Planet B (2025)

160 Boys Held Hostage by Bad Editing

This was the worst season of Produce-type show in Korea so far. NOT because of the trainees, but because everything else in this production failed them.

I will talk about trainees only very briefly: The boys were gorgeous, skilled, entertaining, talented, fun, charming, hardworking, good looking individuals and none of the criticism in this review is directed to them. This is not a hate-piece aimed at trainees. Congratulation to winners, good luck to trainees who didnt make it to the final group. Most of you are super awesome. Best of luck to aldi, this seems like a solid lineup.

1. Storylines
This is the SEVENTH korean iteration of Mnets hit reality show of Produce format. The name might be changed, some gimmicks were added, but this is still Produce 101. Except they attempted this to be seventh and EIGHTH season. That's the first and actually the last straw that broke the camels back.
There were supposed to be two shows, two debuting groups (one for Korea, one for China), but due to some reasons, it fell through and two shows were merged into one. Even before audience voting, the number of trainees had to be suddenly halved. This lead to instant elimination of "personality" (and future "storyline") trainees. What happens to your show, if you eliminate the rowdy, no-filter personality hires and leave in well-behaved, media-trained, talented guys, desperate to debut and play it safe? Seemingly you get boring show. Except based on after-show testimonials, the remaining trainees were not trying to play it only safe, it was all the BAD EDITING.

2. Editing and Production
Someone call Korean Academy of Film Arts and ask them if their courses on tv production and editing are still open cause people who worked on editing of this show really need some more tutoring. Horrendous. Disappointing. Boring. Inconsistent. Unnecessarily serious. Bad. Not viewer friendly.
I understand and emphatize with production team, as they had really hard task of carrying out this big show that was falling apart in their hands. They had to patch up together 2 shows into one, were being probably told to come up with something new, something that never happened in previous seasons, something fresh… but they just couldn't and so we got terrible show instead. None of the gimmicks, none of the "classes", none of the "plot twists" worked. I wonder if this is a result of pure incompetency on so many levels of production or if there is something deeper.

3. "Rigging"
It shocks me to say this, but looking back, i enjoyed the rigged/fixed seasons much more than this one. At least in that case, the votes were rigged but the need for character assasination and visual erasure of "unwanted" trainees (by mnet) by the means of editing was not that big. The way some extremely prominent and early-promoted trainees were not shown later even in moments of their excellence was frustrating. Not in the prefered lineup? No storytelling for you, even if you got set up for a story in the begining.
It feels like at least in "fixed seasons" the editors were handheld by final result and they could build around it. But in this season, we had to be pushed very hard to "the right direction". I know this is not a "documentary" and the integrity to telling the truth and all the context is not that .... important. But with 180+ minutes long episodes, you really could give us more without it looking like this was badly hidden promo for 5-10 trainees.

4. Styling + songs
Maybe this is more of a proof of the state of kpop genre, rather than this show, but long gone are the days of "To my word", "NEVER", "Boyness", "Rumor" - top tier original songs given to participants. The selection of songs - original or already existing was lackluster and mostly unispired. The styling has been the worst i remember - with the strong emphasis on the "killing part" and "his backdancers" (i swear it didnt use to be like this!!). The styling for final performances was embarassing and must be an act of sabotage.

5. FINAL WORDS
I am still flabbergasted by how mid the finale was. Until last second, i was 9 members truther. The fact that no such surprise happened only cemented my disappointment from this season. 8 members is so little for show with 160 participants. Too little for debut group from Mnets show that is guarranteed success. You COULD afford it, you have so much power but not decide to use it, smh.
I am also enraged by the fact that, in the end, chinese version of the show went through and cplanet trainees get round 2 of this rodeo. I find this so offensive to all the guys who had to be cut early from kplanet only for merge to happen. (but best of luck to all the cboys who decided to participate).
This show sucked, but i am still happy i got to witness these talented guys. I just wish they could shine more in a good show.

PS. I'm sorry, Kang Woojin, you deserved better :(

Leggi di Più

Human hot pot

On the beginning I wanna say i really like watching this type of survival shows; I find them inspiring and motivating. I got to know new faces, new songs, new dance styles - you name it. I've watched everything from Show me the money and Chuang 2019 to B: My Boyz. But I've never in my life seen something so ridiculous pretending to play it fair square and cool. Who are you trying to fool, Mnet?

First two episodes were somehow a good watch, funny and thrilling. I get it, fit all 160 trainees in seems almost impossible, so you didn't show all of them . Is it fair towards the trainees? Absolutely not, maybe the show shouldn't start with this huge amount to begin with -

After 2nd episode things started to go south, some of the C trainees dropped out (also my picks). It seemed surprising , then the news appeared that the C Planet was not supposed to merge 2gether with K Planet. There were supposed to be two separate shows with two separate debuting groups -

Never mind, what happened, happened - K and C are now together and K trainees are obviously "the God's favourite". C trainees are bullied for not speaking Korean enough, they are evil edited even evil styled (who would dress up a performing trainee into a t-shirt which is saying "shaky, insecure, ... etc. in BIG letters?!) .

As the show goes on I am forced to watch how the light is disappearing from their starry eyes. This show is not a survival show anymore. IT'S A HORROR SHOW. Every new episode gets my heart racing - but not with a thrill, it's a panic attack. These trainees are used and abused for rising numbers of views (money). Their faces in agony are plastered over YouTube thumbnails. Absolutely no-one believes that this show is not rigged. The debuting group was already decided on the very beginning - if not with votes, than the editing, comments and screen time in favour of particular trainees will do it all -

lil update: REWATCH value is 10/10 because you got to see all your eliminated favs again. Ryan, Andrew, Lim Jack ... 143

Leggi di Più