Chinese Variety Shows I've Watched

completed 2026-06
Overall show was just ok. Nothing really spectacular and would only recommend if someone is watching for a specific star. (I watched because Wu Junting is in it.)

They should've incorporated more content of them living together because there's only so much they can do with people practicing singing... you can tell even editors ran out of content because some parts of the episodes are really short (a lot of episodes had part 3s that were only 20 minutes long).

completed 2026-06
Didn't enjoy overall, very forgettable, and wouldn't recommend. There weren't any standout performances. A couple of the participants were rude, imo. Only rewarding thing was seeing more of the personalities of the8 and Jun when they were younger (I watched this show just for those two).

completed 2026-07; season was somewhat forgettable compared to prior seasons...

Despite that, some highlights:
- ep1 with TNT was so fun! All new and exciting activities. Absolutely loved the name tag ripping game!
- ep6 was another fun episode. The shape guessing game and the water chair were so entertaining. The rules for the name tag ripping game this episode made it super interesting and fun to watch.
- ep7 was also fun. Loved the new format for the name tag ripping at the start, and the final game at the end was so well played and entertaining to watch.

completed 2026-07; pretty enjoyable season and is more entertaining than I had expected (maybe because I went in with extremely low expectations, lol). He Junlin, Xu Zhisheng, and Chen Xinhai had a lot of great content.

Highlights:
Ep0 - fun to see everyone so awkward meeting for the first time.
Ep1 - entertaining and seemed like the HJL+XZS show because there was so much focus on them.
Ep2 had some fun pranking activities in the first half.
Ep4 started with a fun "catching criminals" segment. The room selection outcome was hilarious. (Ep4 bonus part1 has more funny scenes of the "criminals.")
Ep5 - the whole beginning and the wedding is cracking me up!
Ep7 - the pond part was funny, love how they're all leaning on the CXH+LJQ couple, the twin game is entertaining, and the dialect game at the end was hilarious.
Ep8 - the games in the beginning were so fun to watch!!! and the billiard competition, too!
Ep9 - without spoiling anything, the endings with Chen Xinhai and He Junlin were so heartwarming.

(For future reference, filming started March 18, 2026.)

completed 2026-07; meh, super casual and not entertaining, geared specifically for fans of the cdrama (or its actors)