The Soldiers (2021)

Happiness has no limits

I started this show accidentally, I saw a couple of TikTok's a couple months ago but forgot about it until I thought I saw a clip of this, but it turned out to be the first episode. I cheered on some of the guys throughout the show (Go in-ho, Kong Gi-Hwan) along with their teams Chaile and Bravo. It might be a short show, but it is 100% worth it to watch. Lastly, team leader Jay is hot and his British accent saying f*** is weirdly comforting.

A couple of side notes, I would recommend that if you want to watch this be prepared to someone to do some of the activities with you. For example, a piggyback ride because they carry 30kg on multiple occasions.

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Frustrating

This was an incredibly frustrating show to watch.

They had all the ingredients to make a decent, engaging and exciting competitive reality tv show - interesting concept, varied and likeable contestants, cool challenges, etc. - but in my opinion they failed to do so. For a few reasons:

1. The competition was not fair and the odds were skewed from the beginning.
One of the team leaders was a native Korean speaker, while the rest were not L2 speakers even in the slightest. This already put him at a real advantage considering the importance of communication in team exercises.
The team-selection process was outrageously unfair. One team received 3 of the Top 5 candidates/picks. This team also got to offload their lowest pick, resulting in an average pick score of 4.25. The other teams had averages of 6, 11.25 and 12.25. In a 16-man draft!

2. The challenge parameters/mission objectives were sometimes vague and poorly communicated. This arguably lead to losses or eliminations of teams who were disqualified on technicalities instead of purely on their performance.

3. For a gameshow supposedly emphasising the importance of teamwork and team bonding, one challenge required each team to chose one member to sit it out and be excluded entirely. This baffled me.

4. The long 'previously-on' recaps at the start of each episode quickly grew annoying and ruined the flow and watching experience. Furthermore, the constant micro-replays and rewinds during action scenes was very noticeable and distracting, and actually lessened the impact as I was forced to adjust between uninterrupted real-time events and rapid, jarring, fractured and nonsensical time-slices.

Overall, these negatives overshadowed the positives, and I couldn't really get invested in the contestants or teams. The competitive aspect of the show was completely ruined by the team imbalance, as well as the occasional glaring faults in the challenge designs which, regardless of whether I was rooting for that team or not, left me thinking, 'yeah, that is not really fair.'

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Doesn't hold a candle to Steel Troop (Iron Squad)

Riding the coattails of Steel Troop's success, THE SOLDIERS launched with a similar feel of military competitions and drills, but with a slightly different concept. Bring in foreign leaders, pick your members, and compete for a chance to represent Korea in a national competition. Unfortunately, the show failed to delivered what made Steel Troops shine in my eyes...the sense of unity and heart.

I'm not sure if I would have felt differently if I saw Soldiers first, but I just found it pretty boring. Others I've spoken to felt the same way. I think it's because you don't really get to know the members that well. With Steel Troops, there were no given leaders but that was the fun part...you get to see which members step into that role. You get to see their personalities and their growth. Whereas in the Soldiers, you are chosen by a foreign leader who knows nothing of Korean culture or the language and all the members have to rely on them. You don't see the members grow. You just see their frustrations of not being able to communicate. The foreign leaders were unprepared imo for the intensity of the Korean competitive spirit and games. I felt like they thought they were there to teach their ways and how to safely complete the drills, when everyone else was just there to win. They started to get it later, but I felt like it was too late. I thought that gave an unfair advantage to the Korean leader who not only has the advantage of knowing the language, but also being familiar with these types of games.

Also I didn't really feel like each team had a bond. In Steel Troop, because each team was comprised of the unit they served...they already felt a connection and pride of belonging to the same unit. In Soldiers, because each person had to compete to get into a team, it was like everyone was just out for themselves in the beginning.

Also Steel Troop had MC panelists who contributed to the overall entertainment. This show did not which made it more boring in my eyes. If you haven't seen Steel Troop, then maybe without having that comparison, you may enjoy this. But for me, I can't help but compare and without having anyone to root for, I lost interest pretty quickly.

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