This review may contain spoilers
Wow the World - the healthiest, most stress free variety show
I’m not a huge fan of most Chinese variety shows. Even when some claim to be “healing” variety shows, there will always be some unnecessary drama being stirred up or maliciously played up to given “tension”. There’s also a lot of jostling for attention among cast members with a strong feeling of one-upsmanship.
Wow the World is the opposite of all that. It does genuinely seem to want to have the cast members be at ease and comfortable. It’s also wonderful to see how the “generation gap” is addressed - mostly in a humorous tone but also respectfully.
I couldn’t stop laughing in the first episode when Chen Xing Xu first appeared. I had only just gotten to know him as an actor through Love Between Lines and it blew my mind how completely different his actual personality was. (Which also then made me realise how tremendous an actor he was to so convincingly have people believe that he was this cool, domineering persona based on his more recent and well known dramas.) At one point I was actually wondering how he could possibly survive in the entertainment industry given how introverted and socially anxious he is. But through him, the beauty of this variety show is very clear- in the ending episode, he volunteers an ending remark and chokes up as he shares that he had always wanted to bring his family travelling and he never thought that he would be comfortable enough to travel with anyone else. However, through the show, he has truly found a family that he wants to see the world with. He then quickly apologizes for speaking out of turn or spoiling the mood. But then his Wow the World all immediately interject to reassure him that what he said was valuable and that his sincerity brings a lot to the show.
That sense of family and just different pairings makes all the difference. Although the show definitely could do with fewer indoor games and more actual interaction with the local environment like the Sicily leg (which was truly beautiful), the dynamics in the cast made for such a comfort watch. (The leaks for Wow the World 2 show that the production did take the feedback quite seriously so it’s shaping to be a same same yet different show. Hopefully it will not lose the heart and charm of the first season.)
Wow the World is the opposite of all that. It does genuinely seem to want to have the cast members be at ease and comfortable. It’s also wonderful to see how the “generation gap” is addressed - mostly in a humorous tone but also respectfully.
I couldn’t stop laughing in the first episode when Chen Xing Xu first appeared. I had only just gotten to know him as an actor through Love Between Lines and it blew my mind how completely different his actual personality was. (Which also then made me realise how tremendous an actor he was to so convincingly have people believe that he was this cool, domineering persona based on his more recent and well known dramas.) At one point I was actually wondering how he could possibly survive in the entertainment industry given how introverted and socially anxious he is. But through him, the beauty of this variety show is very clear- in the ending episode, he volunteers an ending remark and chokes up as he shares that he had always wanted to bring his family travelling and he never thought that he would be comfortable enough to travel with anyone else. However, through the show, he has truly found a family that he wants to see the world with. He then quickly apologizes for speaking out of turn or spoiling the mood. But then his Wow the World all immediately interject to reassure him that what he said was valuable and that his sincerity brings a lot to the show.
That sense of family and just different pairings makes all the difference. Although the show definitely could do with fewer indoor games and more actual interaction with the local environment like the Sicily leg (which was truly beautiful), the dynamics in the cast made for such a comfort watch. (The leaks for Wow the World 2 show that the production did take the feedback quite seriously so it’s shaping to be a same same yet different show. Hopefully it will not lose the heart and charm of the first season.)
Was this review helpful to you?
