The trainees have come a long way!  A lot of them looked very green in the beginning, but now many could be idols ready to debut. All three evaluations are interesting, but I think that the concept evaluation is especially noteworthy because they’re no longer doing covers.  Because they have original material, they can really start to come into their own and show us who they are as performers. We’re so close to the end that we all have our personal favorites, but I think that this episode shows us just what that final group might look like.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 9 Recap: All About the Concept”

I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers for the final episode before I can watch a subbed version, so suffice it to say this weekend was hard.  In an effort to curb my curiosity, I’m committing myself to finishing all my recaps. And for those of you who are catching up, there’s still plenty of drama to come. The first eliminations were fairly predictable, but the second ones have a lot of surprises.  It’s not that hard to figure out who survives (for the most part), but determining the actual rankings is a real guessing game.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 8 Recap: So Many Twists and Turns”

I’m not exaggerating: six out of seven groups we see tonight will discuss who is center to some degree.  And almost half of them will have much more than a talk. I certainly understand why everyone wants to be center, but I forgot how vicious it gets sometimes.  Drama aside, this episode has some really interesting moments. A lot of trainees really start to separate themselves from the rest, and there are some really moving performances.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: The One Where Everyone Wants to be Center”

The position evaluation is probably my favorite part of the competition.  It’s the point where many potential favorites start to shine. We start to have a sense of who these trainees are and who we want in the final group.  Up until now, I haven’t had my own version of the Top 11.  I had about four trainees I definitely wanted in the group, but that was it.  After watching the position evaluation, I have a much clearer idea about who I think – and hope – will make the cut.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: Choose Carefully”

A few short months ago, many people (myself included) were a little skeptical of this new season of Produce 101. But now the male version is popular beyond a doubt: 24,690,000 votes were counted for this first round of eliminations!  You know it’s trendy when the votes total half the population of South Korea.  Now I imagine a lot of those are the same people voting at every interval they can, but that’s still a very impressive number.  I thought that the results were going to be pretty predictable – after all, a 3,000 vote benefit is a significant difference. But the rankings aren’t as easy to guess as you’d think!

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 5 Recap: First Eliminations”

This episode continues the head to head matches.  Although MNET tries to ramp up the drama, it’s fairly predictable.  Approximately ten out of twelve groups have one member with one problem, but ultimately it never affects any the performances. It’s still pretty entertaining though, because we finally get to see all of the trainees in action instead of a select favored few.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 4 Recap: So Many Covers, So Little Time”

Well, as per usual I’m about a month behind.  I’m fairly up to date on actually watching the episodes.  It’s just that the process of typing and editing my notes is a little more involved than I anticipated.  But I have notes done for Episodes 3 through 6, so hopefully I can zoom through these pretty quickly and catch up. In this episode, all of the trainees get their final rankings and the first real evaluation begins.  And the timing couldn’t be better, because I’m starting to want to learn more about these trainees and see who has what it takes to be Top 11.

Continue reading “Produce 101 Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: Battle of the Boy Bands”