago.
SBS framed its entire upcoming slate around what programming chief Kim Gi-seok called “series power” (시리즈 파워), name-checking past hits like “Taxi Driver 3,” “Boys Over Flowers”-era successor “Hot-Blooded Priest,” and the medical drama “Dr. Romantic” as the track record behind the strategy (Tenasia, June 1, 2026; Hankook Ilbo, Kang Yu-bin, June 10, 2026). Beyond “The Judge from Hell,” SBS’s returning-franchise list for this year and next also includes Season 2 of the rich-heir-turned-detective comedy “Chaebol X Detective” and Season 2 of the divorce-law drama “Good Partner,” according to Hankook Ilbo’s June 10 report.
Per that same report, SBS has effectively built itself into what Hankook Ilbo calls a “season-format drama kingdom,” a reputation dating back to 2016’s “Dr. Romantic,” which hit a peak rating of 28.4% across three seasons and set the template the network has leaned on ever since, through “Hot-Blooded Priest” and “Penthouse.” Streaming platforms are running the identical playbook: TVING’s “Yumi’s Cells” just wrapped its third and final season, Netflix keeps extending the universes of “Squid Game,” “Weak Hero,” “D.P.” and “All of Us Are Dead,” and Disney+ is producing a second season of “Moving” alongside its newer original “Made in Korea.” Hankook Ilbo also notes that even brand-new shows now routinely leave their endings open, or tack on a post-credits scene, specifically to preserve sequel optionality.
The reasoning, according to drama critic Yoon Seok-jin, a professor at Chungnam National University quoted in the Hankook Ilbo report, is straightforwardly economic: a season-format show is “production-efficient because you’re adding a new chapter inside an already-proven format,” and in a contracting drama market, actors who once turned down sequels over scheduling or pay are now more willing to commit. But Yoon also flags the risk that comes with how Korea actually makes these decisions. Unlike many overseas series that are planned as multi-season arcs from the start, Korean sequels are typically greenlit reactively, only after a first season has already proven itself a hit — which can leave the overall story feeling less cohesive than it would if it had been mapped out in advance. His advice for the genre going forward: every new season needs its own storytelling strategy, not just a returning cast riding on the original’s success.
That tension is exactly what makes the “Judge from Hell” timeline worth watching. SBS is now confident enough in the season-format model that it will lock in a sequel more than a year before production can even begin. That’s a genuinely safer bet for the network’s balance sheet. Whether it’s also a safer bet for the story is the open question Yoon’s warning leaves standing.
Sources: Tae Yu-na, “[공식] 13.6% 최고 시청률 찍더니…박신혜 주연 ‘지옥에서 온 판사’ 시즌2 나온다,” Tenasia, June 1, 2026; Kang Yu-bin, “재벌형사·굿파트너·지옥판사 속편 온다… ‘시즌제’ 한드 전성시대,” Hankook Ilbo, June 10, 2026.
