It all went so well, until it did not. It’s hard to just ignore the issue that happened with the 23:00 team, since they dealt with it in the worst way possible. For the show that was created to give groups a second chance, to publicly shame them in this way was just gross. They could have easily given a written statement and moved on. So even if I loved the premise and many great elements, I cannot stop myself from feeling conflicted…

I love a show that focuses on the idols that struggle to shine in the oversaturated market. So much talent and potential is being wasted simply because their companies might be too small to fight against the bigger ones, or they are not that good with marketing, or the team debuted at the wrong time, not being able to secure their place. This show gives them hope and chance to gain more fans, so even if they won’t win, they will still be in a better position than they were before they joined the competition.

Another aspect I for sure enjoyed were the mentors/judges. We’ve got solid feedback, words or encouragement and some funny jokes and interactions. They were not acting mean for the purpose of creating a drama and I could feel they truly cared about these idols. Ryan S. Juhn crying over shirtless men will be remembered as the most iconic moment in the kpop industry. Dude was truly sobbing.

The performances were great. It’s sad we did not get to see all the first round stages in the episode and could only check them on youtube channel, but I understand the time restrictions. I also appreciate that even the eliminated teams could keep the new songs produced for them, even if some of the songs were of questionable quality…

That said, the new songs and the round with them are actually the beginning of the issues I had. First of all, the way they decided which team gets what song was painfully ridiculous and unfair. The songs themselves were not that great either. Close to none of them was memorable.

Another issue with the production were the benefits - what a useless thing. In many occasions the benefits from different rounds had a different value - one time they had exactly zero impact on the ranking, next time they changed it completely.

The first elimination? A freaking joke - how many “fake” rankings can they show before we get to the one that actually matters? They could have used that screen time to show more behind the scene moments.

Overall, it was a nice show with a meaningful idea behind it, but I think they had too many budget restrictions. They did what they could to make it work and the efforts are obvious. Them having such a strong reaction to 23:00 team “scandal” might have also been a panic mode to make sure the program does not suffer any losses.