Survivor 30 Premiere Notes

Whoop whoop I'm so ready for Reality TV Game Shows!!!


This is no review nor recap of the episode but just some random thoughts and opinions I have while/after watching the episodes. 
please pardon me for a really messy blog post.

Spoiler Alert! 
Starting off with Survivor 30: Worlds Apart
I didn't watch much pre-season videos, only the teasers and i came into watching this brilliant new season's premiere only knowing the basic concept.

Jeff Probst did say that this is the BEST PREMIERE since 2012
Do i agree?
Short Answer: I think so.
Long Answer: I managed to get a really good glimpse into each player's personality and how they are like. Also, I saw a great great immunity challenge. An idol was found without needing a clue and tribal council was quite interesting. Overall, a fun and pretty engaging episode!

Now to the show itself
I had the shivers as the trucks drove towards Jeff! (Must be that I am really excited after too long a break from Survivor, I have yet to watch Survivor San Juan del Sur, oops, but I really miss watching Survivor)
Side note: If i say that something is really cool and new, and it happened in season 29 already, please pardon me!

• 2 people to have to make a decision, this time honest or deceive.
  Interesting. But, following Max's flow, its not such a good choice to be making decisions for the tribe from the get go.
  I thought that choosing DECEIVE was not a good choice as it was easy to backfire. I was thinking along the line that 1 of the 2 people could easily push the blame to the other person who went along, and make themselves gain some pity vote by being the victim who was unable to convince the other person otherwise, leaving everyone with a small bag of beans.
• Dan said: "Mike is great."
  I totally agree. Haha, from how he ate the scorpion to his thoughts about it to how he was quite slow(or slower than the other players)at untying knots to bringing the team to 2nd place with quick completion of the puzzle. Very like-able and fun. Tv worthy player too.
• Jo vs Vince
  At first glance, they might look like really similar guys... As we got to see, Jo was definitely making a more pleasant impression on the others(i think Jenn included, hehe) than Vince. Is Jo too big of a target now? Can't tell for now.
• Immunity Challenge
  GOOD. Really liking the choosing components, which would you do? Keys or knots? Which puzzle? Personally, keys or knots was a really good one. When Mike was falling behind, omg i was so emotional... ); He was like I'm sorry and the team mates were like you can do it, calm down. Wow. Loving such support. Then when he made a come back I was like hallelujah!!!
• Carolyn found the idol w/o a clue, made it through this first tribal without using it. Plus she shared this news with Tyler. Great play right from the first few days. She is doing really well! I am impressed.

Having watched RHAP's exit interview with So,
I found out that So actually knew that she was going to be voted off already, hence she said that she was working in a group of 4.
→ makes me wonder if she knew, did Joaquin know too? Or was he too clueless?
→ Is So just claiming that she knew to back up what she said?
Really a pity to see her voted off first though, I thought that she was pretty interesting and was TV worthy material...
→ Was her game screwed up because of Joaquin or her own actions?
Rob mentioned that Joaquin didn't seem to know this game as much as the other players, as he was saying that he definitely wanted to choose Deceive.
→ Interesting POV, I don't really know how i feel about him now, so i will KIV.
Rob said that Jo(seph) could be the next to go according to some source... Hopefully not, he was good in the technical aspect of this game... hmph.

CONCLUDING NOTES
I really really like Mike, I am rooting for him.
I believe quite a few people like him too, haha well he is my fave to win Survivor for now.

Highlights of the episode:
'deceive' backfire ✓
'Mike is great' ✓

Also, I realised that I have not talked about my impressions of the all the contestants after the premiere... Maybe for next episode! ;)

Hope to see this season get even better! :)

If you would like to go crazy with me over Survivor and many other shows, tweet me @raycherr!

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10 Flaws of NO.MERCY

Check out my other post/review on NO.MERCY

In no particular order,
1. Ranking
At first, despite seeming really cruel, it seemed like a really good idea to me, to help the trainees see where they stand, and to motivate them...

But, this is just crap, I'm sorry. There is no value in this, plus it only made the show seem even more bias than ever[see flaw 4] especially with Jooheon forever at the top.

2. Elimination
I really dislike it when I'm just getting to know someone, he is eliminated especially for a non-satisfactory reason.
For example, in Reality TV Game Shows like Survivor and The Genius, when players are eliminated, it is because the tribe has spoken or they didn't do well in a game. They are explicit reasons that I can see for myself and find a sense of justification... Even if I liked the player, I could accept the players' fate when eliminated. Here, I just do not understand their reasoning, if they even give one[see flaw 9].

3. Spoilers
Moving along, having this show filmed in public is a total disaster. Not only will people along the street (or amusement park) know about who has been eliminated, K-netizens will let everyone in the world know. Also, I do believe that this is the reason why many are so upset. After all, we get to know what happened weeks before broadcast. We had so many days to live in denial that some of our fave members are eliminated, and then face the reality that they really are gone(either from the show or the constant confirmation in the comments section). This was a really bad move, as we had so many days to garner our frustration and then become really upset at Starship Entertainment.

4. Bias
Yea, speaking of elimination, many of us are really unhappy about Minkyun's elimination/exit taking about 10 minutes but for the rest that were eliminated, only about a minute each. How bias is this.
Also, not to forget how #GUN was always picked on by Mad Clown for being old fashioned. Ok, yes he is the professional and I'm the noob at rapping but... I am pretty sure many of us didn't mind #GUN's old fashioned rapping, in fact we liked it A LOT. :/ Am I not right???

5. Lame Excuses 
I think one of the lowest point in this show was definitely K.Will's stupid excuse when he said: "I came to realize we don't have enough rappers" [watch it here]
I was super mad!!! ): It was just after the elimination of rapper Kwangji. Come to think of it, I am still quite mad. They wanted more rappers, ok. Did they debut more than 3 rappers that were left then? NO.

6. K.Will
I've never seen so much negativity towards a host. For K.Will, while he was good in the sense that he had the skills to host a show, he failed to charm the audience, instead creating dislikes against him too. I've seen comments saying that they deleted all his songs after watching NO.MERCY so this is definitely a first for me. I don't blame him though. They shouldn't have made him a host and judge at the same time. While judges like Simon Cowell were strict, I am pretty sure the audience didn't dislike dislike him the way they did for K.Will. Not only did he criticized the trainees(which is still acceptable), he delivered all the bad news if you can remember: from the eliminations to the addition of another trainee. What a way to market your new boy group while bringing K.Will's image to an all time low.

7. No clear direction
To be honest, I'm still unclear. I have a feeling that they want to have a hip-hop concept with more emphasis on the rappers. However, I didn't think about the trainees that way until i sensed that the company expected a lot from the rappers, had many songs in that genre, and looked up to find that they wanted to debut a hip-hop group. In fact, Kihyun definitely looked like he belonged in a group that focused more on ballads and Shownu in a group that did more mature sexy concepts... :/ Plus, I thought that the trainees did really well in more ballad-ish pop songs like their version of caffeine. Oh well.

8. Groupings in missions
I've no idea how they come up with groupings for the group missions and they don't explain (well). How can a group be formed without being impartial if you know them (quite) well? It is pretty upsetting how Wonho and Kihyun are paired together in almost all missions, despite me liking this duo. I do think that we tend to just jump to conclusions when they eliminate just one member of a group, thinking that they set it up for them to fail, especially when we feel that the better(or more favored trainees) are placed in a group...

9. Not debuting #GUN
I don't care if they have other plans for him or what, this was THE lowest point for most people. Fans love #GUN. Hey, afterall, his cousin is Minho from Winner, not to discredit #GUN's own effort or anything. In fact, i really like #GUN too ever since he rapped about his family. Also, I am not discrediting other eliminated trainees, each of them played a significant role in making everyone becoming at least slightly disappointed with Starship. However, the number of fans who like #GUN definitely made it a big deal when he was not chosen to be part of Monsta X. Starship, this doesn't make sense.

10. Addition of a new member
Alright, I was debating about whether to include this... True, I wasn't very pleased when they introduce I'M halfway through the program, but I wasn't too angry about it either. To be clear, I don't dislike nor hate I'M, I think he is pretty good actually.
However, I do dislike the fact that he was given a golden ticket that enabled him to skip the earlier process, which is deemed as unfair to most people. This, I don't think is too much or too shocking but I'M didn't exactly bring much to the TV aspect either except for the first few minutes when the trainees were quite awkward around him. I can't bring myself to hate on him, and I don't know him enough to like him. With such an addition of a trainee, I only wished that they had given us more background on him.

So there you have it, 10 FLAWS of Starship Entertainment's NO MERCY survival show.
If you have more views regarding this show, be it good or bad, share them in the comments section below! :) or tweet me @raycherr

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Thoughts on NO.MERCY

*Shakes head in disappointment*

If you have not heard of NO.MERCY, it is a Reality TV show that falls into a one of a kind category known as Survival Shows. As far as I know, such shows only exist in Korea(I might be wrong, do let me know if they are found in other countries).
Basically, these survival shows are pretty popular and Entertainment companies team up with Broadcasting Studios to come up with a TV show that will determine which trainees under the company can debut as singers.
If you are interested, you can watch them with English subs on Youtube here.
Generally, I enjoyed such shows(they do make create TV; I've watched Hot Blood Men & Who is Next), but this time round NO.MERCY's execution left more to be desired...

Background:
NO.MERCY is designed for trainees under a company named STARSHIP Entertainment.
Starship Entertainment to me was a company that had class. The artistes under the company were all really brilliant, and not to forget, Talented. If you are interested, you can check out Sistar, K.Will, Boyfriend, Mad clown, just to name a few. Also, I was generally pleased with Sistar's execution of sexy concepts on stage. They were able to appeal to both sexes and they had class, not something that is easy to do especially when many girl groups are trying to stand out [see: Too Sexy for Korea].

Hence, I had a great impression of Starship Ent, I generally liked everything they have produced. So, when NO.MERCY came along, i was excited, we were all excited for it. No one thought much about the ranking system, we all thought that it would be a fun show, to get us to like their trainees and then debut them.

Turns out, they had more installed for us and it revealed quite a bit about their company and the Kpop industry, both sadly not in a good way.

I am deeply disappointed about the show, and so are many others who have watched the show with me... Just look at the number of dislikes in the final episode where they confirm the members of the group who get to debut.

Totally disastrous... And the number of dislikes just keep increasing.
Makes me wonder how Starship Entertainment feels about this, or if they even care... :/

And so I've decided to come up with the flaws that NO.MERCY had. Check out: 10 Flaws of NO.MERCY

But that aside, I do feel that #GUN elimination played a huge role in so much frustration that the fans have. Most likely it would've been no big deal if the others were eliminated, sad but true.
And hey, I do think that it is great that so much dislikes are poured into this, how could Starship not just debut #GUN, but also Seokwon, Yoonho, Kwangji, MinKyun, YooSu!!! ):
Haha, ohwell, look at how cruel this industry is!
And just so i end on a bright note, at least, it happened on screen, and the eliminated trainees had a voice and the support of thousands of fans? All the best to them. XOXO.

P.S. I wonder why don't all of the trainees just rebel and idk make it big on their own? I'm sure after training for a few years, there will be many people/fans who would be supportive of such idea, for them to freelance or be their own manager, without the need of being under a an oppressive company.

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