16 February, 2019.

5 0 0
                                    

After I got to know and understand the Produce survival show series, I learnt that they had adapted this same concept in China as well called 'Idol Producer' with Lay from Exo being the host. I had only come across Korean and a bit Japanese music/ idol careers but never a Chinese one.

In January, I came across an Idol Producer Season 2 full episode and knew that I wanted to follow it. Maybe not as hardcore as Produce48 but I wanted to see what the Chinese trainees had to offer.

So Idol Producer S2 is now called 'Qing Chun You Ni' (but I'm going to continue calling it Idol Producer S2) and it has taken inspiration from the Produce series. I have already explained at length about the concept of the show so I'll just go ahead with the changes.

EXO's Lay is back as the host while Seventeen's The8 is a dance mentor/trainer this time around. Lay is my Exo bias wrecker and I love Seventeen as a group so I'm really happy to see these two on the show! The8 especially! 

I'm four episodes in but it's still taking me time to learn the different Chinese names and recognise their faces. Kinda like the way it took me time to learn Korean names. I'll probably get them tho. Or not. I don't know.

Taking about the episodes, first let me say one thing- their episodes are very long! Ep1, Ep2- 2 hours approx, Ep3- 2 and a half hours, Ep4- 3 and a half hours! It's probably good in the sense that the show won't look rushed and there might be more diverse screen time distribution but I'm going to have to figure out how to not let these episodes take up a lot of my productive time.

The first two episodes were wholly audition based and though there is no one that I instantly felt inclined to support, there are some people who I look forward to seeing on the show. Surprisingly none of the 100 trainees got the most coveted A grade. Seems like their standards were way too strict/high this time.

The third episode was practicing for their theme song "Youth Has You" following which there were rank revaluations (which happened in front of everyone in the main pyramid setup), ultimately leading to Li Wenhan being chosen as the centre.

The fourth episode was song evaluation, just like Produce48 (I'm taking Produce's 2018 version as a reference to compare because that's the one I have watched fully) but with a twist. The 2 competing groups had to perform in front the Lay and the mentors/trainers and they decided which one of those two groups would perform live in front of the audience. The losing team did get a chance to show their performance but that was a practice room edition with practice clothes and production. Moreover, the audience could only vote for the ones performing live while the rest got zero votes at the end of the mission.

I have seen comments saying that this was the first time they had changed this format of the mission and that it was too ruthless of a move which could hamper the losing contestants' morale quite a bit. To be completely honest, from a viewer's perspective who is not too invested in the contestants, I find it very interesting. Since the beginning of the show, Lay and the mentors have stressed about the fact that they have to work really hard to get what they want, nothing's going to be given to them on a platter. This change in the format brings about just that. The level of competition seems to have gone up very high and that's what I want to see.

As said before, I haven't felt like supporting any contestant yet but the ones I look forward to are:
-> Li Wenhan
-> Lian Huawei
-> Jia Yi
-> Jin Fan
-> Lin Mo
-> Wen Yechen
-> Yao Mingming
-> Wang Jiayi
-> He Changxi

Today evening, my parents went to attend a couple's only party with all our bus stop group's parents. Mom had made us dinner but Alex felt like ordering a side dish so we did that. We'll definitely be shouted at if dad gets to know tho.🙈

Anyways, the two of us decided to watch a movie while having dinner. My immediate movie genre is horror while Alex likes light hearted ones. We were going to watch a horror movie but ended up watching this light hearted Bollywood movie called "102 Not Out". It's an amazing movie! I feel like it would have been better if we had seen it as a family cause it included a lot of family values as well as inside jokes.

An Outlet: Part 6Where stories live. Discover now