A few weeks back we told you about the Korean TV Show Queendom 2 where a bunch of established KPop Girl Groups perform for the prize of being Queens of KPop. We explained the rules and then told you about the fist half of the series and now we want to tell you all about the rest of the episodes, the results and our thoughts on the contestants, the performances and the show itself.
Weeks 8 & 9 ‘Fantastic Queendom’ .
We left off after week 7 when we saw the final performances of the groups split and mixed up into the Sub-Units. The following week saw a forty-three minute intro, yep that’s right, there were no actual performances for 43minutes on the full show, it was all recap, adverts and ‘Coming Up’ etc.
Then finally we got three performances out of the groups, where they performed a ‘FANtastic Queendom’ song. This was a song voted for my their fans.
The instant problem was Kep1er were first up and they only have two songs released so far (with a new album due and a mini album of 4 tracks, that’s not a lot for the Kep1ians to choose from, so instead they chose a track by Girl’s Generation – The Boys.
The biggest issue with this is that they didn’t make it their own, all through the song there is a War Cry of ‘Girl’s Generation we will make you feel the heat!’ Why was this not changed to ‘Kep1er will make you feel the heat’? Or something similar? It was a so-so performance, but not their best, but we have to claim we are probably Kep1ians now after watching the series and are eager for the new album.
That said their performance was pretty good, the staging was good and moody, with a gothic/witchy theme and we finally got to see some of the members (the Rappers) who haven’t featured much at all in this season. We just wish they had made this more their own, it was too much like the original.
Next up another new group. Viviz only have a couple of their own tracks to chose from – they have a load of GFriend tracks, but that was the old 6 piece group and not the new 3 piece group that they are now. The Na.V’s (Fans) suggestion was to stick to their hit song ‘Bop,Bop!’ To which we are in a disagreement with.
We think they should have done as Kep1er did and picked something different, rather than go with their own song, but the rules weren’t clear, in hindsight it seems they did the right thing and Kep1er did wrong, but at the time ‘Bop,Bop’ seemed a strange one to perform. That said Ash loves this song and was happy to see Eunha SinB and Umji perform it. The cheerleader tower at the beginning was made to be this big dramatic thing that took weeks of practice to get right and tons of choreography, but it could have been 3 dancers doing it, because it was all in silhouette, the overall performance was rather flat, dull and just forgettable.
Then we got WJSN with ‘Pantomime’ a ‘classic B side’ apparently, we know little of this group, except there seem to be 3 really bitchy members and the rest seem pretty hen pecked. The leader Exy, has been dubbed Cruella by us, for her two-toned hair and her totally evil control over her group even though she isn’t as talented as many of the rest of the group. According to KProfiles, Exy can play the Triangle!
The performance was good, but mainly because they had the backing and help of the production company, they had a clever lighting and drone show, which no other group was given the use of. When The Brave Girls shot money into the audience with their names on it in the first performance everyone said it was tacky and a cheap trick, but when The Cosmic Girls threw tickets with WJSN on them it was cool. The same was true about Loona’s Shake It, that was over dramatic and too busy, but this performance was almost a direct copy and everyone loved it (well all the audience who MNet filmed to give their reactions, that is!!)
But in all honestly (reluctantly!) this was still the better track of the 3.
Week 9 started at 8 left off, with the other 3 groups giving their pieces.
Loona’s – Butterfly was an odd choice really, the song is so high in octave and the performance was weird, the start was one member saying something in weird lispy English, followed by a random German phrase (a copy of Stray Kids finale), then the stage work and choreography seemed more like a school talent show. Half the camera shots were of the wrong person, not singing or sitting down not doing anything. The whole piece was lacklustre and sadly dull.
Next was Brave Girls and their Red Sun a lesser B Side it seems, as if BG are being sabotaged every time they seem to grow and become more than the shy group from the start. But their performance was good, really good actually. We read a review by The bias List who seems to know all the groups beforehand and her opinion has some strong merit, if such a great performance had been for their biggest hit After We Ride they could have killed the whole thing. But that said this performance was really good and they were voted the best act, so clearly they have finally started to shine.
Last up was the previous round winner Hyolyn, with a mash-up of See Sea and Bae, these were two of her biggest hits, the performance was ok but we’re in agreement here that her songs are good, but not great and all are similar and they are starting to blur into one another. Once again there was a lot of video of the build up showing how tirelessly she worked on the arrangements, as if to show she is the only one to do this, when we know the other groups (especially WJSN) do this just as much if not more!
The performance itself was very pink! It was Barbie’s Baywatch basically. As we said in itself it was ok, just overall it was very similar to everything else she has done, tons of dancers, bright and more dancers.
Week 10 – The Finale
Another never ending intro, this week the recap and coming up – basically trying to spoil the whole show before it began – took more than an hour of the 3h20min live show.
Then they announced the phone lines were open for voting – before anyone got to perform, purely going for the biased fan vote.
The Final saw each act performing a new song, first off was Hyolyn with Waka Boom (My Way). this was Cleopatra meets Beyonce and once again it was all we expected of Hyolyn, lots of dancers, including a lot of men in crop tops (Ash think this is weird!) and it was powerful and showy, lots of gold and explosions, but we could have done with something a bit different, but then it wouldn’t have been Hyolyn!
WJSN’s Exy was shown to have not slept or stopped in preparation for the the performance of Aura. MNet’s baby was proven to be a martyr for the cause. The performance well for 1 they started off with the drones and lighting show again, like in the previous week.
One point to not was the raising platforms with the girls singing as the the floor rose would never have happened in the UK/US, due to Health and safety concerns! But it makes for better performances.
Next up were Kep1er and The girl’s – we guess a follow up to their take on The Boys from the previous week. Finally seeing Kep1er step out of their comfort zone and actually preform a new song and do it well.
Viviz – Red Sun – This weeks musical number – the song was very much Viviz honed – the actual performance was a little too bright though as if they didn’t get enough time to block it and stage light it.
Loona – Pose -Once again the song was good – a lot better than last weeks – it was more of the punchy/oomphy sound/production that we are used to. The lighting was overly contrasty or far too bright – this is nothing to do with the performers as it is Mnet and the bias as to who they want to win….but still.
Brave Girls – Whistle – This was one of the stronger performances from BG its shame they took this long to warm up as the past two performances were clearly the best. The song was pretty catchy but there wasn’t much use of space – again we suspect this was probably due to Mnet.
So then we went into voting and waiting and watching random comments by random people and all of a sudden we were up to the announcement and we waited… and waited… and waited. The usual dramatic pause and then a commercial break, finally Taeyeon and Lee Yong-jin (the host) called forward WJSN & Loona it was between these two and basically it was down to a popularity vote, who had the most fans and who clearly MNet wanted to win. Well with that we already knew who the station wanted to win and it wasn’t Loona, who were banned from competing in week one because all 12 of them managed to contract covid the day before their first performance, who were voted down for Shake It for being too theatrical, yet everyone subsequently copied them.
So no surprise WJSN were called and bitch Queen screamed and faux cried her acceptance speech, sod the rest of the group, Exy had won.
The official ranking is;
6. Brave Girls (45,896 points)
5. Kep1er (46,973 points)
4. Hyolyn (48,761 points)
3. VIVIZ (54,419 points)
2. LOONA (77,988 points)
1. WJSN (81,020 points)
There seems to be some (obvious) problems with the points, namely that all the votes were counted instantly, the moment voting stopped MNet had the scores ready. further study has given Loona a higher number of fan votes than The Cosmic Girls (WJSN) and Brave girls last after their last two performances?
But there we are, so we wait and see what this means to the 6 performers in their ‘comebacks’, as their new albums are hot off the presses.
As we have stated we are eager for Kep1er and Loona’s albums, Ash is besotted with Eunha of Viviz and eager to hear more from them. Hyolyn started off so strong, but she seems a bit of a one trick pony, big on performance, with tons of dancers and lacking in the actual song department. We are now ‘Fearless’ – Brave Girls fans and look forward to new material from them and are dubious about WJSN, which to be fair is mostly because of Cru-Exy-lla the rest of the girls actually seem nice enough. Well we shall see and if we are surprised by there new album, maybe we will tell you all about it!
There we go another post about something other than Coffee! We hope you liked this insight into another aspect of our likes and interests and we hope this inspires you go check out the performances from the groups on YouTube or where ever you can and come back again for more, Coffee, Climbing & Contemplations!
Climbing Moss 