I wasn’t going to recap Boys Planet (and technically, I’m still not doing it), but I’m watching the series and thought others might appreciate a spot to discuss it. So, each week I plan on dumping a few of my random thoughts about the show. Again, this will not be a full, detailed recap. But, if you have something you want to mention make sure to include it in the comments!
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode One
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Two
Thoughts on BOYS PLANET Episode Three
“K” vs. “G” Group Battle, Continued
This week’s episode is mercifully shorter than last, and focused solely on the remainder of the group round performances. We left off halfway through the Love Me Right stages, but in the interest of tension and drama (I guess?), the producers left the second EXO performance to the end of this episode.
Wanna One – Burn It Up
Nobody in either of these teams had more than two stars, and the mentors kept mentioning what a difficult song this was. On a side note, Burn It Up is a song that really goes off in a live setting. I wasn’t a huge fan until I saw it at KCON. Despite much drama over a problematic arm movement and a botched note here and there, I thought G Team did alright.
K Team (aka: “team gush out” according the subtitles lol) was a real ragtag bunch, with one member even sneaking out to the storage room (?) during practice just to be away from the group. Their average age was just so young. But, they pulled off the performance and I think they were slightly stronger than G Team.
My pick: K Team
The winners: K Team
BTS – Danger
G Team seems to have some eternal strife thanks to an overly strict leader. They’re also made up of the “rejects” that no one else chose to be part of their team. Their performance started off good but quickly fell apart due to issues with pacing and… well… singing. I thought Yuto was pretty strong, though.
K Team was equally as bad, honestly. Actually… they were probably worse. And to me, they also had less personality. Because of this, I’m choosing G Team. If nothing else, they were more interesting.
This match was brutal, though.
My pick: G Team
The winners: K Team
Stray Kids – Back Door
Watching K Team’s performance direction after the BTS stages made for quite a juxtaposition! They looked like an already-debuted group. I don’t know that I was super compelled by anything here, but that may just be because I’d already been watching this episode for an hour. They were super solid.
One of the guys in G Team came off really bad in the editing. This team as a whole seemed to lack charisma and unity, and that showed in the performance. This was a clear victory for K Team.
My pick: K Team
The winners: K Team
NCT Dream – Hot Sauce
The height variation in G Team cracks me up. There are some great personalities in here, but they’re definitely unpolished. I think they said they only had three stars between them all? I was charmed by the energy, but the G Teams are definitely struggling this week and that high note was… painful.
K Team was all over the place as well. It was salvaged by a couple standout performers (Jihoo, mostly), but there were some reeeaaaally bad parts.
Also, I never want to listen to Hot Sauce again…
My pick: K Team
The winners: K Team
EXO – Love Me Right
The bad thing about splitting up performances is that I barely remember G Team’s version of this from last week. That’s not good for them, mostly because it means they didn’t really leave a mark. I’ll include the video below in case you’d like to compare.
It was pretty clear their K Team would dominate considering their all-star status and the fact that they were cherry-picked to be an “Avengers” team. I thought their performance was… alright. It was technically one of the strongest of the round, but I wouldn’t call it legendary or even memorable. Apart from a few moments, it felt so safe. Hui killed it, though.
My pick: K Team
The winners: K Team
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Did manage to catch this episode by chance. It hardly seems like there will be any foreign trainees left at all after the first elimination. Basically every Korean on the show now has a solid vote boost (and I’d argue that they started at somewhat of an advantage, since Korean trainees a) don’t have to be laser-focused on remembering a non-native language when they perform and b) I think have fared better and had an easier time with votes on average in previous shows as well).
I get that pitting the two categories against each other is obvious and good for drama, but in the first round? Who’s even going to be left that hasn’t been gifted a stellar edit? I don’t tend to watch this kind of show, though, so if someone could give some insight into exactly how much of a boost that vote benefit is, it’d be much appreciated. Maybe we don’t even know yet since we haven’t seen the counts? 110,000 seems pretty substantial this early on.
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The 110,000 is not that much for the higher-ranked contestants who are already separated by like a million votes (total votes are somewhere in the 54,000,000 range, according to the first survival/survivor episode that wasn’t). But it could make or break those who are close to the elimination edge. As you said, G group is going to be decimated but hopefully those who are left will go far.
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Thanks! That’s about what I figured: no big change for those who didn’t need it, who are also the ones that most frequently got it (though a lot of them definitely did deserve a win). Gotta love the cycle!
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omg katie! it’s nice to see you around as a fellow 2018 skz fan! I’m not watching boys planet but my friends who are also mentioned that the global trainees this season tend to have less training time than the korean ones too, which explains the general skill discrepancy (not less mnet’s editing bias ofc)
yeah im expecting more than half of the global trainees to be gone this round of eliminations – mnet’s not making their biases transparent at all in the editing lmao.
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Woah, hey! Good to see you, too 🙂 I’m not too too chatty on Stray Kids (or any) posts anymore, but I still only need to type “t” into my search bar to get sent here. I check this site like it’s my email.
For foreign trainees, it’s definitely a bit more of a “jump” into the industry — Korean companies are in Korea, after all, and they usually try to sign with one and be on the debut track as soon as possible, because it’s not as if their house is just down the road from the company. Korean trainees can be from across the country, for sure, but I imagine their familiarity with the language and stronger fallback plans give them the ability to “shop around,” as it were, and they can either train independently during that time or simply stay at the company for longer. It’s a big mess of factors that can lead to global hopefuls having less flexibility in their training period.
Personally, I’d be much more interested in and endeared by the K-Group trainees helping G-Group with, say, pronunciation, and vice versa with dance or facial expressions or the like. Put them together, Mnet! Let them be friends! Isn’t that what this is supposed to be about, if only ostensibly?
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oh yeah for sure, what people say about habits and 3 months, except reading this blog like a newsletter is now years 🤜🤜
I agree with both points, and it’s interesting to see that mnet’s entirely given up on the themes of connection and coming together in girls planet 999.
IDK which method i would prefer: boys planet’s blatant pitting or gp999’s transparent attempt to do so through edits + production choices + audience manipulation. (though girls planet at least showed the trainees from different countries making friends and helping each other so that’s a plus in their favour!)
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A. I always crack up reading that intro where you insist you’re *not* recapping this show
B. Hot Sauce was so bad I actually saw it on Twitter first 😭 yeesh
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😭😭 at point A
How did I get here??
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I haven’t started watching it because I’m still traumatized over X1 disbanding but I just watched the Love Me Right K group stage and it actually hurts to watch how everyone struggles to sing one syllable and then there’s Hui. Also why does this Hanbin guy get a different coloured jacket and the thumbnail for the “first all trainees _jima song” thingy? Did he win something or?
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Sung Hanbin had the killing part, which means you get the most time in the center/camera time and a special outfit. Each group had someone doing the killing part and wearing a slightly different costume.
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Speaking of ‘thoughts on’, what are your thoughts on Pandora by Mave? I love the chorus. I can hear and see a lot of K/DA and maybe even Aespa influence.
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I am curious to know if you would review Fantasy Boys (another boy group survival show *coughs*) as they have just released a new MV on YouTube…
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omg not another one
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Seriously….
(This one has B1A4’s Jinyoung as a judge, though. I’m hoping we get a song from him)
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It says in the news that he is going to be producing for the show. So at least we have something to look forward to in March?
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I can’t watch any performance until the end… It’s more pain than entertainment…
Peaktime has some good performances at least.
Idol band is still my favourite! The Japanese song cover episode was really great. It became so difficult to choose between the members, they’re all good. I really like how the jury of bands are producers too. They’re very supporting with the other groups.
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the Hot Sauce performances were ROUGH. NCT DREAM sell the heck out of that song with their skills and personalities, even with the average rapping. vocals are one thing (not everyone can be Haechan), but how did they manage to mess the sing-talk/rap too? I’m gagged.
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I appreciated that they didn’t try to match the pitch of the original chorus, honestly. Would have come out much worse, I bet! Though, as much as Hot Sauce grew on me, I might not like it enough to have a super valuable opinion on this one, haha.
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I enjoyed having an episode where it was just performances, and not a million other things like re-evaluations throw in. It felt more sane. I agree with you, Nick, that Love Me Right felt safe. I’d give it to G group who, while not technically as strong, but more flavor and fun.
Also shameless plug that my boyfriend and I are recapping/critiquing this show with 20 minute podcast episodes. Find it on Spotify or most other pod apps 🙂
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Ha! I was on a long drive yesterday with the music set to All Ipod Shuffle, and Hot Sauce skippy dip day came around. It occurred to me that I sing along to precisely two parts: the chanted Hot Sauce Skippy Dip Day! and when that is not being chanted, I repeat the descending line that starts the song for four minutes straight.
As for the rest of the song, yeah, I mean how would novices be able to follow what key it is in. Especially without backing track – I know NCT are talented but I highly doubt they go out and perform it without the melody in their ears.
As for the rest of the rest, the kids sometimes hit those high notes in key, really, I mean yes really, but the timbre is not pretty. I will add Hui to that as well, his high note showboating is in key, but they are not as pretty as they could or should be. The poor kid on G team Hot Sauce right at 1:47 is actually hitting the correct note but it sounds ugly as sin.
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Okay, but who are your top picks so far, if any?
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I think it’s strange that they would capitalise on the international appeal of this show and then set up a competition format designed to eliminate as many foreign trainees as possible. The whole K vs G idea did not sit well with me, inviting comparisons and reinforcing preconceived ideas about koreans vs foreigners.
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