Build Up: Vocal Boy Group Survivor (2024)

devoured

okay guys this def has spoilers, im just gonna be saying my thoughts after each episode and highlighting my fav contestants and such! if u havent watched the full episode yet please do before u continue reading ><




okie ep 1, JAY GETTING MORE SCREENTIME :000000 oh my gosh you dont know how much ive been praying that jay gets all the attention he deserves and FINALLY mnut- i mean mnet finally decided to do so, him winning the votes from all 6 judges actually surprised the shit out of me too though like i did not expect that i dont think anyone was expecting that tbh, okie nothing else to say other than that i just wanted to congratulate this iconic moment, also seunghun getting that intro part i cheered :3

ep2, the other performances didnt excite me as much as the first eps did but they still did really well! (im sorry i just dont know any other contestants well and wasnt really into the songs :') BUT DITTAURRR omg i was so excited, cos we had wumuti and the other contestants id heard were pretty popular, i was praying so hard wumuti got top tier or atleast recognition, i felt so bad when he got so dismissed when he was trying out for the A part, like he didnt even do so bad compared to the other guy wtf, and during the actual performance i was smiling so hard when it was his part :D HE GOT TOP TIER YALL I SCREAMED, (to the person who messaged me IM SORRY GIRLYPOP WE'LL BURN MNET DOWN TOGETHER) GUYSSSS JAY WUMUTI AND SEUNGHUN ARE IN TOP4 RAHHHHH i did not expect my top picks to be up so high oh my goodness SEKRGHKJFGHQGTQ

ep3, GAWDAMN EVERYONES SO GOOD WTF, my favs were sherlock (gave me goosebumps fr park je up did saur GOOD) and dangerously (had me gagged) i am SLIGHTLY.... i mean A LOT irritated that jay and saeon's team lost, like that means theyre in it for elimination which makes me salty BUT I AM SO HAPPY FOR WUMUTI ESPECIALLY LIKE AJHVGAFLVGHAHGE DESERVED KING

ep4, the songs were pretty mid, i mean i could feel theyre emotions and desparation(?) but they remind me so much of those chinese sad(?) love songs my parents play in the car so im pretty tired of these sounds ngl. kick it team was pretty dissapointing like i love that song but it felt like they were singing late??? was that just me?? and kang seokhwa's voice didn't fit the song, it was like he wasn't doing enough, and jeon woong felt like he was tryna do TOO much (especially with the growl attempt), plus the voice crack babes i felt so sorry for them, same with 'a letter' i felt like mnet def left the less exciting performances in this ep, but i LOVED river so much, u could tell both of them were FEELING it like bain suits these songs SO well he was so sassy oml. his voice preview with maria had me in a chokehold, but the pre-4 mission didn't really do much justice for him, but this really opened my eyes to him, so yeah might start voting for him!

ep5.... bro i was so confused at first cos were we doing the same mission or the new mission? but duh ofc if i looked at the name but the editting threw me off. damn this round was long as hell ☠︎︎ performances wise, none of them stood out to me, mnet even ahd to skip past the really bad ones lord ☠︎︎☠︎︎ so ill just talk about the next round! first round, bro i was so scared cos seunghun and bain are competing with each other and that means one of thems gonna get eliminated so i didnt know who to root for, but i will say 'ill be ur man' team DID SO WELL OH MY, like u can REALLY tell the difference between good and bad peformances and thats when i realised it, also they looked so good in the suits gksdsghnrg I ALSO MY JAW DROPPED WHEN I HEARD THE PREVIEW FOR THE NEXT PERFORMANCE, KISS OF LIFEEEEE WHATTT I JUST KNOW ITS GONNA BE GOOD

ep6, i absolutely live for these performances, first of all before they announced the elimantions, i was DEF hoping for bain's team to win, he just impressed me so much BUT THEY LOST WHAT THE ACTUAL IM SOBBING, the next teams i didnt even know most of the people even existed im sorry ☠︎︎☠︎︎ guys the boring ballads need to go, THERE I SAID IT FIGHT ME IF U WANT i just cant with these sounds anymore, theyre voices just didnt harmonize well, and tae woo's voice was so scratchy and not in a good way, next teams... no comment, they were all decent, AND OFC jays team is in the next ep cry

ep7, HREGHEGERGRARARRR FEVER IS THAT GIRL, possible one of my fav performances in the show, anyways nothing much to say! go vote hunminjaybit team!

ep8, jay's team was great but i do think some members shined more than others so i do agree, but the highest being 90 was kinda sad, okay PURRR GUILTY TEAM i was NOT ready for that wtf and DRAMAAAA OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT SONG i literally was drooling before the performance (not literally i swear) cos i was so excited but i did feel like it was a bit empty compared to the original (cos im so used to the heavy backtrack) but it wasnt bad but didnt live up to my expectations omg uptown funk was SAURR FUNN, next team why is yeoone lowkey flopping i feel so bad for him, DAMMMN I did not expect milky up to win omg and i kinda expected the elimination to go how it did it TT

ep9, hmm... tell me why the performances arent as exciting as before.... obviously flower was really good but none of the other ones were that impactful, if im being honest even flower wasnt the most impactful but they did great nonetheless!

ep10.... oh lord here it is, the final okay the performances! omg waterfire the stage WAS SO PRETTY IT FELT SO ETHEREAL AND THE VOICES WHATT THE HARMONIES THE COSTUMES THE LIGHTING my jaw was on the floor the song is actually so good its kind of like the definition of beautiful , next performance was pretty good, not much to say if im being honest. okay... hunminjaybit RAHHH it was honestly really good like theyre voices are so good omg im sob

GUYS IM WRITING THIS AS IM WAITING FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT HUNMINJAYBIT BETTER WIN OTHERWISE ALL THIS FOR NOTHING the freaking music is getting on my nerves HUH WATERFIRE IS THIRD bro that means wumuti didnt debut NOOOO GUYS PLEASEEEEE nah lee da hee's commentary is getting on my nerves NAHHH THE AD BREAK shes literally said 'the winning team is...' like 5 times. OH MY GOODNESSS RAHHkrhfregEG there snO WAYYY OH MY GOODNE WHAT TEH ACUAL YAYAY IM SO HHAPPY IM SO FEKING EITED RIGHT NW NAHHHHHH

hey guys btw the name bdu is kinda goofy ngl but i feel like itll grow on me (i hope)

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Some amazing performances and discoveries among the cast, lost some steam towards the end

I loved the premise of this survival show with the objective to found a vocal boy group of only 4 members. It felt fresh and original as a concept. Unfortunately, it fell a bit short concept-wise: it almost looked that mid-way the producers changed their mind on the initial idea. They lost their concept on the way, with no real differentiation compared to other singing competition that I have seen. The way they organised and splitted the episodes / missions felt also quite strange, as well as the voting rules and principles. The episodes were quite short for such kind of program but I felt they could have spend a bit more time in building stories around the candidates. Indeed, maybe the episodes were too short to fully get attached to the more subdue candidates...

While it felt short in story-telling and production, I must say that I found the cast quite good overall. No obvious bad / fillers singers, just talented individuals with of course some being shown more than others. Nothing outrageous, except maybe for some missions where I think they could have shown all performances rather than scratch off some with just a better editing and split of content between episodes.

Regarding the cast, I was truly happy to find back some very familiar faces met in others tv shows (such as Geonu, Jay, Lee Hwan Hee and Wumuti) and I felt I really made some interesting discoveries among individuals I did not know before (e.g. to name a few: Kim Min Seo, Choi Su Hwan, Jeon Woong (from AB6IX), Lee Kwang Suk, Park Je Up, Kim Seung Hun (from CIX), Seon You (from UP10TION), Bain (from Just B which is a group I like but did not know a lot about the members -except for Geonu), Bitsaeon (from M.O.N.T), Kim Seo Hyung, Jung Soo Min, Kang Ha Yoon, Park Joo Hee, Choi Haram and so much more...). I liked as well the MC and judges casting...I knew most of them, but again, episodes felt short to get attached to the ones I did not know from before.

In terms of rewatch value, I know that there are some performances that I will gladly rewatch (and already do) in the future...I will for sure rewatch again Dangerously, River, Bad News as well as honestly every interactions of Milky-up who were just so lovable and wholesome...Overall, I am happy with the results of the finale. The winning team was my favorite but honestly all the candidates were so good that there were no "bad" choice. However, I was disappointed by the finale production, it lacked strongly in entertainment value and felt draggy as well as super expected. The best performances of the show are all coming from the first third / half of the contest...It is a bit of a shame that the orginal songs did not grab as much my attention.

I would recommend this to people that are looking for a survival show with some great singers and performances. It is pretty entertaining with a good cast and the concept of forming a vocal group is quite fresh. It lost some steam along the way and production could have done a better job to spread out content and to make the finale more exciting.

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