I know I said that I would never ever review survival show, or just kshow in general because I would lose myself in the tones of shows I watch, but I sincerely considered doing a small (or very very long) post on The Unit to share my final thoughts. And, after all the comments I’ve read on the numerous streaming sites I’ve seen after the conclusion of the show, I do feel as if I want to share my final thoughts even more. So, I finally decided myself on making a post. I don’t think it will become a habit. I just think it might happen every now and then if something bothers me - after all, I love Korean television.
Summary
For those who watched the show or read about, you can skip this section. I just want to briefly introduce it before continuing and sharing my final thoughts.
The Unit was a survival show that had as project to “reboot” debuted idols and offer them a second chance. It was subbed by Viki - and available on multiple streaming sites. A lot of idols went there to try their chance and the format was quite similar to the majority of the survival show. It went against MixNine - who was aired a day before it - and was said to be the most successful of the two of them. The show was based - at the opposite of MixNine - to debut BOTH a female and male group at its end. The idols from different sex weren’t in competition with each other to know which one of them would debut. Rain (Pi) was the mentor of the show alongside a few other singers or idols (some were less present than others. By example, San.E was the MC and both Hwang ChiYeul and Jo HyunAh were the vocal mentors, but TaeMin and Hyuna were only present when the idols performed to get into the show).
It “officially” took an end with the selection of the two unit - who, in the bonus episodes were decided to be name Uni.T (for the girl group, which is pronounced Unity) and UNB (for the boy group, which stands for You and Boys). As any survival show, the final members were selected through a live show. UNI.T members are EunJin (Sonamoo), Yebin (DIA), N.CA, YoonJo (former Hello Venus member), Lee HyunJoo (former April member), Yang JiWon (former Spica member), WooHee (DalShabet), ZN (LaBoum) and Lee SuJi (former The Ark member). UNB members are Jun (U.KISS), EunJin (BigFlo), HoJung (Hotshot), Feeldog (BigStar), Maroc (H.B.Y.), Hansol (NewwKidd), DaeWon (MadTown?), KiJoong (IM) and Chan (A.C.E.).
So now, the juicy part.
The Selections (EP 1-3 or 1-6)
Complaints
I did not like the first episodes when the mentors chose among the different people who presented themselves (who passed the preliminary round) which would join the Unit, not because I thought that the mentors were too subjective - that seems nearly stupid to reproach such thing, arts are subjective subjects, you can’t bash someone because they are too subjective - but more because I thought the staff didn’t do a good job.
The trainees or those who wanted to try their luck
The staff accepted trainees who weren’t even trainee who were in their company’s basement. I mean, if a 10 years trainee had gone on The Unit, I would have completely backed that person because he or she needed a reboot in the hope he or she will be able to follow their dream. I think about one trainee especially who was like 13-14 years old or a person who was an aspiring actor - but decided he wanted to try his luck. I mean, at their place, I would have preferred a more established artist who didn’t have the chance to be selected.
The lack of insight of the mentors
I did think that some mentors were especially harsh on people they shouldn’t be harsh on. I did not watch all the evaluations because some were way too painful, but I did watch Boyfriend and Boys Republic’s one and this was a perfect example on how unfair I thought they were - not because of their subjectivity but because of their double-standard. Boyfriend and Boys Republic are two groups who did not have luck and whose members are at the end of their roll - a little bit like Nu’est was - so it’s normal that their performances aren’t stunning. They are tired, desperate, they don’t believe in themselves anymore. And the mentors failed to see that. They said that they were sad they didn’t look at them - dude, that man had a severe depression and thinks he’s a loser because he failed, it’s normal he doesn’t have an eye contact with you - or that they didn’t seem desperate enough because they didn’t try hard enough - come on, that’s just dumb. And that made me especially angry because I did believe that The Unit failed these groups and many others by saying they aren’t desperate (old artists who are ready to accept to go back to being trainees are desperate enough to deserve their places) enough or just weren’t good enough (it’s normal that your skills suck when you don’t believe in yourself). I mean, if you look at Produce 101 or Idol Producer (the Chinese rip-off that I follow) who both had ranking system in the first episodes rather than elimination one, you see that ALL the debuted artists went in the lower rank (and were often downgraded at the next evaluation) because they lost their confidence. They feel as if they are shit. And the mentors should have saw them. I mean, all those idols who were unable to perform well but were known to be good artists were the ones who needed to be on The Unit. As it happened with Produce 101 or Idol Producer or Mixnine, these idols gather a lot of courage as they get into the program and start to have a good answer from the public. They are the ones who deserve and need a reboot - not that ones who are still fully confident in their skills (unless those are in highly underrated groups and not simply underrated members of a popular group).
How some idols had an easy pass.
I mean, I had nothing against the idea to have a great diversity of members who came from different horizons, but I do believe that some people who got in shouldn’t. As much as I adore my adorable DongMyung or do I appreciate JunHyeok’s voice even if his personality was portrayed in a really bad way by SBS, they are musicians who were inside a band. Why did MAS got in when full idols like BigFlo, Boyfriend, H.B.I (I’ll talk about this case later), etc. couldn’t get on? Sure, they seem all cute and all, but... They need a rebooting more than musicians no matter how much they try to justify themselves. Also, there were some younger idols (I’ll talk about that later) were brought in the program because they seemed cute and seemed to have motivation (like god, please don’t be too unfair mentors, when it’s been 3 months that you’re promoting it’s a lot less hard for the moral to never obtain success then when it had been seven years...) and all. That was not a good reason to bring them in - I’m still a bit salty about KiJoon getting in the final group because he’s not desperate. He has a lot of opportunities ahead of him. - nor did it make the show seem serious about it standard in my opinion.
Some good performances were cut
As any survival show, some performances were cut - and only the more “sensational ones” were kept generally the ones with mistakes or something stunning in it. I mean, maybe that’s because I’m biased, but I wished they aired the whole My Name performance because these guys always slay it and seeing them as a whole might have helped them gather more interest.
A thing I heard and am unhappy about
Of course, I like to read the comments under the show to see if people share the same frustration as me and I’ve seen quite a few things that made me slightly angry. Of course, they won’t be name-dropping. I’m citing also, I’ll just generalize what I’ve heard.
New groups shouldn’t have come
I know that I said above that I was still a bit salty about KiJoon becoming a part of the final group, but it has nothing to do with the fact that he’s a new idol, but more that I didn’t feel as if he showed anything especially astonishing aside from being cute. I did think welcoming new group (and not sending them over on Mixnine, if I ever was to debut in an idol group - something that would never happen, but I just want to lay out the situation - I wouldn’t want to trust YG, I would prefer Pi or Taemin or Hyuna, you see.) was something good. KPOP world is harsh. It’s not because you debuted not too long ago that you don’t already have difficulties. A.C.E. is a new group, but since they come from a small company, had a bad debut because they wore shorts (wtf? I still think they looked fine as hell) and are all relatively old (and a super long training period) they needed a reboot. But, I’ll admit that for some groups such as H.B.I., Good Day or IM, it seemed a little bit inappropriate to come on the show - there I think it’s more a question of greedy agency than anything else. But, in the end, they deserved to be on that show because no matter how long you stayed in the KPOP world, it doesn’t change much. The only thing that bothered me a little bit about that was that there were a LOT of new group members that were accepted in the show, while, as said earlier, old group members were often criticized for being less motivated.
Praises
I don’t think I’ll develop a lot about it, but I’ll just say a few points about the first episodes that made especially happy and convinced me to continue watching this show - even finding it better than Mixnine.
Hwang ChiYeul
I mean, I said above that I didn’t like how some mentors treated old idols, but I do believe the Wang ChiYeul - as most of the vocal trainers I’ve seen on survival show so far - was quite fair and was especially nice to the artists performing. He probably didn’t have the most screentime, but he took great care of idols through the whole show, which made me curious about what he was doing - and he’s an awesome singer, you should check him out if you haven’t. He’s probably the mentor on that panel that knew the better what these idols were going through - by the way, he was Nu’est vocal trainer from Face to Hello, I think, maybe a little bit longer.
Equal screentime for female and male auditions
Something that I didn’t feel in Mixnine but during the auditions as well as the show, The Unit made sure to give an equal screentime to female and male units so everybody would have a chance to be a little bit known.
Accepted CO-ED auditions
I know it might seem a little bit useless to say, but there was a co-ed audition, and everybody was chill (even quite excited) to see it. So I thought it was great. Like, it showed a lot of variety in groups.
The Overall Show (4-12 or 7-26)
I have only a few minim complaints about the overall show, even though I felt sometimes the on-site audience were quite unfair with some performances - but it’s always like that in survival show, so I’ll just proceed with the praises and then start to nitpick a little bit.
Praises
The eliminations were “private”
Rather than having a really public elimination in which you are basically at the edge of your seat, the majority of the show, eliminations were done after announcing the top 18, once the members returned to their practice room. It was the leader who was in charge of distributing the envelops in which the rank was. Sure, it was a hard task, but it allowed to idols to immediately be comforted by their teammates and have the opportunity to directly say what they thought and what they wished for. And, when they left the dorms, everyone gathered to say good-bye to them.
The cameras stayed at a good distance
Compared to Mixnine when you could have a beautiful (it’s sarcasm) zoom on the idol’s tears, The Unit respected more the boundaries and, even if they filmed such scene, there were a lot of times where they stayed at a relatively far distance to give the idol some dignity.
Everybody adore each other.
Compared to a lot of survival show where there are bitter feelings because everyone is in competition, the members of The Unit were always friendly - even if there were a few issues with each other - with the others and were all proud of the others’ achievement and quite humble.
The performances were lit.
All the idols were devoted and wanted to produce the best performance they could. The dancing, rapping, singing and concept were all awesome (I’m not thinking about the Kingsmen performance, of course), even if some were a little bit more meh coz they gathered too much attention when there was way better.
The two winning units in an episode (Male + Female) got a MV
And that’s so fucking awesome. I know it’s kind of sad considering some of these members didn’t make it through, but there’s actually four MV that were released before the final unit was formed, therefore we can see four among songs performed by people who worked hard together to achieve a common goal and had awesome chemistry.
The idols’ motivation
Being myself quite sensitive, I did think it’s was absolutely astonishing how much the idols worked hard to achieve their dreams. Like, the numerous injuries or illness that happened, but the person still continued (Seyong, Jun, JongHa, etc.), as well as dealing with their own schedules while having to deal with their show schedule.
Complaints
Meh voting system
To some extent I did believe that the whole (only audience votes are important) was a bit unfair for some idols because there were some hardcorde fans that, even if the idol didn’t perform well, would continue to vote for him because they liked them, which made a few unpopular idols drop too early.
The looks, again and again.
The votes - as most of the idols survival show - seemed really axed on the looks of one person and not necessarily the talent - like JongHa or KiJoon who stuck for too long.
The “boxing” match
As much as I thought it was useful to have such moment to help ease some tension - or make understand to the viewers that some tension was long gone (EunJin and SeYong) - there were some really harsh things that were said and seemed just a little bit out of line (even if the whole girlfriend thing was quite funny).
The Finale (13-14 or 27-30)
Of course, it’s not here that I’ll discuss about whether or not I’m satisfied with the final group. I just want to talk about the four final performances.
Complaints
The ninth place real time voting
That was the worst idea they could have. The show decided to announce who were the four people competing for the ninth place (the last place), which surely reoriented the vote of the audience and made a lot of people who deserved to be in the final group drop.
The girl group songs
Personally, I got a little bit turned down in the last episodes about the songs and concepts that were given to the female idols, so I often skipped the parts where they actually performed (I’m not really into cute dance, I prefer powerful ones like 2nei1, 4 Minute or Black Pink).
Praises
Favorite-lest favorite members
They actually allowed the idols to put down with which member they would like to be. And that was fucking genius to me. Like, I know it didn’t always work, but it made absolutely genial final unit who had a great chemistry (I’m thinking especially about my beagle boys who screamed on top of their lungs whenever someone was coming in). But they also allowed the idol to choose their songs and which member they would like to avoid (even if it wasn’t always effective, like the case of Timoteo and HanGyul).
Not too much fill-in
Even if it was a live show, I didn’t feel as if it tried too hard to make it fit in its schedule, so that was quite good.
The Final Unit (14-16 or 30-32)
So now come probably the most important part of this whole review in my opinion coz it’s probably the one I read the most infuriating things about.
Complaints
I’ll mostly respond to things I’ve seen often online and made me go completely beyond myself.
DongHyun, RockHyun, JeUp and SeYong were dropped!
Of course, not all the idols could make it in the top 9. But the fact that they dropped wasn’t really surprising. DongHyun probably was a victim of his own popularity - the same as Timeteo and JongHyun - and people believed him safe, so they stopped voting for him. JeUp even if he had an amazing voice only made it once in the top 9, so he wasn’t THAT popular. RockHyun never managed to get in even if he’s probably the most stable voice out there. Geon is similar to the two previous main vocals, he was really good, but never was really recognized with a good amount of vote that allowed him to make it appear as if he had a chance. SeYong also had difficulty to make his way in the top 9. He did it one time, but there’s two really stable dancers that were ahead of him (EunJin and Feeldog), so I was aware that he wouldn’t make it. I just hope that the fact they were dropped will allow them to have a more active schedule in Korea and allow fans to gather around them as it happened with Nu’est - even if I doubt one of them will be able to be as successful.
Euna was dropped! OMG!
Yes, she was a stable part of the top 9, but she probably shared a similar fate to all those idols who are considered as a “safe person”. Everybody thinks they will gather vote, so, in the end, nobody votes for them.
Even if the boys are better, they have no vocals.
Hum... Hello hon’, they have great vocals. Chan is a main vocal. HongJo is a main vocal. EunJin has a beautiful voice. Feeldog hits his notes like a pro. KiJoon is a singer (and nothing else). DaeWon is able to sing. HanSol’s voice is absolutely awesome (he’s a king). Jun is the well-rounded idol and he has one of the greatest singing voice. Marco, even if he’s a rapper, know quite well how to sing. Idols are made to know how to sing, so their positions are just going to change a little bit, but they’ll handle it and make awesome performances.
Hugh... KiJoon and Marco made it into the top 9
And? They deserve it - well maybe not KiJoon, but I don’t want to talk too long about that - and it was like that. As international fan, we can’t cast our votes, so we can just accept what happens and supports whoever we want by buying their music. That’s all.
The names sound so awful...
Well, among the few choices there was, they were probably among the better. It would be sad to just name them Unit B and Unit G (after all, that’s just a working name, you can’t keep it). Also, the meaning behind them is quite good. I mean, they don’t pronounce the name the same way we do. They don’t say Unit or Uni.T, but Uni.Ti. And UNB isn’t UNB, but U.N.B.
Praises
DaeWon is in it
I mean, I don’t really care about who else made it, but for me it was vital that at least one of the MadTown member made it and since DaeWon is my favorite, I preferred if he got in and he did. It will help him having a place where to stay, practice and earning some money to either put in himself and finding a way to stabilize things - or take care of the matter with their company.
UNB is going to be lit.
Like the performance aspect of UNB is going to be completely awesome. They got EunJin, FeelDog, HanSol, DaeWon and Jun all together ready to put the performance of their life. I mean, I’m so hyped to see their debut.
The girls have an awesome chemistry
And they have such good vocals. They group is going to be really interesting. I do hope that they won’t only do cute concept because they have older members and I don’t want cute and weird concept, I want dark and powerful concept! T^T
The groups are going to be awesome
Because they have a great line-up. I’m just a little bit saddened at the thought that these performers might be unable to return to their previous activities for a very long time (especially when it comes to A.C.E., Sonamoo, DIA, etc. that are really active groups).
So... Will I purchase their album when it will be released in March...? Of course I’m going do it. I’m even going to purchase MixNine’s album because I want to support these idols and they deserve it and I’m sure they’ll manage to do something good. Also, a lot of good things will come out of this show. Like, the B.I.G. boys - Heedo and GunMin - are preparing for comeback the two of them together - Ravi helped them out! I hope that a lot of groups will grasp the opportunity to do the same thing.
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