The Genius - General Discussion

[SVNBob]

Our Genius PD has another new project debuting later this year, on one of Korea's top streaming services.

The translated title is "Girls' High School Mystery Class" and features an all-female cast:

• Park Jiyoon (An announcer and the "queen" of the variety show Crime Scene)
• Jang Doyeon (comedienne with many variety appearances, including as a regular on Michuri Village and Mafia Game in Prison/Prison Game of Fools)
• Yena (from the girl group IZ*ONE)
• BIBI (a solo K-pop artist)
• JaeJae (a producer/MC for SBS's variety show MMTG, and a YouTuber)

From what little I know and have found so far, it looks like it's going to be a drama-variety, like the Netflix series "Busted", with the cast taking on the roles of students in the girls' high school, and having to solve secrets and mysteries that occur in the school.

People seem to be looking forward to this for multiple reasons; not the least of which are expectations of a high-quality series, as we know the PD is quite capable of.

More when details and/or episodes become available.

 

Edit: I meant to include this video; the only trailer thus far:

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by SVNBob
Forgot to include video.

[SVNBob]

A subtitled version of the trailer from my previous post:

 

[SVNBob]

A few other Genius-related shows that I've recently found out about...mainly through one group of subbers.  (Links to all these shows available at that link.

First: Bloody Game/Game of Blood.

This one sounds the most like the Genius in that it's a survival game where the contestants, including Genius All-Star Doctor Yeonseung, do battle in mental and social games in order to win the prize money, but how you win is up to you.  (Beautiful Defeats and Ugly Victories, anyone?) What makes this one different is there's a cast of commentators watching the players.  And those commentators include Sangmin and Dongmin! (and Jiyoon and Yena from the Girls High School Mystery Club series).   The band Idiotape is also involved in this production, so this will at least sound like the Genius, if nothing else. 

Haven't watched any yet, but I'll be checking it out.

Second: Black Sheep Game

A 4-episode Mafia-esque game with only 8 contestants, including Titty God Kyunghoon.  Divided into 6 White Sheep and 2 Black Sheep by 7 "keywords" relating to their lives and experiences, the contestants play games and complete missions to learn the truth.  The White Sheep need to find the "Black Sheep code" to determine who the Blacks are to eliminate them.  Winning team takes the prize money of 1 million won.

Also haven't seen this, but since it's so short, it's probably a decent weekend binge.

 

Next: Accomplice

Created by the SK Youtuber Quadurup, and based on the mobile app Mafia42.  But there are also a few similarities to the Mole.

The cast is made up of people from all walks of life in SK (although most are in entertainment in some fashion (game streamers, fashion/beauty vloggers, MMA, etc.)) gathered at a private and secluded location.    After all arriving, one is secretly selected to be the Mafia, while the rest remain Citizens.  During the nights, while all the cast are locked in their private rooms, the Mafia selects one to get "killed".  During the day, the cast investigate the "murder", question each other, and try to determine who the Mafia member is, in order to vote them out.  The Mafia can occasionally recruit additional members, changing the balance of citizens and Mafia.  Additionally, after the first Night, the citizens get a chance to solve a question or riddle in order to gain a power that can possibly give them an advantage, like being able to find out the alignment of a limited number of other players, or being able to protect someone from the killer.

The game ends if the Citizens eliminate all the Mafia.  Mafia wins if at least one is a member of the final 2 players.  And the winning team gets the cash prize of 100 million won (around $75K)

Available on YouTube, there's one completed season, and a second currently airing.  Hyunmin is a cast member in season 1, and Yohwan is part of Season 2.  I've only watched Episode One and Two of the first season thus far (and part of the 3rd to understand more about the challenge to gain the game power), but it looks pretty good.   And since they are on YouTube, there's English captions available (except on the preview materials and the most current episode of the second season, which went up within the last 48 hours... those captions will be added in time.)  Episodes are around 30 minutes each, so it could also be an easy binge.

 

Finally, Treasure Hunt.

A cast of 24 (including Hyunmin and the Accomplice creator Quadurup) have been gathered by a masked man.  They are made into "teams" and sent out to find clues to treasure caches hidden in South Korea, totaling up to 500 million won (around half a million US).  "Finders Keepers" is the rule, even amongst a team (presumably), so it's winner take what they get their hands on.  A little Squid Game inspired, coupled with escape room puzzles and locations to lead to the treasure sites.

I've only seen the first episode, but this does look like a good production.  There's definitely a budget behind this one.

[SVNBob]

New series from the Genius PD just dropped on Netflix!

It's titled "The Devil's Plan", and seems like an evolved form of The Genius.  Biggest differences are the contestants are also living together in the gamespace, and the time-frame is much shorter, around one week total.  But that's not all that's new....

Here's the cast getting an explanation of the rules of the overall game from the titular Devil:

..

[SVNBob]

Minor Genius mention in the media.

Tom Scott has a panel show-esque podcast called Lateral, which is all about lateral thinking questions.  One of the questions in episode 75 is about Moby and his tattoos.  One of the guests mentioned that Moby wrote the music for Bourne movies, to which Tom brought up the fact that they used that same song, "Extreme Ways", as the "something awesome is about to happen" music in a South Korean show called "The Genius."  He also mentioned that contestants in later episodes lamp-shaded it and brought up that someone was trying to get the Moby to drop.

 

I mean, if you know who Tom Scott is, I don't think you'd be surprised to know he's watched The Genius.  It was more of a surprising reference at an unexpected time.