I-LAND (2020)

Pro's and Con's (because many reviews take mostly one side)

The concept of I-Land can be understood without having seen all the episodes. In this review I would like to describe both 'good' and 'bad' aspects of the show, so that I don't tell anyone directly that they should or shouldn't watch the show. There are no major spoilers in this review, just small facts.

Pro's:
- their experience definitely helps the trainees of Bighit (the 23 participants)
- once a trainee has been selected to leave the show, he knows what his goal must be to have his debut later on
- they make close friends with different age groups (1998-2006)
- they improve their ability to work in a team
- they broaden their horizons with the help of their team members
- they learn that compatibility is very important ➡️ a dispute MUST be solved with talking to each other, you can't just hope that it will be over sometime without doing anything➡️ they get to know each other better, understand others more, become more selfless / cooperative / supportive to each other
- they learn how much responsibility a leader and the person with the most singing/dancing parts have ("the team is as strong as the weakest member")
- they learn that it can be either harder or easier to reach the goal as a team
- all participants are from different countries (South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Australia etc.)
- the songs are sooooo good!!
- the participants are absolutely good looking... Stunning! !! (just to mention that too)

Con's:
- the show did some of them dirty
- 'uninteresting' members are rarely or not at all shown, which can lead to them getting fewer votes in global voting
- the drama is always shown (there are mainly good moments to be seen, but of course in the middle of it scenes are shown where a participant behaves stupidly and then no good moment is shown by him ➡️ which can lead to less votes)
- it focuses mainly on dancing (they have to sing and rap well when performing, but it doesn't seem as important as dancing and facial expressions
- They have to choose each other out and into the team
- they have to distribute their parts in songs with each other ➡️ they went through all the parts of the song and one of them wanted every part (because he didn't get the last part) every time but never got the part (he probably got the feeling that he is not good enough)
- because of the scoring points (0-100) they get the feeling that they have never given a perfect performance
- they all make friends with each other, but they don't all make their debut together at the end (only 7/23)
- you automatically have a favourite, but you have to hope every episode that he gets further
- they have to solve tasks as a team, but are valued against each other in the evaluation

I think bighit should have done the kind of survival show that Straykids did (a fixed group being tested to see if they have the potential to make their debut). Still, the show contains many beautiful moments that make the audience love the participants.
I hope my review is helpful and my english isn't too bad :)

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The most stupid survival show

Well let me tell you i watched alot of survival shows ( all pd s1, s2, pdx, pd 48, mixnine, treasure maker, Niziu project and more..) but I-Land is the most stupid one lets tell why...

-Director in ep one tottaly show the wake point of the trainees and over all the producers didn't focus in showing how they are good in singing or rapping the show end and we can't see this a top vocal or this one is mean rap. They only focus on dance then don't debut the top dancer weird.

-stage director is so week that give that shining moments for a member.

-the voting system in part one make trainee out vote each other and that make some never go out of iland because they are friends.

- when trainees are talking it's some times so scripted that you can feel they are reading it.

-low key give a lot of trainee bad image for drama.

-All that buliding to show of BigHit money but we don't get to see a lot of it any way..

- the songs for stages wasn't really good like pd101 songs

I over all loved the boys and i love watching survival shows thats why i push myself to watch this but it's the most stupid show over all.

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IF YOU LIKE WATCHING CHILDREN CRY WATCH THIS!

This show profits of putting little teen boys under intense pressure. I call this shit inhumane. In my country programs like these can't even be made because it is literally against the law. I like reality tv but what i do not stan is making teen boys cry from the age of 14 and up that is WRONG.

It makes me sad that even in the last moments of selecting the last six members they continued putting these boys under so much pressure while they had to wait two weeks for the results i am disgusted

Honestly, i really liked the concept of this show. Where the participants were given the opportunity to grow. Sadly, the execution was horrible. Grounders that were 'promoted' to the Iland were voted out super quickly because they were still seen as grounders in the iland. This gave the og ilanders a little bit of an advantage. A better execution would have been to put the grounders in iland to so they would be viewed as equals. So every vote from Ilanders themselves would have been more fair and not based on mostly friendship. If you want some difference give ilanders a fricking bracelet for all i care.

And DONT get me started on the hypocrisy from Bang PD nim saying he's better for not doing any of these idol debut shows and than literally doing one.

So if you love to see kids cry or want to cry your heart out because of the injustice these kids have to go trough DAMN THIS IS PERFECT FOR YOU

EDIT 21 sept:
I know this review can seem a bit one sided but i really tried adding something positive to my review. I just can't think of anything. A few people who also wrote a review have said that this show is a good learning opportunity for the contestants. After giving this some thought i really don't agree. I think that the only thing these people are going to learn is how to be in constant fear and feel like they are not good enough. This show will traumatize these kids and probably give them a lot of unnecessary mental issues they now have to cope with too and that at the age of 14. This will NOT help them debut.

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I watched this show as it was airing and am honestly just now getting around to posting a review. Mostly because I'm still in the "What was that?" stage.

I am SO PROUD of Enhypen. So freaking proud of all the guys that were able to get on this show. I've seen my fair share of these shows and I must say it's definitely the first time I've seen a friend betray a friend (This coming from a person who watched No Mercy, I still have trust issues with Gun) ANYWAY considering this was a reality show, there is no right or wrong way to review this show. But hopefully we can all agree that Mnet is crap. :) King of evil editing IMO.

I really wanted all of them to debut. They all worked so hard and I can't help but to think they had everyone picked out before the show even started. Don't come for me, it's how I feel.

I think the scenes that will stick with me until death will be Jungkook trying to steal food and Taehyung ON LIVE TV being triggered over the amount of food they had while he was screamed at for putting salt on chicken. (poor baby) lol but still. It really shows how much kpop trainees go through.

STAN ENHYPEN!! I said what I said. Lol

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It's an Mnet survival show...what do you expect?

Writing this review based on:
1. Watched it just a month ago
2. Already knowing who the final line-up is
3. Never really finished watching any other survival show (saw PD101, PD101 s2, WIN, MixnMatch)

Firstly, I want to say that knowing that this show was produced by mnet, I expected the evil-editing to be more evil but it wasn't as evil as I thought.

I actually decided to watch this show after seeing Enhypen for the 3rd time on weekly idol. So I came in watching is not as a fan but as someone who is interested in getting to know the group more. (I do really like the group now. Not enough to stan but I watch some of their videos on YT once in a while.)

What I find interesting about this show versus the Produce series is that the starting number of participants is quite small (23) so participants have more chances to get screen time. That said, there were still many participants who I didn't get to see much of (I didn't bother watching the individual cams anymore). The style they chose to separate the "better" trainees led to some participants getting more screen time than others. As a viewer, it was more difficult to support ground trainees because they didn't get to do as much so they didn't get to show off their skills as much.

There was obviously clashes among trainees but I don't think the show singled out any person as a bad guy. The reason why I say that is because the participants who initially seemed "bad" had a character redeeming moment later on. You would see how they admit that there was a point where they made mistakes and admitted to it and did better later on.

There were some members who seemed promising to debut but ended up getting eliminated which I agree; it was sad to see those participants go. But I also think that there's a chemistry among the current members that wouldn't be the same if we ended up with a different lineup. I'm not saying this because I don't like the other participants rather, I think they would do much better in a different group.

Overall, I say that watch this only if you like Enhypen or want to get to know the group otherwise you'll be wasting your time. It's a typical K-pop survival show with frustrating screen time distribution and bias towards certain participants. You also might get attached to some participants who don't end up in the final line-up. This show made me appreciate the group more though seeing what they had to go through. And it's probably because of this that despite what people will say about the group, I'll keep rooting for them :)

P.S. This show also has some really good performances too so I do like to look back at them once in a while.

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Maybe a rant?

I actually enjoyed this but thinking back now knowing the results and seeing a bit more (comments shedding some light), I really am just plain upset. The cast was great and I'm happy for the final 7 but I don't think I'll ever watch the last ep . I'm mad at myself as I started this before it ended, I think I wouldn't have let myself be so invested in contestants i know now get eliminated. This show itself on the voting factor is messed up. Maybe a live voting with more clear current results would've helped. and less of an impact with the global voting on the final tally definitely, Singing, rap, songwriting, and composing should've been put to play here too. I also fricking hate how BTS and TXT were put on like trophies.... Lastly, K, what they did, rumors pushed the producer's vote. I still can't believe he got cut. He deserves SOO much better. I dont think I'll be able to support this new group now until something is done for this boy.

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I-LAND Was Entertaining, However Not Sure If I'll Watch Another Season

So I-LAND being a reality television contest show obviously means I won't be rating it like other shows. It was broken up into segments which I appreciated because the original basis of the ILAND vs Grounders thing got really old really quick. The show really picks up once were down to like 12 I think? Because then that's where we see the most personalities shine through in the selected contestants. I'm going to have to go back and watch again, but it felt like the producers already knew who they wanted to debut based on screen time. Those who made it down to the wire I think had wayyyy more screen time then others who didn't make it far. Which both makes sense, but also feels suspicious since a lot of this was supposed to be "global fan votes".

Either way, we get to see some amazing rising talent and seeing literally a new kpop group being formed from scratch was pretty cool. Though having to see all the tears along the way was kinda heartbreaking, most of these guys are still kids and I can imagine how hard it must be to dedicate months to a contest you might not win and be away from loved ones for so long. Without any contact whatsoever to the outside world! Sure it can chalked up to determination, but that's a long time and I felt for them. This show is genius in that most debut groups we know nothing about as fans until they actually debut. This show gives us the opportunity to fall in love with these potential members right off the bat without any music even officially being out! Great marketing strategy, great way for them to grow as artists and people as well. Seriously K especially grew ALOT positively as well as Heeseung in leadership qualities. I will say I do have some favorites along the way. The list is; Sunghoon, Sunoo, Heeseung, Jay, Nikki, K and Geonu were my favorites from the start and guess what? All of them made it to the finalists lol. Not all of them got to debut (sadness) but most of them did! So I'm pretty happy and wish them nothing but success.

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Hooked from Episode 1 !

I'm sad to see the show come to an end but now we get to see our boys DEBUT and I couldn't be happier!!!

-Things I loved about the show: seeing how nervous they were in the first episode meeting each other and performing for the first time vs. how much they have grown over the past few months. Watching them come to appreciate the different qualities of each other and notice each others' strengths evolve was really touching. I appreciated the global voting because it made us feel energized to be a part of something so important!
I also loved the ability for grounders to be voted up to i-landers but I wish it would have been shaken up more (seemed like the same 5 or 6 people never even got close to being chosen to go to ground even though a couple maybe could have).
-Things I didn't love: the "clique"-yness of the OG i-landers vs grounders really put a bad taste in my mouth until they got to part two of the show and things started to change because they had to. I never liked the internal voting because they didn't know each others' scoring and just voted according to who they THOUGHT was getting good scores and they sent a lot of good people down to ground. That should be changed for the future. Maybe have the producers and global and i-landers vote for three up/ three down or something like that for future seasons? I didn't like how people did or didn't vote for people based on whether they might or might not be safe rather than just voting for their favorites. It made the voting all over the place at times and didn't feel like it portrayed people true feelings; just their "omg I must save..." feelings. BEYOND THAT, I think that IN THE FUTURE, we should get to vote for our final SEVEN for the last week to see what the world wants to see as a group and not just ONE person. I think that might have changed people's views on how the final went down. I still have feels about that but am relieved at the outcome so I can't complain much. Maybe even do two producers 5 global so people don't come down on ONE poor person to take out all of their frustration on. Sorry, I'm bitter at the backlash.
I have already watched most of it over again and I certainly will so so again when I don't have anything else to watch because the journey WAS SO GOOD. I just loved watching them work hard, struggle, persevere, and SHINE! It was exhilarating and infuriating at times! I went through every emotion watching this and I fully support the final group!!! 100% recommend watching!!!

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They built a giant training camp in the woods?

I cannot believe that out in the middle of the woods, some people just built a large building for a reality TV show to discover the next South Korean idol group. However, I thought it was really cool. I enjoyed watching every performance on stage and was always confused when during the training period, I thought the groups had done well but then the judges were like no. I feel like I learnt a lot about idols just by watching this. I never realised how much has to go into learning how to show expression whilst performing. There must be so many things they have to think about.

I was so amazed by how quick Ni-Ki always learnt the dances.

I think we can all agree that Sunoo is the cutest. His personality just overflows with happiness.

Jay was the funniest out of them all. Resentment. Anger. Shame. Need I say more? LOL When he called his mother and she thought he got eliminated that was epic. I loved the part where the members got scared of the dark - especially Jay. He sleeps with his eyes open?? Haha.

Sunghoon seems like he is the golden child out of them all. It was cool in the episode where you saw him ice skating.

I couldn't believe it when Jungwon didn't get the badge for the first time. I felt bad for him, but then he came first in the final. I was proud, and his little dimples! So cute!

I still cannot get over the fact that Jake made his way to South Korea ALONE from his home country of Australia to begin his journey of becoming an idol. He left to go there without his parents. To me that just seems so brave of him. I certainly could not at age what 16-17? I still get a little bit shook every time I hear his Aussie accent come out. The culture differences really come through I feel.

Let's not forget about Heeseung. When I first saw him I judged way too fast, but OMG. He is actually perfect at everything. What the actual heck?

I always thought K was good but then he did have his moments of getting frustrated with the rest of the trainees. It became a bit uncomfortable to watch at those points. It's still a bit surprising that he didn't make it into EHYPEN though. If it was a group of 8 I'm pretty sure he would have been in.

As for Daniel, I already knew before watching I-LAND that he wasn't part of ENHYPEN so I didn't really care for him that much to be honest. However, I did like his performance alongside Sunoo of BTS' 'Save Me.' I thought he did really well there. Sadly for me it was his only real memorable moment. I feel like he kind of got stuck in the back the rest of the time. Side note: how was he the youngest out of them all, yet the tallest?

I loved the episode where BTS came along. AHHH! They're just everything and more! In the final episode where V broke down, that was hilarious; and of course RM has to step in. Honestly, you can't take them anywhere.

I feel like I've just written a review on all of the members individually but when am I supposed to say?

I think my favourite song was I&credible, and the performance was very good. I like the Butterfly and Save Me performances. Also, the Fire performance was epic and Heeseung was just *chefs kiss* ;)

Overall I really enjoyed watching the show but wouldn't need to watch again. Thankfully all of the performances are on YouTube so you can easily access them there.

I am now excited for the girl's group that will take place there too! So exciting!

-E

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I usually don't finish these types of reality shows, but I liked this one, although the ending was completely unexpected.
I also watched this after En Hyphen had already been formed, so there wasn't that element of being able to choose the boys for me, although I didn't look at the member line-up on purpose because I didn't want to spoil it for myself.

The show is an interesting format - at first the boys get to vote for who leaves and then later on it's more dependant on what the viewers / producers vote for, but I like that the boys got to decide at first since they are the ones who have to work with each other. Throughout the show, you can see them forming their group dynamic and see different roles that the members would potentially play in their new group, like Niki leading the dancing or Heeseung directing the vocals. In the later episodes you also get to see their daily lives too outside of practise time, like who does the cooking and cleaning.

The show starts with 23 contestants and there are some heartbreaking moments, like when K used his card and then he ended up eliminating Taki who he was trying to save in the first place. You really cannot predict who is going to get in. Only 4 of the people that I was sure would get in made it, and there were so many plot twists since every episode the ranking changed. It's sad that people get eliminated, but I think the latter episodes when there are only 11 contestants left is when you get to really know and like them. Niki is an amazing dancer, and super hardworking. Heeseung is such a nice guy and takes care of other people too. Jay is a hilarious, emotional rollercoaster of a human. He goes from angry and sad and vowing revenge all the way to being a sweetheart and writing goodbye letters to everyone because he thinks he's going to be eliminated. Honestly they all seemed like really nice people, and it sucks that they couldn't just make an 11 group team and call it a day. The biggest shock for me was K not making it into the final line-up when he was so talented and I could totally see him in the group.

Music: I feel like the songs are a higher quality than the ones that were made for the Produce 101 shows and this show actually made me more interested in BTS. I've heard some of their songs before, but I actually learned a lot from the show about the different songs and they had the lyrics translated on screen too. And the episode when BTS was there was hilarious from what I remember.

Performance: My personal favourites were the Dive Into You performance (Jay and Hanbin were really good in this) and Fake Love (Heeseung was amazing in this). I dance casually, and just from watching them practise and their process made me think about stuff like facials / performance and inspired me to want to work on my performance skills.

Finished Nov 15, 2020

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A hot mess, honestly

Watched I-LAND as it was airing and this is a combination of some notes I wrote back then and my thoughts in retrospect now.

1. The setting for part 1 is basically a materialized barrier between those who are "in" and those who are "out". Like the judges discussed in the first episode, the resources and privileges you get at I-land create a conducive atmosphere for them to focus on training, while ground contestants have more limited time and resources. Although there isn't an immediate elimination risk, this incentivizes moving "up" to I-land. But it's a bit excessive to make a hugely expensive building in the middle of nowhere just to visualize that incentive to move up from ground to I-land, that came off as just an opulent and weird flex on BigHit's part. I also didn't like the extent to which they focused on this contrast and the "othering" factor, especially considering the method of determining who goes where (more on that later).
2. I liked that there were fewer contestants and no elimination in the first half. It allowed more room to focus on each contestant, gave the contestants more opportunity to appeal to the audience, and made sure one bad moment wouldn't ruin their journey. It wasn't executed quite that well and some contestants still ended up getting more focus anyway, but the scope was there.
3. The voting system in the first half was a dumpster fire. Starting from the start, in the first episode it was obvious that the sooner you perform the more of an advantage you'll have, and that's exactly what happened: majority of the seats were full before even half the candidates performed, and after that they started becoming more reserved with their votes and ended up eliminating some candidates who were better than some of the selected ones. Having the voting happening publicly where everyone (including the contestant being judged) can see who is voting yes or no also puts its own pressure and biases the decisions. Even following this, it was clear and even stated by some contestants that they were voting not just based on perceived skill/performance but also personal preferences. Early decisions and first impressions had long term impact as they essentially created a "class divide" - I-landers got comfortable with each other and were more likely to want their friends to stay, grounders also formed similar bonds, and despite the questionable system that created the divide, I-landers were perceived as collectively "better" than the grounders and that bled into their interactions when grounders moved up to I-land.
4. The change in system for part 2 did not improve much in terms of fairness. I guess they were going for unpredictability and if that's the case they were definitely succeeding but things did not make sense. Why alternate between producer scores and audience votes for different rounds when it would've been more comprehensive to combine both for each round and eliminate someone based on an overall score?
5. I did not like the way some people were villainized for dramatic effect when the conflicts could've been shown in a much more normal way. I know this is an mnet survival show so it is how it is, but I don't have to like that. Mistranslating what some contestants said, editing footage from one place to another for dramatic but untrue "reaction shots", and even editing contestants out of footage altogether to paint narratives, there's nothing they won't stoop to, and it sucks that the audience eats it up so easily. Even now, three years later, people keep hating some former contestants and painting victimhood narratives based on mnet's presentation of certain events. I'd wish mnet would have ethics but that would be in vain so I wish people would watch more critically.
6. While the performances were good, they were sorely underprioritized in favor of reality show-esque drama, be it for conflicts, emotional moments, wholesome fun, or guest appearances. It's not that I didn't like these aspects, they did help us get to know some contestants better, but I wish more of it had been relegated to additional behind the scenes content coz sometimes it did not feel like an audition show for building a kpop group. There's of course also the inherent bias in who got what kind of coverage (if any) and how that pretty much determined who makes it into the group more than the performances themselves.
7. Sometimes even the judges' feedback seemed outright scripted. Some criticism would seem like it came out of nowhere at a convenient moment when it was time to get rid of a contestant and the contestant in concern would always be someone who was already getting negligent or negative coverage. I wouldn't say it was outright rigged but it seemed clear that the production team already had an idea who they wanted and they had the power to make sure that those would be the contestants that fans would grow to root for as well. Any "unwanted" contestant could be rooted out by the judges, and the final group would be pretty much what they want it to be with maybe some contestants swapped out.

On the whole I would say it was kind of a mess, the premise was interesting and the contestants had potential, but it wasn't well structured, not executed well, and focused too much on stirring up dramatic moments and too little on the trauma it would create. I wouldn't say it was an enjoyable experience, nor do I think - in retrospect - it truly helped me know these contestants in terms of skills or personality.
On the positive side, the songs and performances were pretty good, and because of the low starting number of contestants, these new faces got more exposure and a better chance to make an impression than they would on your average survival show. Regardless of whether they made it into the final team, this was a good point of introduction into the industry.

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Reaching for their dreams

I'm normally not a fan of reality shows because of the fighting, scheming, etc. Honestly, I have no idea what made me turn this on, especially since it's two years old, and I don't follow Enhypen. I did find quite a bit to enjoy about this show, however.

Namkoong Min as the announcer - He fascinates me as an actor, and he has the perfect voice and visuals to be the announcer of this type of show.
Rain as a mentor in part 1 - charisma, that's all I can say.
I-Land vs. ground - great concept, stay in the top of the rankings and you stay in I-Land with all its associated perks: practice rooms, kitchen, cool bedrooms, etc.
The bonding between the young men. Sure, they wanted to debut, but they cared about the others that they were with. I can't even begin to imagine the stress that they were under, and that was released through tears, A LOT. Someone was always crying, it seemed. Personally, I cried more than once.
The dancing. The focus was definitely on their dancing ability. I loved watching them learn the choreography and their performances. I'm a little confused how they could almost completely ignore vocal ability - background music and singing was always cranked up so you could hardly hear them singing.

My complaint with this show was the voting. When all was said and done, I believe it was rigged. There was one person that was VERY strong throughout, at the top of every test, had the perfect visuals, was a natural leader, spent time helping those with less skill, got along with everyone, received consistent positive feedback from the coaches/judges, and then was eliminated. Were they trying to create a surprise at the end? I don't know, but it made me angry.

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