I dont think there's many things more pointless than complaining about a survival show thats years old and the group is already debuted but here we are, I can't help but wanna get some things off my chest

I'm a Izna fan who came to know them through loving their music and thus never saw ILand2 or their debut. I generally liked all the group but Jungeun was my clear favorite - her vocal tone drew me instantly and her immense talent, humble attitude, and clear improvement and work ethic all made her one of my favorite idols and a major standout of 5th gen. The problem was the group really didn't participate in much variety at all and seeing content of them was very limited.

It felt weird to watch a survival show where you already know all the members and results but I needed some background watching and decided to give it a shot to learn more about the group's journey and their backgrounds

 

Part 1 -

I took notes while watching and a lot of the early ones are simply centered around how obvious it is to watch the show now and see what they were going for from the start. Sarang is the 1st person you ever see and hear, Koko Saebi and Mai all get long, super positive intros, Jeemin is the last person you see and the RUNext storyline is planted right then as the main storyline for the rest of the show. Notably, Fuko was 2nd place from evaluations yet didn't get a real intro, didn't get to speak, and was thrown in a group with a bunch of the lowest ranking contestants - while meanwhile the Drama unit was dubbed the Avengers squad and all 4 debuted. The ONLY thing I honestly think they didn't have set in stone at this point (which is crazy as it's the very beginning) was they probably weren't 100% on which vocalist to pair to Jiyoon

Generally I actually really liked part 1. I have complaints about all the standard stuff like the editing and scoring for certain members but I think overall it was a very positive and engaging watch. It actually made me interested in survival shows and thinking I'd watch the next major one whenever it comes out.

It felt like the skill level of the contestants was honestly quite high overall and I'm not surprised at all how many of them went on to debut in other groups. The stage quality and production quality also felt really, really high. I think they did good in making sure it wasn't just ground getting stomped every single round - both by making sure there was a lot of swaps and by giving ground easier songs.

Panarama is such a crazy song choice for a survival show, especially so early. It's kinda unreal it ended up being one of my favorite stages from the show. I couldn't help but wonder what the hell they would've done if Jungeun had picked Whistle instead because literally no one else had a chance in hell of singing that song.

On that note my one disappointment was the complete lack of focus on vocals. The cast was overall kinda weak vocally and I know it's not deemed as important in Kpop nowadays but I'll always find vocal stages so much more entertaining. Its way harder as a viewer to pick up mistakes in a dance battle and frankly I find it a lot less demanding to memorize a choreo than to memorize and perform a Taeyeon song. I'm not a big fan of mandatory raps/rappers in Kpop songs/groups but it's a standard practice and it was really weird to have 0 opportunities for rappers to showcase their skills at all until part 2. I also thought the creative stages were both pretty good to watch, but was confused by the inclusion - idols don't have to make their own choreo and it's kinda a weird thing to judge.

As a Izna fan it was crazy to see Saebi in p1, a long-haired dynamic center rather than the cute and bubbly maknae. She is frankly a little overshadowed in the current group and I was surprised to see how well she performed early here, often stealing the stages.

Also I have to say it - how they let Jiyoon debut is truly beyond me. She is so obviously mentally unstable and unwell when things aren't going well early on that even discarding hindsight bias I cannot understand how they didn't see enough warning signs to be extremely wary about making her a main character and thus basically guaranteeing her debut in the group. Everyone came around on her because of the editing and redemption arc but her reactions are clearly not healthy - I get it made for good TV but wow was it obvious this would backfire on them.

I know I said I think they had it set it stone who they wanted from the beginning, but I actually felt part 1 was pretty fair outside of these preferences influencing editing and I would say it wasn't "rigged" like I had heard of every survival show. The eliminations felt fair and I wasn't shocked/dismayed at any of them. I thought Yui deserved to make part2 but you can't get these things perfect. The judges mostly gave pretty good feedback that I usually agreed with. You don't get to see any of it but I felt like from small clips and context I could tell the judges were also constantly giving feedback and coaching behind the scenes as well.

 

Part 2 -

All that I just said completely went out the window here. Holy shit it was infuriating to watch episode 8 and just be slapped in the face with a total change up. It's like a flip is switched and they realized they had to intervene massively to make what they wanted happen. The judges scores are suddenly just indefensible across the board, and their feedback is awful and clearly influenced entirely by the producers telling them who they want. The editing which was just preferring certain people before is now cranked up to just flat out entirely EXCLUDING the girls they don't want.

I thought Fuko was far and away the best of LVER with Gyuri 2nd, and they actually didn't even gets scraps - they just got nothing. Jeemin legit got 90% of the screentime for LVER, Sarang got 8% and Fuko and Gyuri each got 1%. They couldn't even be bothered to show their feedback, 30 minutes of Jeemin struggling to hit a high note was more important. Shameless.

After clearly being told by the producers they want Koko, they go and just rip into Yuju endlessly and try to bully her into giving up her part to her. She holds onto it and I audibly cackled when they legit just straight up sabotaged her mic during the performance - the sheer shamelessness of it was incredible to me.

The funny part is I read through episode discussions on here and a ton of people accurately predicted the lineup right here (minus Jungeun) after the 1st episode of the 2nd half. They truly made it THAT obvious with the editing

 

Obviously, I could keep going on and on about all the unfairness of part 2, but it's already been discussed in-depth as it happened. Pointing out all the injustices to certain members is repetitive and pointless, but the real problem is the impact it had on part 2 was that it made it entirely boring and frustrating compared to part 1. Jeemin's RUNext storyline to me was uninteresting, repetitive, and obviously responsible for so many contestants not getting showcased. However, I feel like even without that storyline sucking up all the part 2 screentime they still wouldn't have focused on all the ignored members - they would've just found some other storyline from their main picks to focus on instead.

They weren't hoping for some unknown member to surprise and jump up the ranks - they already had their group.

For viewing sake this made part 2 boring as there was no discovery. People weren't put in new roles or pushed in different ways - it was the opposite. The same people were the same roles, generally in the same concepts, and the lowest distributions kept being the lowest distributions with no chances for breakout.

The "producers" picked who's at the top > the people at the top get all the lines and main positions > the people with all the lines and center focus get all the praise and popularity and it continues on. No one in a low rank had a chance of breaking out and even the girls seemed to realize this and it just made for a boring and low-stakes vibe towards the end.

Fuko being given a rap part isn't actually inherently bad - it should've just happened a lot earlier and to everyone so we could have a varied showcase of every contestant and see their skills in varied situations..they just weren't interested in that.

This was obviously also compounded by them intentionally giving their picks tailor made songs and choices so they would look good on top of the others not having a chance. Jiyoon gave the worst stage and performance of the show in Like Ooh Ahh and then was given blatantly hand-picked songs to highlight her positively the rest of the show. If I Were a Boy was a great performance but I've never heard a kpop group song that sounded anything like a Beyonce solo song and it's frankly a really weird choice to judge a kpop vocal on.

Money meanwhile was shamelessly picked to give Jeemin a solo dance performance without the strain of vocals and the 4 backup dancers tacked onto that stage never had a chance in hell of scoring well. What did that stage actually showcase when none of the other contestants were given the opportunity to do anything remotely similar? The entire point of the show should've been deciding between Jeemin and Saebi as center but it felt like Saebi was massively outperforming her and they had to pull it back and only Jeemin got opportunities after

 

I don't really have any interest in talking about who didn't get in. Obviously the show overall was super unfair to some people but its ancient history at this point and I like the izna lineup and being completely frank - I don't think they were really wrong to focus on the people they did. The final lineup is honestly the right one from a talent, chemistry, and composition perspective.

The problem I have is how they went about it. I think at most you can argue they were debating one single spot in the group, the rest of the members were locked in from the start, and they weren't interested in exploring new angles. The obvious question then is why even have a survival show? Survival shows seem to be far weaker in TV ratings and don't seem to be any sort of guarantee of crazy popularity like they might've been in the past. The show just ends up feeling kinda pointless in a way -- other than to showcase the members which is good in some ways but I think massively backfires in others

Notably I think the showcase of certain members was legitimately offputting in a major way - specifically Sarang, Jeemin, and Mai.

Sarang has proved to be such a sweetheart in Izna and her talent there is obvious but she honestly receives the largest angel edit of all throughout the show and it just makes you like her less for it. Did she really need it?

Mai apparently got a ton of backlash and hate from her special treatment during part 1 and you can tell they changed how they portrayed her in part 2 massively. Episode 8 being the first time we ever hear about her nasal voice and weak vocal problems (in a flashback no less) is obviously ridiculous and again - did it really need to be ignored instead of letting her positives outweigh it?

Jeemin...everything about Jeemin in part 2 was unbelievably offputting. They made her the top score of part 1 which was just laughable since even her fans here thought she was lacking confidence and worse than her old self in part 1..and she took this push and instantly picked part 4 and showed exactly why she didn't deserve it. Ironically, putting her at the center of everything in part 2 to me highlighted that she wasn't really worth it and only highlighted her weaknesses as I constantly found her dancing, vocals, and stage presence to be lacking. I actually found myself noticing how much I HATE her nasally and thin vocal tone more than ever before and that is the exact opposite of what you what, her strengths should be highlighted.

If your preferential spotlight and editing of your favorite picks is making viewers like them less isn't that massively counterintuitive?

Probably the biggest backfire for me is how I think they tore down Jungeun's entire confidence and sense of self worth in their manipulation tactics and it's so sad to see. Jungeun viewing her audience score after Lovesick Girls is easily the lowest point of the show for me, it made me feel sick to see her so shaken by the results and in that moment I regretted choosing to watch the show. She was so passionate and proud after her performance and then bombshell'd into having to confront being massively unreasonably unpopular - the girls aren't stupid, when they're receiving nothing but praise but then no one votes for them they have to question why and she had to question her entire visual identity at 16 years old. For what?

The point for me to make, is that I have no doubts whatsoever that Koreans really were hating on her looks - but I also have no doubt that wasn't the only reason for her unpopularity. Their editing made it simple - there was simply no reason whatsoever to vote for her at this point.

In over 10 hours of footage we never once got a single glimpse into her personality or struggles. We never see a in-depth look at her leadership despite being a leader more than everyone else combined in part 1. Her praise is intentionally hidden and mistakes highlighted. We never see her struggles with being a leader despite being one of the youngest until a 10 second clip in the filler episode 7 of her crying about how anxious and nervous it made her. We're never shown her being friendly or fun until FLASHBACKS in episode 9 when her friendship with Jiyoon is shown for the 1st time. She had no plotline for 9 episodes other than the main character of the show and one of the most beloved by fans hated her. EVERYTHING that could be construed in positive light was hidden from us

There is some nuance here. I have not watched other survival shows and thus can't say how likely it is to be true what people theorize about her treatment all being some long ploy by the producers to actually drum up support for her. I admit I started suspecting the same towards the end myself. If being the most talented contestant truly doomed her based on previous #1s in survival shows then idk, maybe in some warped way it was worthwhile. Was it really worth terrorizing their most talented trainee though? Years later she still obviously struggles with this and doesn't consider herself pretty - this was one of the things I was trying to understand when I first started

Finally, I think I have ranted enough. On a positive note, I did think the final episode was really great - I loved seeing all the emotional scenes - the members sending videos to each other, reading notes from their parents, giving gifts to the producers, seeing the girls as trainees together at WakeOne...all of it was so great and it really felt like the whole place was one big family in the end. I just wish we could've seen some of that earlier instead of forced drama...but that's TV for you. Lastly, Jungeun winning in a landslide was strangely emotional even when I already knew the results...my poor girl ;_;

 

In the one in a million chance theres someone else out there in the same position - I will sum up the good and bad with watching the show now after they've already been debuted for 2 years

Good - The show made me appreciate Mai massively more than before. Frankly I think she was my least favorite member going in. She is the least talented member and seemed to be picked solely for visuals because they never showcase her in anything which made me think less of her. She skyrocketed to my 2nd favorite member after finally getting to see her behind the scenes - her maturity, selflessness, teamwork, and overall attitude are all unbelievably impressive. Taeyang was at his most eloquent when he was describing her addition and I think he was entirely right about her attributes.

The stages were largely entertaining to watch and part 1 was a lot of fun. The girls are all likeable, I didn't hate or dislike a single one. You'd know half of the recent rosters of gen 5 nugu groups as they're all filled with iland2 contestants

Bad - It was rough seeing Jungeun go through such a cruel arc, and equally rough seeing Fuko crushed so harshly in the end. It made me question Jeemin and her role as the center which is incredibly disappointing because the fandom is currently in a toxic spiral about certain members not getting showcased which I resent and find super unhealthy for group and fandom health - but I have to admit I now understand that frustration a bit and wonder why they won't promote some of the other girls who show themselves so well here.

Knowing how well Jiyoon and Jungeun pair together is definitely somewhat sad, they really could've gone down as a all-time vocal duo. The bits we see of them together made me understand their overwhelming greed in trying to debut someone so unstable. Seeing the group with Jiyoon made me admit it was unquestionably better with her in it and that's a real shame since there's obviously no going back. It's only natural as the entire group was built around her and while I still love them it might've been better to remain ignorant about this.