꧁ Survival Game | Brainy Psychological Reality Shows ꧂

TBD

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Watching

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• Most deserved finalists and winners.
• The games are generally more challenging and interesting compared to those in Season 1.
• The level of competency of the players can at least be mentioned in the same breath as that of those in Season 1.
  
  Favorite Player: Kim Gyumin (Seoul National University).
  Least Favorite Player: None (Korea University had a disappointing performance tho).
  
  9/10.

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Participants from the top 1% of students from five prestigious universities in Korea (Seoul National University, KAIST, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Yonsei University, Korea University), and students from Harvard University.

Pros:

• Most deserved winners.
• No social politics, betrayals, and deceptions, meaning there’s less-to-no drama, making it an easy watch for those purely interested in the problem-solving aspects.
  The competition relies purely on brainy aspects such as arithmetic, calculations, logical thinking, memorization, creativity, visual-spatial intelligence, etc.
• Apart from the initial introduction, there are no intermission or filler-like screentime, going straight to the games, which is great imo.
• Likeable cast, all displaying a certain level of competency and able to pull their own weight to some extent, with rather fun personalities. There are like no clear deadweights or free-riders (tho, if I had to name one, it would be Sky from Harvard University).

Neutral:

• Just a bit too maths-focused imo, but at the same time, I guess it showcases their brilliant minds well.
• Harvard University was a little disappointing, I’m not sure if they are also in the top 1% of their school or just top Korean students studying at Harvard. Don’t get me wrong, they are definitely smart, but they just feel somewhat outclassed here tbh.
  Janice is my favorite from the team btw.

Favorite Player: Hyunbin (Seoul National University).
Least Favorite Player: Sky (Harvard University).

9/10.

Completed

• Casts: John Park, Karina, Lee Hye-ri, Kim Do-hoon, Lee Yong-jin, Lee Eun-ji.
• By Jung Jong-yeon PD — The Devil’s Plan, Girls High School Mystery Class, The Great Escape, Society Game, The Genius. I think among these shows, it is most similar to The Great Escape.
• I think everyone would agree that 2 cases (6 episodes) were too short. Apart from that, it was entertaining, and the casting was good as well—they each have their own respective charms and fun. I would love to have a Season 2 to it, as the show has a lot of potential that can be explored.
  
  

Episode 0: The agents gather for a pre-meeting.
Episode 1–3: The Followers of the Evil One.
Episode 4–6: The Deep Sea Mystery.

Harper’s BAZAAR Korea’s Contact Free QnA (Full Cast)
Salon Drip 2 (Lee Hye-ri & Kim Do-hoon)
Salon Drip 2 (Karina)

8/10.

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• Most deserved finalists and winner.
• Love the chemistry between Seok-Jin & Si-Won.
• Would have been much better if the contestants were more open-minded to factions and making more unique plays or thinking more independently instead of relying on Orbit.
• Orbit’s hypocrisy on justice / ‘protecting the weak’ /  morality might rub people the wrong way, even if people agree that his political game is fantastic. The problem lies with him segregating the ’rich‘ and the ‘poor’ and the constant moral high-ground he take as the ’underdogs’, the need to vilify/eliminate anyone who dares try to play their own game and not HIS way of playing. The best example here would be Hye-Sung, someone who wanted to play more neutral. 

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• Very entertaining and strong start. The 1st half was genuinely a solid 9 and above, peaking at Episode 5. Unfortunately, it fell off a cliff in the 2nd half (around Episode 7/8 onwards) due to the repetitiveness of the games. It was clear that the production ran out of ideas, and a lot of the games in the later episodes were either versions of previously played games with minor tweaks or exactly the same games.
• The semi-finals and finals were the most underwhelming and anti-climatic show I have ever watched out of any similar Korean survival game show. Repeating the same games was just not it, and it was way too simple considering that it’s a best-of-one. Hong Jin-Ho and Xitsuh played excellently throughout but underperformed in the end, so both the games and players ended up disappointing. As for the winner, he wasn’t that likeable since he did not have any good results throughout despite his slimy plays and subtle manipulation. It is what it is tho—a win is a win since he played well when it mattered most at the end.

Definitely an upgrade from Season 1, whether in terms of the smartness of the games or the general competency of the players. However, I think the 1st half set such high expectations for me that I was even more disappointed by the end. 

Still worth a watch, considering the great experience I had in the 1st half.

Favorite Players: Hong Jin-Ho, Xitsuh, Dex, Yurisa.
Least Favorite Player: Ha Seung-Jin.
Wasted Potential: Yurisa, Hyun Sung-Joo.

8.5/10.

Completed

• I like the concept of the twist, and it makes you want to cheer for the underdog a lot.
• It's entertaining, but most games depend more on their social political games (betrayals & mind games) than on being smart about the actual game itself.
  
  

Favorite Players: Yeonseung (from The Genius) & Nayeong duo.
Honorable Mentions: Taekyun (most skillful, but has loose lips), Jimin (shrewd and had the right mindset of what the game is and should be, even though her actions can be very polarizing), DEX (mid-game interviews showed his general understanding and self-awareness).

Others lowkey weren’t skilled and didn’t exactly have the right mentality of what a survival game should be (Jae-il on loyalty, blah blah). The worst was Queen Wasabi, who had a poor understanding of the games and was also thirsting for DEX (brief screen time, but it was still cringe asf). She had zero individual play and was just strung along by Jimin.

Hopefully, Season 2 will have less politics and both smarter players and games instead.

8.5/10.

Completed

Each episode’s premise is based on real events that happened in South Korea in the past, but people and events were recreated. Casts have to uncover and figure out the incidents and mysteries happening in the apartments.

• Apartment settings (except for the last 2 episodes, which are School settings). Given such limited space and setting, the show did well in making it somewhat interesting, although I felt that there were more downtimes for the most part.
• Spy/spies were inserted in some stories to spice things up.
• Casts separated into 2 teams each time. Games are played twice in each episode to obtain hints, but the games are not relevant to the story at all, so they can get boring—have to be heavily dependent on the casts to make it entertaining.
• Takes time for each story to build, usually only gets better during the 2nd half of each story.
• Jennie was a surprise; she did well, showing her wits and smartness, making it more entertaining overall.
• Jung Cheol Min PD — Sixth Sense, Running Man (Past).
• Episode 5 has the best twist.

Episode 1: The Buried Secret (1998 Setting)
Episode 2: The Missing Girl (1986 Setting)
Episode 3: The Suspicious Neighbor (1999 Setting)
Episode 4: (1970 Setting) | Guest: Choi Yeon-jun (TXT)
Episode 5: Broken Conscience (1991 Setting)
Episode 6: Weak Person (1984 Setting)
Episode 7: Trapped Youths (2011 Setting) | Guests: Aiki, DickPunks.
Episode 8: You Are Mine (2003 Setting) | Guests: Cho Sae-ho, Choi Yeon-jun (TXT), Kim Si-eun.

6/10.

Completed

• Hong Jin-Ho & John Park is in the show.

Plan to watch

• Waiting for Subs.

Completed

Mafia Game with 8 contestants.

Disappointing. True to its title, they hired a bunch of sheeps that were clueless and had no idea what they were even doing or deducing.

• Players A and F had the most sheep-like behaviour.
• Player B was vocal but way too emotional when things turned against him. He literally could not separate his feelings from the game (taking it personal), which impeded him from thinking logically (like his pride was hurt or something lmao).
• Player C, who gave off the most sheep-like aura at the start, turned out to have pretty decent judgment of the people and how the overall situation was being influenced, but I just couldn’t believe the ending—it was extremely stupid, and also showed how sheepy in nature the rest were.
• Player D (Kyunghoon from The Genius) had a decent social game with his slimy ability to manipulate the people and situation. Definitely the most logical one along with Player G. But I can’t help but think that his relatively good play was actually due to how terrible the others were. Things would have turned out differently if others were slightly more competent.
• Player E did not stand out but did played her part.
• Player G, the most logical and rational one among the white sheeps, figured out the Black Sheep (Mafia) Code. But I’m absolutely dumbfounded how badly the others fumbled even after knowing that information. Like wth? Did they not consider that he had 4000 contacts on his phone? He was right in calling them idiots.
• Player H, at least she tried, was an earnest player but just unlucky.

The casting was bad. It needed more competent, intelligent, logical, cunning, persuasive, deductive, or charismatic players.

Completed

Yoo Jae-suk + Kwon Yuri + DEX.

The missions felt mostly bland, so you shouldn’t expect much from them. Most of the fun comes from how the cast reacts and interacts with each other. I enjoyed the Horror episode (EP 3) and Money Hunt (EP 8) the most, with the horror episode standing out more due to its impressive atmospheric setting, which I really liked.

• Episode 1: AI Zone — AI Universe, Yoo Jae-suk World.
• Episode 2: Break Zone — The House of Paper.
• Episode 3: Fact Check Zone — Horror.
• Episode 4: Bug Zone — Follow-up plot from previous zone (Guests: Key, Agent H, Cha Tae-hyun).
• Episode 5: Four Minutes Zone — Tower of Four Minutes.
• Episode 6: Line Zone.
• Episode 7: Memorize Zone — Library & Test. | Money Hunt (1st Part).
• Episode 8: Money Hunt (2nd Part).

7.5/10.

Completed

• Same comments as Season 1.

Completed

• Yoo Jae-suk + Lee Kwang Soo duo + Kwon Yuri.
• Fun dynamics between the trio, constant bickering and having fun.
• Not exactly the brainy-type of show, but more like a scenario-based simulation where they have to survive according to their given mission.

Completed

• Jung Jong-yeon isn’t the PD for this season since he left CJ ENM in 2022 (and also correspondingly tvN). He passed the baton to his junior PDs—Im Soo-jung (co-directed Girls High School Mystery Class S1 & S2) & Kim A-rim (worked on The Great Escape). This marks Im Soo-jung's debut as the main PD of the series.
• "In previous seasons, we received feedback that the stories weren't realistic. As such, if I were to take the lead, I wanted to address and improve the (plot of 'High School Mystery Club' series)", said Im Soo-jung.
• As much as I want to show my support to JJY’s successors, this season was kinda disappointing. It was less exciting and thrilling and wasn’t as fun compared to the previous seasons (this was after I finish the show and not knowing that JJY isn’t the PD btw). Idk, on one hand, I love seeing the girls together, but on the other, I also have higher expectations for their interactions and banter. Still, I‘ll watch them anytime if there’s another season.

7/10.

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• I just love the casts‘ interactions and banters. Enjoyed this a lot cause of the casts.
• Similar to The Great Escape in the sense that you have to solve puzzles/mysteries that follows a storyline. The difference is it’s a single overarching plot/narrative instead of the usual The Great Escape (where you usually have 2 episodes per escape).

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• Casts: Choi Ye Na, BIBI, Jae Jae, Jang Do Yeon, Park Ji Yoon.
• Full female casts.
• Love the dynamics between the casts.

Completed

• Deserved winners. Better than Season 1, this is now the best mafia game I’ve ever seen. Everyone played decently well but the winners just played excellently.
• Mafia Game.
• 10 Participants.
• Every night the Mafia (Accomplice) can kill someone. 
• Every day there will be a voting to vote someone out.
• On the 2nd day, the 1st Accomplice will recruit 1 more Accomplice and 1 Spy, while the Citizen Team will be assigned a Doctor, Police, & Private Detective as additional jobs. 
• The affiliation and identity of the deported (due to the votes) and the deceased will not be disclosed. The deceased can leave a dying message of 6 letters for the survivors to see the next day, the dying message can’t be manipulated or changed.
• On the 5th day, if the number of people in the Citizen Team > Accomplice Team, all remaining citizens will win. Conversely, if the number of people in the Accomplice Team > Citizen Team, the Accomplice Team will win, and is considered a joint victory even if only one player wins.
  
  

Not rating this since it can only be compared with mafia game-type shows anyways.

Completed

• Mafia Game.
• 10 Participants.
• Every night the Mafia (Accomplice) can kill someone. 
• Every day there will be a voting to vote someone out.
• On the 2nd day, the 1st Accomplice will recruit 1 more Accomplice.
• Oh Hyun-Min from The Genius played excellently here and I'm glad there was one player that can match up to him here. I'm glad he managed to showcase his social politics skills here as he wanted to.
• Enjoyable to some extent.

Completed

• Casts: Lee Seung Gi, Kai, Jo Bo Ah, Kim Hee Chul, Eunji Won, Park Na Rae.
• Very chill and relaxing show.
• Love their dynamics and synergy. Hee Chul made it very entertaining even though others were great as well. 
• Even though it’s tagged as a Survival Show, its more like a group of friends going on a vacation on an island; having fun playing games, to earn virtual money. 

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• I didn’t really enjoyed it.
• 8 Participants. Non-celebrities. A few YouTuber/Streamer in the mix.
• 481 million shared prize pool that will be divided equally among the survivors after 14 days of isolation with absolutely nothing.
• They can purchase whatever necessities or things that want but every item is inflated to 100x price and will be be subtracted from the shared prize pool.
• No filter show, really the raw ugly sides of some people, and it can be quite repulsive.
• Purely surviving and money-management, so it‘s quite boring especially in the first half, there isn’t anything much to do. Things gets slightly interesting when you can vote someone out.
• Mainly conflicts and drama between participants on why so much money was spent.
• Social politics and mental resilience, nothing much on outplaying wits compared to other brainy game shows.

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• Jang Dongmin’s performances here weren’t dominating (he suffer losses + made mistake multiple times) but I find his quality of practice, practice and more practice admirable. He did not have the best individual performance, but he definitely seems to try the hardest to find tricks/ways for most of the brain games that are tough at first sight. He has good social politics skills as usual.
• I personally felt that the finals was a bit underwhelming.
• Honestly would have preferred a different lineup in both finalists team. 

Completed

• Starting was slow, I would even recommend to watch at 2x speed.
• Interesting to see how different the 2 society operates and the difference in leadership styles of the players.
• Games tests categories: Physical | Dexterity | Mental
• More on social politics since they have to live together for 2 weeks and have a lot of time for interactions / making alliances.
• Deserved winner carried the finals.

Completed

• Winners & competent players of the previous seasons participating.
• Deserved winner.
• Knew something was off about Kyunghoon, and his sexual harassment case controversy kinda supports it + how Hyunmin said in his personal stream much later on that he didn’t really wanted to eliminate Kyunghoon early because Kyunghoon was the one driving him to the set. I kinda disliked that such external factors were at play after I found out but it can’t be helped since Hyunmin was still a student then.

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• Best The Genius season out of the 4 seasons.
• The most deserved finalists, both are geniuses and played really well throughout.
• The beginning of the moniker - “God” Dongmin.

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It depends on the case, but I’m not really a fan of having multiple suspects going: “I attempted to murder, but failed…” etc. I get that it is meant to keep viewers guessing, but I think just having the motive for the murder would do, rather than making it seem overly excessive. The final case was underwhelming too, especially considering that it tried to link the previous cases together.

Favorite Case:
—The Airport Murder Case (Episode 1 & 2)

7.5/10.

Completed

Banter only gets better after the first two episodes when the cast becomes more comfortable with one another. Some cases are a bit boring or too makjang-ish to immerse oneself in guessing seriously.

Favorite Cases:
—The Police Academy Murder Case (Episode 3)
—The Campsite Murder Case (Episode 7)

Honorable Mention:
—The Mansion Murder Case (Episode 9)
(Jang Dong Min was very funny during the briefing)

7.5/10.

Completed

The cast had good chemistry, and the cases were engaging enough to keep viewers guessing along with them.

Favorite Cases:
—Cruise Murder I & II (Episode 7 & 8)
—Crime Scene PD Murder I & II (Episode 12 & 13)

8.5/10.

Completed

Better than I expected. Cast themselves add a lot of personality to the show.

Favorite Cases:
—Team Leader Lee's Murder Case (Episode 5 & 6)
—Actress Murder Case (Episode 10)

8/10.