Next recapping project: Starlight Boys
I subscribe to a lot of K-pop commentary channels on YouTube. Over the weekend, a December 2024 video from Evangeline Pang (Ploopy678) came up on my feed, and it’s called “I watched THE WORST K-pop survival shows so that you don’t have to.” Less than 10 minutes into the video, I knew what my next recap project would be.
According to Pang, hopes were high for this survival show that debuted in October 2024. Starlight Boys had very high production values and coaches that included Hui from Pentagon, Daesung from Big Bang, Yuqi from (G)I-Idle, and several other notable names. But after just the first two episodes, angry viewers called it the most cruel survival show ever.
I stopped the video before Pang could go into detail because I knew I had to see for myself.
Once again, I’m going in as blind as possible. I know the name of the final group is POLARIX, and we’re starting with 69 contestants from several different countries. The show is a collaboration between the Chinese network iQIYI and South Korea’s SBS, but of course it’s filmed in Seoul.
Having just finished recapping Boys II Planet and Planet C: Home Race, I was a bit skeptical. I’ve seen a LOT of cruelty in my two years of K-pop show watching. I’ve seen coaches hurl insults, trainees burst into tears, sleeping accommodations that make Rikers Island look like the Four Seasons, and evil edits that have led to contestants being bullied online. We’ve had contestants quit shows because they couldn’t take it anymore, even when they stood a good chance of making it to the final group.
Our Wild Idol boys were actually sent out into the wilderness for several weeks, and one of them almost drowned in a river while trying to carry a log through rushing rapids. (What that mission had to do with being in a K-pop group, I have no idea.) Our Hot Blood boys had to go to an island and do military exercises that were so exhausting, one of them actually chose to take a boat back to the mainland to take his college entrance exam instead. Two members of Stray Kids got fired from THEIR OWN GROUP during THEIR OWN SURVIVAL SHOW that was even NAMED AFTER THEM and they had to be VOTED BACK IN.
Please let us back in. Our faces are already on the posters.
So don’t talk to ME about cruelty, Starlight Boys. I have seen things. Awful things. Bewildering things. Things that made me curse so much in my recaps, Tumblr has content warnings on some of them that I’m STILL trying to fight. You think I LIKE having my recap about YG Treasure Box listed as explicit content just because YG Entertainment’s CEO was creepily looking at pictures of young boys to pick out the best-looking ones to be trainees, with no idea if they had any talent, only to wind up in prison later for threatening one of them? You think that’s FUN for me, Starlight Boys? You think maybe this intro will also get flagged simply because I brought it up again? YES. YES IT PROBABLY WILL.
So join me as I recap these ten episodes to see if this series is as bad as its reputation. I won’t be skipping the flashbacks just in case any of the allegedly cruel behavior occurs there. And if anyone knows an attorney who specializes in Tumblr, please send them my way.
Let’s do this!
Go to Episode 1 recap
