Guests: Seol Inah, Lee Chohee, Jeong Hein
My Entertainment Score: 1 out 10 laughs
So, I’m doing these episodes reviews together because they carried the concept over between the two episodes and I literally had nothing great to say about either episode. Even my breakdown is going to be truncated this week.
I found these two episodes a HUGE drag and uncomfortable on top of that. They set up the episode much like a dating style show where games were played to give one girl or guy an advantage and at meal times the guys/girls had to pick one person of the opposite sex to eat with in a more private setting. That concept of show is only alright for me at the best of times, but it just did not work for these members.
For starters, three of the men are married with children (Jaesuk, Seokjin, and Haha). Jongkook has never played into the dating stuff. Kwangsoo recently(ish) announced that he was in a long term relationship. So we’re left with poor Sechan doing all the work for the guys as far as ‘showing interest’ goes. The female guests were, of course, nervous to begin with. Jihyo is basically one of the guys after all these years and Somin will flirt with anyone, so her ‘interest’ has no butterflies-in-the-stomach power.
If I had to pick a hero or heroes for these episodes, it would be Haha and Seokjin. They called out the whole show on the concept by ‘confessing’ to each other as if it was a great secret that they had wives and children. Then Haha proceeded to be obnoxiously a big brother character to one of the guests without any sign of real feeling.
I don’t recommend these episodes. None of the games were good enough to overshadow how uncomfortable the concept was for everyone, member and audience alike.
**Note: the end of episode 551 included the start of the next week’s race. I’ll briefly cover that in this article, but it wasn’t great either. 552 was a HUGE improvement.**
What Happened:
Theme: Finding the Perfect Variety Partner
Opening (start of episode- 15:27)
Member Arrivals (start of episode- 23:25)
SOOOOO Uncomfortable. The members and guests arrive in pairs or one at a time and introduce their characters for the day.
Race Explanation/Guest Arrivals (23:25)
The members at the end of the day would choose who they wanted as a partner. If any two people matched up, they were exempt from punishment. If a person got 2 votes from the opposite sex, they would get a prize (some gold). If a person got no votes, they would get a penalty.
They would get points for winning missions. It’s revealed later how those points can be used. They can purchase a chance at an extra vote, to increase their chances of partnering by choosing two people. Or they can purchase the chance at a punishment exemption. For either of those purchases, they have to draw at a 50-50 chance to get what they actually want, so some people had to purchase the chance more than once to get what they wanted.
Starting Mission (24:26)
First impressions matter. They did an initial choice of their favorite member to see if anyone matched right away. Points were given based on how many votes each person got.
They, throughout the episodes, put in those awkward personal interviews about how people were ‘feeling’ about the opposite sex members.
First (15:27)
The guest ladies got to pick teams. In order to choose who would make their picks first, they played the sideburn pulling game. It looked awful. Even the members looked worried.
The game that followed was “Crazy Speed Quiz”. I liked the idea of this, but it didn’t play out as well as you would think. The team was given a category...like colors...and had to say answers that fit that category. Each member would have 3 seconds to answer, one after another...speed quiz style with no breaks. It’s pretty similar to Cocentration 64, the hand clapping game, if you ever played that in the schoolyard...NO, I REFUSE TO ADMIT THAT I’M OLD!
If you say a correct answer you get one point. A repeated answer is negative one point. A wrong answer or not answering in time is negative 5 points. So, it was advantageous to repeat answers if you couldn’t come up with answer. In practice, that meant that the first person to answer correctly got parroted by the others for most of the round, because the quiz questions were...ummm….how to put this nicely?....ummm....a level higher than the members were comfortable with.
Second (44:00)
The ladies went to a designated spot. The men had to go out one at a time and choose who to eat with. The ladies got points for each man that picked to eat with them. They were then able to assign an equal number of points that they got to whichever man they chose. So, if Haha picked Jihyo, Jihyo would get one point. She could then award one point to whatever male she wanted. I think the idea was that the man should try to keep the girl entertained or comfortable during the meal to earn their points.
This was where Haha and Seokjin called out the concept.
Third (1:08:15)
This game was called “Roll Around in Rhythm”. This was a 1 v 1 competition of same sex participants. The players would be wrapped together in a blanket. They would then roll themselves up along the floor. There were buttons along the path that were marked as either blue or yellow. A color was assigned to each person. When you landed on your color and made the siren go off, each second was counted. The person with the most seconds at the end of 2 minutes won. There were 2 sirens that gave double points.
This was either violent or awkward.
*****They ended the episode here with a cliffhanger about the number of points that got assigned to the men from the lunch game.*****
Fourth (start of Episode 552)
****The cliffhanger was resolved first. The fourth segment starts at 6 minutes in.****
The final round for points was the lunch concept but reversed: The guys waited while the girls chose someone to eat dessert with. Again, this dating concept with the personal interviews was not working for me at all.
Final Partner Votes and Results (18:15)
They show the mad scramble of everyone to try to get people to vote for them. Every person that fails to partner up gets the penalty so they were pretty desperate. They also show the way everyone uses their points to either buy more votes to cast in the hope of making a partnership or to buy immunity from a penalty.
(35:10) The penalty was throwing water on someone and then ‘drying’ them off with a towel that was covered in black paint.
NEW THEME: Back to 1991 (35:38)
The members introduced their characters with a little fashion show and skit. They also introduced the 1990’s generation X era. Some of those outfits were bananas. Haha SLAYED this theme. He dressed as Michael Jackson and stole the entire next episode.
The members are going to be able to pick prizes from a board that shows things that were popular in 1991, such as a walkman. There are 20 possible prizes and no prize can get picked twice. They will play games to decide how many people will get a prize before each round and then a game to decide who gets prizes. At the end of the day, the number of prizes that are unclaimed will be the number of people that get a punishment. Members with the least number of prizes will get the punishment.
1st Game: Telephone Sound Quiz (58:55)
Each member, in turn, would hear the opening of a song from the 1990’s or the audio only from a commercial of the time. They would have to name the title and artist. Each member that answered correctly got a prize. The song was played for everyone, but the answer had to be given to an old rotary dial style phone. They had to pass on the phone to the next person.
I think this would have been more interesting for me if I knew….more than one song or any of the commercials.
(1:15:00) On the way out of the cafe, they had to vote for who they wanted to pay for the drinks. They start moving locations. The older members talk about the way it was in the 1990’s. They announce who won the dubious honor of paying for the drinks at the cafe and let the cast know that the number of votes for that person will be the number of prizes given out after the next game. The first game will take place in a pool hall. Yay billiards.
Preview: Continuing the Back to the 1990’s theme from the end of this episode. I waited to do this article to see if I should do another double review since I wasn’t very interested in the theme as it was introduced here, but the next episode is good. Review to follow shortly.
!!!Spoilers!!!
***It was a slog just to get the basics of this review done, so I’m skipping most of the games’ results. They actually mattered very very little for the final outcome, so it’s okay. I promise.***
Finding the Perfect Variety Partner Final Results
Somin voted for Seokjin. (as promised)
Jihyo voted for Haha.
Haha voted for Jihyo. They become partners and will not get the penalty
Seokjin voted for Inah. Somin is confirmed for the penalty because she failed to get a partner.
Inah voted for Jongkook. Seokjin is confirmed for the penalty because he failed to get a partner.
Jongkook voted for Inah. They become partners and will not get the penalty.
Inah now has two votes for her and got the prize.
Jongkook had a second vote and picked Jihyo. She had two votes now and got a prize.
Jaesuk purchased immunity.
Kwangsoo voted for Hein.
Hein voted for Sechan. Kwangsoo is confirmed for the penalty because he failed to get a partner.
Chohee voted for Sechan. Sechan had two votes and got a prize.
Sechan voted for Chohee. They become partners and will not get the penalty. Hein is confirmed for the penalty because she failed to get a partner.
Telephone Sound Quiz
Jaesuk was incorrect.
Seokjin was incorrect.
Jongkook was incorrect.
Somin was incorrect.
Jihyo was incorrect.
Haha was correct. Hilariously, his clue was a Michael Jackson song.
Kwangsoo was correct.
Sechan was incorrect.
2 out of 20 prizes were chosen so far.
Choosing Who Pays For Drinks
Jaesuk picks Seokjin.
Seokjin picks Jaeseok.
….They didn’t show everyone, but Kwangsoo won with 2 votes. That means only 2 prizes will be given out in the next game.