We’re back with the second bunch of 80 trainees on “Planet C.” I looked it up and this group is indeed meant to be centered vaguely around China, but there seems to be a bit of looseness around the “K” and “C” planets.
One thing I didn’t mention last episode if that I hope ZEROBASEONE’s Hanbin and Hao are getting a nice paycheck for their narration during this season’s opening monologues. It must be weird to be narrating the rise of a group that’s essentially being created to replace you.
Unlike the Planet K trainees, this group’s initial seating was determined by the first impression of the other participants. This seemed like a needlessly mean way to kick things off. A couple of the guys also had a “sexy” showdown that felt a lot like BL pandering. Or, one could assume they’re simply ‘getting things out of their system’ outside the confines of a repressive government…
PREVIOUS RECAPS: Episode One
“Regular” Trainees
I think it’s funny that they call these guys “regular” simply because they aren’t with an agency. During this segment, they must have said the word “sexy” about three hundred times. The shtick got old pretty quick. These guys picked an awesome song but this felt like a lot of style over substance to me. This was the first time we saw somewhat go from “no-star” to “1-star” thanks to an extra test, though.
Team Shanghai
I thought they were pretty slick. The vocals were decent and the performance had polish. It helps that they picked a fantastic song that’s a little less known than many of the others. The mentors sure seemed to like them a lot.
Team Beijing
This team was all about being “cute.” I know I tend to love bright boy group concepts, but this was an example of how “cute” can also be a bit annoying if overdone. The song was bad, too. To be honest, giving one of the guys an “all-star” was a joke.
Team Ningbo
This team has a guy who’s already quite famous (he filmed a movie with Jackie Chan and is also friends with Jun from Seventeen). Their song was absolutely terrible and that very same guy fell on his butt when they did their stunt, but they had decent energy, I guess. They can shout their way through a crappy song as well as the next guy.
iNKODE Trainees
This is awkward because iNKODE is Jaejoong’s agency and he’s also judging this round on the show. The guy in the stripes was a lot better and he’d been training nineteen months less than the other trainee. To make things even more awkward, Jaejoong ended up eliminating his own long-standing trainee. That’s gonna be a weird conversation later at the agency…
Sung Hen Yu (BLANK2Y)
The only thing more awkward than experienced idols coming on this show is experienced idols from groups no one has heard of. Jaejoong didn’t know BLANK2Y, one of the fellow trainees said, “It’s a group without much recognition,” and I had to look up whether I had ever written about them before (I did! Here and here). Anyway, this guy was pretty good.
The Boy Scouts
I don’t know what else to call this. It was just weird as hell, but at least it was… entertaining? I kind of want to see the whole performance!
Jack & Nian
Finally, someone with some personality! Jack’s over-the-top vibe could easily tumble over into obnoxiousness, but for now it’s nice to have some energy and his outbursts were legitimately funny in this overly-serious show. He’s an early standout for his silliness alone. I kind of want him to wreak havoc on the stuffy formula of this show. Plus, the performance was very solid (even if I don’t care for the song).
NOUER
No, this is not NouerA (though they were also formed from a survival series). NOUER is the agency that’s managing NouerA, I guess. It’s all a bit confusing. This video has a lot of views on YouTube but it doesn’t do much for me at all. Maybe the views are boosted by ENHYPEN fans watching to support the song. Anyway, these guys have talent but I don’t see much star power yet.
Hyolyn is currently going viral for her suggestion that judging shouldn’t be based on visuals and that these contestants should be able to sing. I can’t even believe this is controversial, but yeah… she’s right. The K-pop industry would do well to focus more on talent and less on visuals.
