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(Written on April 20, 2024)
No animal stories today. We go right to the Tower and D-Day for the Stage Battle. I’m very excited to see our idols on the big outdoor stages and very curious about how they’re getting an audience to see them.
We see the Tower stages. The “Answer” one is blue and sleek, with huge
LED panels and a clear, reflective floor.
The “No Thanks” stage is red and looks like an auto repair shop
exploded.
Our idols hit the stages to get a feel for them, and the weather is still really bad. The high winds are even shaking the cameras a little. Team No Thanks gets some rehearsal time while the winds whip at their hair and clothes. It’s a bad sign that Team Answer is watching them rehearse and looking worried. Sunghyuk’s dramatics over being pushed to this team are way more understandable now.
After the rehearsal, I’m pretty sure I hear thunder, and it’s definitely raining again. The stage floors are wet. Was South Korea having a nonstop monsoon? I looked up the weather in the Sobaek Mountain Range for early 2021, when filming would have been done. Those mountains got twelve inches of rain in mid-April. They really should have filmed this in someone’s backyard.
Now Team Answer rehearses,
and it looks like all those hours of rehearsal paid off. They’re actually good. This is going to be a real competition. Now it’s the No Thanks Team’s turn to look
concerned.
We’re two hours before the online broadcast, and I just now remember that COVID was still happening while this was being filmed, so that’s why they keep doing live broadcasts instead of having live audiences. COVID seems like a bad dream now, and if it weren’t for the masks I still keep and the toilet paper I still hoard just in case it happens again, I’d have forgotten about it. For Pete’s sake, it’s the whole reason I work from home now. We Americans have very short memories.
A team of stylists have descended on our idols. When they get back onstage, they look like … well, TAN. I’m seeing TAN up there. Even the junkyard stage is starting to grow on me.
By showtime, it’s pitch dark and raining HARD. Team Answer is actually happy about the rain. They are wearing white shirts with black leather straps underneath, so when those shirts get soaked, they’re going to be one smoking hot group of pneumonia victims.
The Tower announces that the
Stage Battle will begin, and we see the faces of the audience on the Tower’s
LED screen, just like in the previous live broadcast.
Team Answer will go first. The stage and the team both look amazing. They may be fending off wind and rain, but they’re going to make sure to introduce themselves to the cameras so the audience will remember their names for the individual voting. Then they take their places while the other team watches anxiously from backstage. The music starts.
The rain is definitely working to their advantage. They look wild and adventurous. The song is a piece of fluff that I forget right after hearing it, but the performance is electric. They should be doing a harder rock song.
I feel sad about the ones who
aren’t going to make it to the final group, because boy do they deserve
to. Especially The Cadet and Baby
H. They absolutely belong onstage. They are already stars. When they hold their final pose, the wind and
rain whipping around them makes them look like gods. The online audience is clapping and waving
enthusiastically.
The Tower reminds the audience about voting for their favorite member of Team Answer. They write down the names and hold them up to the cameras.
Next up, Team No Thanks. If Team Answer looks like gods, these guys look like demons. Dangerous and sexy. The wild weather takes on a whole new context, like they are the ones bringing the storm. They introduce themselves and do a better job flirting with the camera than the other team, especially Jaejun. Teenage me would definitely have voted for this team, and they haven’t even started yet. The online audience looks more excited to see them.
The music starts, and our bad
boys are ready to go. I like that they
get a song with a harder beat. They are
perfectly in sync with higher energy than Team Answer. They’re fueled by a better song with a great
hook.
Backstage, Team Answer is very nervous. The Tower tells the audience to hold up their votes for their favorite member of Team No Thanks. Immediately afterward, it’s time for the audience to vote for their favorite overall team. I have my personal preference, and I know one team is mostly TAN, but I could see the vote going either way.
The idols, still dressed in their stage outfits, gather in front of the Tower for the results.
The winning team, and the one
that will perform on MBC’s Show! Music Core was decided by a close vote
of 59-41. And it’s Team Answer.
They seem as surprised as I
am. I’m happy for them, especially with
indie Hyunyeop and Drama Queen Sunghyuk on their team. And Surfer Dude, The Cadet, and Ki Joong
finally, FINALLY get a win. It’s weird –
I liked the other team better, but I’m still glad Team Answer won. Ki Joong bursts into tears again, and this
time, I love to see it. The lowest
ranked underdogs will get to perform on their dream stage. The Cadet is crying, too.
Team No Thanks looks stunned. They really expected to win. Eventually, they shake it off and put their hands in to do a team cheer.
The Tower reminds Team Answer that each member of their group will get fifty points. I’m so glad they won’t be stealing the points from the other team. And now, it’s time to find out the results of the individual votes.
For Team Answer, it’s …
Hyunyeop! Man, he needed this. For Team No Thanks, it’s Jooan. I figured it would be either Jooan or Jaejun. Jooan shows no joy whatsoever. He’s taking the team loss hard.
The individual winners get more points as well, but the Tower doesn’t remind us how many. Now it’s time to see the new rankings. I predict there will be a lot of changes, but Taehoon will still be in the top spot, since he was over a hundred points ahead of the second-ranked idol.
Here are the rankings, with
the TAN members highlighted:
Taehoon is only about fifty points ahead of Jaejun now. Sunghyuk actually yells “Thank you!” to Taehoon when his new ranking is announced. Changsun, as the No Thanks Team Leader, feels like he failed his team, but they refuse to hear it. There’s already a strong bond growing between these future bandmates.
Change of scene. We now see the Tower in a different place,
with different lighting. They’ve moved
it again. The drums start beating, and
our idols run to the new location. It
looks like it’s indoors. They’re in a
studio. Wait, they’ve been outside,
pummeled by rain and wind for the past several days, and they could have been
in a studio?
The Tower looks shorter, like they had to shave about twenty feet off the top to fit it inside. “Only the strong will survive,” the shortened Tower tells them, which sounds weird in this non-wilderness environment. Are they still doing the “fight to survive” thing? Are the idols standing on a kill floor?
We are told that they will no longer be in the wild, to which I say THANK GOD. The final seven winners will be decided through the final live broadcast. Now comes something called the Last Chance. We still have two and a half episodes to fill. Are we about to eliminate someone?
The Last Chance Mission will
include a modeling challenge and a stage battle. First, they will be posing for pictures for
the modeling mission. One trainee’s
photos will be chosen as the best, and that trainee will be awarded fifty
points. Now that fifty points can mean a
new first-ranked idol, Taehoon is really looking nervous.
We cut to a week later. I guess the show gave the idols a week off to wring out all their rain-soaked clothes. Our idols return to the studio and are greeted by show staff. The boys meet Editor-in-Chief Jung Hye Wook of Men’s Health. She tells us specifically she’s from Men’s Health, but when she holds up a sign with the magazine’s logo on it, the show blurs it out. Korean broadcasting laws are complicated.
When Jaejun is doing a confessional and they show the cover of the magazine behind him, they only kinda sorta blur out the name. They barely blur about half of it, like the show couldn’t tell if it was illegal or not, so they hedged their bets. More on this in a minute.
Our muscular idols, like Taehoon and Jaejun, are excited about this shoot. The ones without six-pack abs are a little nervous. The editor says she wants to take them out of the wild and transform them into handsome city men. Only one of them will get to be on the cover. My money is on Jaejun. He’s got that Men’s Health look.
Wait, I forgot about Baby H,
and he tells us he won a modeling contest before Wild Idol. He’s already a professional model. I’m glad to hear that, because he’ll need
something to fall back on when he doesn’t make it into TAN. And Aquaman tells us he’s a professional
model as well. My money isn’t so much on
Jaejun anymore.
Now we get what is clearly an advertisement for our good friends at Masitdak Snacks. The idols pick out their favorite flavors from a basket provided right there in the studio and talk about how much they enjoy them. Boy, is it out of place and awkward. They’re trying to make it seem like casual conversation, but I just know there’s a production assistant right behind the camera, frantically gesturing at them to hold the labels up to the lens. The show tells us that now that our idols have charged up their bodies with protein, it’s time for them to go into hair and makeup. O…kay. That was weird, but sure.
So yes, I paused the show and found some answers on Reddit. South Korea has broadcast regulations banning indirect advertising, or embedded marketing. In this case, the word “men’s” is pretty common, but put it next to the word “health,” and you have indirect advertising. Even though they say the name of the magazine many times in this episode and show the cover of the actual magazine, they still have to blur out part of the name.
Quick tangent: This happens all the time in K-pop artist
interviews when an idol is wearing a logo on their clothing. What’s really funny is that they usually
don’t blur it out very well. In some
cases, when the idol moves a couple of feet to the side, the blur doesn’t move
with him, so we can clearly see the logo until he moves back to his previous
position.
So back to the Men’s Health Magazine shoot.
Our boys are getting makeovers.
One of the hairstylists asks Taehoon if they really didn’t have any hair
or makeup styling while they were filming in the mountains. Taehoon says he didn’t even get to wash his
hair for the first modeling challenge and that he styled his hair with oil from
his face. If you’ll excuse me, I have to
throw up now.
Sorry about that. And I’m sorry, Taehoon, but you guys looked very well put together out in the wild. I believe you looked naturally that way just like I believe you love nothing better than Garlic Chicken Masitdak Snacks first thing in the morning.
Now for the photo shoots. Of
course, they all look stunning.
Afterwards, when the Men’s
Health staff has left the building, our idols gather at
the Tower to find out the winner. It’s
Baby H, for fifty points and the magazine cover. He moves up to Number Four in the rankings,
pushing everyone below down a spot.
The Tower tells them that
before the live show, there is one more chance to come up in the rankings and
be a candidate for the final seven. The
idols must choose a category to compete in, either vocal, dance, or rap. Each team has to pull off a perfect
performance. A panel of judges will
evaluate them. The best idols will win
one hundred points each. Our idols
choose their categories.
The teams huddle. We join our rappers first. They debate whether their theme should be “number” or “anti-hero,” and even with subtitles, I don’t understand this conversation.
Thankfully, we move on to the dancers. The Brat is in this group. Why isn’t he with the rappers? Maybe he feels he has a better chance of winning here. He’s the only non-TAN member of this group, so he’s probably screwed. The group agrees to wear suits and choose a song that starts with dance pop and moves into hip-hop.
Now on to the vocalists. They try to choose a song. One of the songs that gets considered is
“Love Me Right” by EXO, a song I absolutely love. But they pass on this and throw out more
ideas.
The Cadet is strangely quiet. He doesn’t offer any opinions. When Jooan encourages him to speak his mind, he puts his head down and begins to cry. He explains that he feels he’s been selfish. So now, rather than pushing for what he wants, he will listen to the others and let them decide.
This is a full turn from the guy whose insistence on changing the choreography led to The Spark being eliminated. I’d actually let that go since discovering just how talented he is and knowing how I would also fight for myself if I had that kind of talent. I really, really wish he had wound up in TAN.
I usually save this next part
for when someone gets eliminated. But
after The Cadet’s amazing performance in the last Stage Battle that led to his
team winning, I tried to find current information about him. The most I could find is that he was supposed
to debut several times, but none of them panned out. He seems to have disappeared from the K-pop
industry.
This makes me sad. He definitely had the talent. He had the star quality. But after going through the heartbreak of failure over and over again, maybe the best thing for his mental health was to walk away from the industry. Maybe start his own dance studio or be a vocal coach. I hope he’s okay, especially after seeing him break down like this. I hope he’s living a happy life.
Now, in a confessional, he
specifically mentions how he screwed up the choreography and how he fought to
get out of Team A. When we cut back to
the vocal team meeting, the others are compassionate. Over the course of the show, they’ve all been
in the bottom ranks. So they tell him
it’s not selfish to speak up. When The
Cadet eventually does get eliminated, I’ll be glad he’s made peace with his
fellow contestants.
The vocal team decides to do a classic K-pop song by SHINee called “Sherlock.” I pulled up the video on YouTube, and oh my God, that’s a great song. It hooked me immediately. The song is over a decade old, and I don’t know if I ever would have found it if it weren’t for this show.
We get montages of all the teams rehearsing and getting feedback from the coaches who have appeared on the show so far. It looks like they’ve been given a week to put their performances together. They will be doing these Last Chance performances at the MBC Studio. The stage looks incredible. I love the purple. I am calling it the Purple Rain Stage. (We miss you so much, Prince …)
Our idols arrive and are blown away by the stage. They see the judges’ table on the other side of the studio. I feel like we’re back at No Mercy. As the idols walk around and get a feel for the stage, they get excited about the chance to perform here. It’s a great venue. I’m excited for them.
They take a day for rehearsals, and then it’s time for hair, makeup, and wardrobe again. Please, nobody ask Taehoon about his time in the wilderness.
Cut to ninety minutes before
showtime. We have about ten minutes left
in the episode, so I hope we get to see at least one performance. Nope. Instead,
each group does one last round of dress rehearsal. We only get glimpses of these
rehearsals. Mostly we see the reactions
of the other idols watching them from backstage. I
love the way the lighting changes with each performance. Shout-out to whomever designed this stage. When the vocalists are rehearsing, I can hear
that they are doing their own arrangement of “Sherlock,” and I’m so excited to
hear the full song. This is going to be
a great show.
We then cut to another montage of the rehearsals we just saw, and as great as it looks, I think this episode is just running out the clock. Turns out that’s exactly what they’re doing, because they’re closing out with studio performances of Team Answer and Team No Thanks doing their songs from the previous battle. They all look amazing, especially The Cadet, who experienced so many setbacks before getting to the MBC dream stage.
Well, I’m excited for the
next two episodes. If they are going to
stretch the hell out of this, we’ll at least get to see some great
performances. Stay tuned.
Episode 12: no time for a title LET’S START THE SHOW
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