Kate

true, but I feel like the format fitted Alan's situation the least.

I think overall this whole "one month one episode" is a hard thing to do well. It can works for books since you can make chapters as long as you like and the internal narration helps to understand characters, but for a drama with limited screentime... not easy.

To be perfectly honest this should be a 6 but I just could not give it less than an 8 < this reminds me of my Why R U review 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I assume they where there as part of their assigned duo... < yeah, obviously there were no auditions for the roles 🥲

Li Ming and Heart had the best pacing for their story. The way it was told was simply the best. Quality wise - A.

About Alan, I think it was a case of not taking into consideration the character's situation and if it fits the storytelling system. While Everyone's situation was "slower" and slowly but gradually changing, where the 1 episode is 1 month format fitted and could focus on the big highlights of what's going on, Alan's situation was fast and more dynamic. For him, most of his story truly happened in like 1-2 months, and since we only saw a few scenes of his, we literally missed everything that was important in terms of how his character reacted and then dealt with the situation he was in.

We saw him go from ready to fight, to desperate, to depressed to moved on, all in like 5 scenes throughout the show, so it might seem all over the place, he might seem too emotional and not mature, compared to other characters. But the truth is, he was in the most emotionally draining and exhausting and dynamics situation out of all the characters, everything change in a matter of month or two, and with this storytelling, we just skipped most of what was important in Alan's story ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A lot of users cut the rating in half, 5 and everything below is like 1 for them, and you must truly hate everything about the show to rate it that low... which is not true.

For the casting - they had 2 solutions: cast someone of appropriate age, or change the age of the characters. But instead they tried to convince us Earth can pass as 40 and it was just hilarious.

yeah that's typical mnet. They promote it as a global contest, but then don't even provide subs for the global audience 🥲

Mnet posted the games on yt

who seems to be so perfect on the outside but is crumbling on the inside. < as all the kids who got too much pressure put on them 🥲

"all I see are some dumbass teenagers who want to wear chokers and slashed jeans to school." that's kind of... realistic lol I once took my desk outside of the classroom when a teacher told me to "leave" lol For me, how dramatic the teens were about most basic shit was fine, but the fact the adults were just as dramatic and serious about it - this is just ridiculous ahahaha

who seems to be so perfect on the outside but is crumbling on the inside. < as all the kids who got too much pressure put on them 🥲

"all I see are some dumbass teenagers who want to wear chokers and slashed jeans to school." that's kind of... realistic lol I once took my desk outside of the classroom when a teacher told me to "leave" lol For me, how dramatic the teens were about most basic shit was fine, but the fact the adults were just as dramatic and serious about it - this is just ridiculous ahahaha

they should find a way to reshoot it with both actors... but even without actors it's possible to make it look better than what we've got. be clever with the angles or something...

"The finale didn’t feel like a finale because not much was answered" that's a norm for tomb series, it's not even an open ending, it's basically often ending the season mid a scene lol And Wu Xie has been looking for his uncle in basically all )or almost all) seasons 😅

Great review! Detailed and explaining different aspects of the show :)

they go back to the companies they are sign under as trainees. If they don't have companies, they usually get sign under one if they manage to debut from Boy's Planet (no company would turn down a new trainee with established large fanbase).

Usually most of these idols who were in the final group debut either in the new groups from their company or as a soloist shortly after the permanent group disbands to keep the momentum going

I mean, most of the trainees are sign under different companies (names being introduced as they introduced the trainees themselves), it would be impossible to make them a permanent group, especially since mnet is not a music label.

These shows are just a good way to:
1. Promote yourself and your company so when you officially debut after the show ends, you already have a fanbase
2. Promote the company you are from.
3. For mnet to make money thanks to the final group that will be promoting for year or 2.

Will he leave pentagon? - no. Since the groups that debut from shows like that are not permanent, it's almost never an issue if already debuted idols debut in them. Same happened with Hwang Min Hyun - he was part of Nu'est when he took part in Produce 101 Season 2. Nu'est just promoted without him when he was in the "temporary group". This is not a unique situation this season, it happened in more or less all survival shows like that.

The thing is: Pentagon's contract ends this year, so we don't even know if Cube will want to renew the contracts. We basically don't know if Cube even wants to keep Pentagon as a group.

And Hui is not the only idol who debuted and has a group to come back too: there is also Keita, debuted 2021 in Ciipher. Technically speaking even Jay debuted as soloist right before the show started.

We just don't know what is happening behind the scenes. If we got the confirmation from Cube that they renewing the contracts with Pentagon, I would be far more at ease, but from the outsider's viewpoint who has been into kpop for years and saw what happened to a lot of Cube groups, even the popular ones, it does feel like Cube just gave up on Pentagon quite some time ago. So I would not be surprised if he joined the show what that thought in mind.

saw the rating and cried a little bit 🥲
"The background music is simply dreadful" < this though made me laugh, coz I loved the music and downloaded the whole playlist 🤣

However, the production tends to over-explain and tediously repeat the sci-fi aspects.< on the personal note I agree. But I also saw people still ask for explanations for these bits. But then if some people did not get it with over explanation like that, would they get it with even more? 😅

Tea time.

Good skills in terms of dancing, rapping and singing is not enough if you don't know how to be entertaining and "promote/sell" yourself to the audience. I think we need to accept the fact that even if we preach how only talented guys should move to next rounds in shows like that, in reality, talent is never enough to be an idol. How many talented group fail? That's why some trainees that are below average pass, because people find them funny, entertaining etc. And it's also part of being an idol. Most people are not fans of a group just because of the music. In most cases you can find 2-3 groups with similar music style to the one you "stan". You decide to like a group after knowing the members and enjoying their activities outside of the music too.
Does that mean that someone who can barely dance and hold the note should debut? No. Should they rank high? No. But I am honestly passed being pissed about them overall going to the next round. Realistically speaking, it's not like the trainees below rank 53 had chance to debut in the show anyway. It's all rigged ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There are also trainees with AMAZING skills, but for me don;t exactly fit either to debut in this show, or to debut in a group overall:

Hui is amazing, but his music style does not fit whatever generic k-pop mnet will get the debut team to do. Mnet will also prioritize the theme of the debut to fit majority of the members, and it might be something Hui does not exactly fits. I have a feeling that Pentagon might not renew the contract with Cube and that's why Hui is here, but maybe this is also just a chance to gain some popularity to show Cube they still have a market value (coz we know how fast Cube drops idols and groups they don't see immediate "potential" in)

Jay - I think he would shine the most as either soloist or in duet. He has a really distinctive style and how he presents himself, I'm not sure how well can it blend into a group.

Kim Ji Woong - how well can he do in any other concept that sexy? Can he be "not sexy"? Coz even in Back Door which could be more powerful, we mostly saw him be... sexy 🥲 Is he limiting himself with the concept?

Another thing is: Korean Americans/Canadians (Koreans who did not live in Korea) should be counted in K group, not G group. Us all pretending Seok Matthew is a G member is funny for me. Dude is Korean, trained in Korea to debut... but because he was born in Canada, now he is counted as a foreign member by the technicality 🤡 (unless he is mixed... but he does not really look mix). Way for the mnet to pretend it's a global show while also making sure mostly Koreans are in. Same with Na Kamden.

I did not really like episode one either. This level of trauma dumping is just ridiculous for me. They should have taken it a bit slower and use first 2 episodes to show how bad FL's situation is. But then I really enjoy next 4 episode... until episode 6 happened and I lost all the hope 🥲

It feels pre-selected here too. It's painfully obvious who mnet wants to debut

oh I can't. For me the difference between 7.5 and 8 is not even in the quality, but how excited I was for the next episode. And I honestly was not that excited to watch 🌖🐔 - it was more of a "I guess new ep dropped" and not "damn I cannot wait for the next ep to drop".

They really did not show enough of Uncle Jim. It's hard to connect to a character you barely know 🥲

all i had to do was think about all the other dramas I have seen with characters in their mid 30' and 40' to know this does not add up here 🥲