Last time we had a Boys Planet, I swore I wasn’t going to do any sort of recap but ended up doing a truncated version anyway. I intend to do the same for this season, though I’ll warn in advance that there will be times when the post will be delayed by a few days due to how LONG the episodes are and the fact that I have other things going on. I’ll try to let you know when delays will happen, and the first one will actually be for episode two, which airs (with subtitles) tomorrow but probably won’t appear on this blog until sometime next week.

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Introductions

Upon arrival, some of the participants did out-of-place acrobatic tricks before even introducing themselves. One guy did a double windmill spin and another looked like he practically broke his ankle. Then, from what I could tell, one guy just ran around the stage for a while. I found this very odd.

My goodness, there are participants who were born in 2010! One of their fellow trainees had my exact response to this development: “what is happening with the world!?” Later on, one of the judges said: “They look like they’re… nine?”

Then, of course, there are members of already-debuted groups participating this year, including some of my personal favorites. It’s hard to see members from groups like VERIVERY subjected to this series, but I guess they’ve seen what can happen to those lucky enough to gain a popularity boost. The way they had all these “experienced participants” strut out at the end in a big group was massively intimidating for the trainees. Having them automatically take the top seats only reinforced the class system of this show.

At this point, I’m kind of convinced that the K-pop industry has some weird vendetta against Woollim Entertainment, because they hardly showed DRIPPIN at all despite them being relatively well-known. MNET has always been awful to Woollim on these shows. I keep seeing word that one of them was eliminated, which makes no sense. Maybe we’ll see their performance next episode? I can’t imagine they’re going to drag out this initial round for much longer, but then again this is MNET we’re talking about…

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Planet K & Planet C

This year, the show starts out with two different groups. I haven’t yet figured out what is different about the two “planets.” Is it Korean vs. Global? And if so, why are there some global participants in Planet K? Overall, it seems to be a way to get more trainees into the initial episodes. We’ll see Planet C next episode. Also, all this talk about planets just makes me think of EXO’s “exoplanets” and sub-units EXO-K/EXO-C. Maybe the producers took some influence from that? A 2nd/3rd gen fan can only hope!

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Highlights and Lowlights

IST Trainees

Really polished and great energy. They picked a good song and confidence goes a long way on this initial performance. Their leader also has a really nice vocal tone. One of them is named “Arctic,” which I assume is a stage name. Never heard that one before!

MCND

It must be so humbling for these established groups to go on shows like this. I still don’t know how I feel about it, to be honest. It just seems weird to mix a five-year-old group with trainees that haven’t even debuted before. Their performance was very solid, but the fact that none of them earned an “all-star” on this first round was definitely a bit awkward and it was even more awkward when they did an “extra test” that gave them a chance to raise their class but ended up staying at the exact same rank.

Cube Trainees

These are the 15-year-olds I mentioned earlier. Age aside, their performance was very charming. I’m not sure that they’re at all ready for debut, but there’s a ton of potential.

ChoCo1

I’ll always want to root for the misfits, and I absolutely loved their silly first-gen styling. I may simply be weird, but this was the most entertaining performance of the episode for me.

FNC Entertainment

This only shows how difficult bright concepts are to pull off and how much skill goes into a song like this. I’m happy to see groups cover TWS, but it was more a testament to how incredible TWS are at selling this vibe because we’ve now seen a far inferior alternative.

Tharnatorn from The Wind

He got “no star” and was immediately eliminated. Yeah. They didn’t even show his performance. I don’t know why the agency sent him. They gained nothing. He’s great in The Wind and that should be enough.

WAKEONE Trainees

Again, TWS are awesome and these performances only highlight the difference. Vocals were rough. Dance was okay.

VERIVERY

They seemed to be billed as the “big act” of the episode, which makes sense given their seniority. I’ve been a fan since debut, but to be honest I didn’t think this performance was that great. Maybe I’m just too used to how well ONF performs the original song. MNET seems to be pushing them, though.

GRID Trainees

They had the “storyline” of the episode, almost debuting with Big Hit prior to this. Performance-wise, I thought this was fine but not particularly charming (even with the shoe incident).

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In Conclusion…

No one really wowed me, a few were quite awful, the judges were way too generous with the “all-stars” and too brutal with the “no stars.” Oh… and Hyolyn had the best facial expressions/reactions of the episode.