Episode 10 of Girls Planet 999 features the original songs composed for the third round of competition. But before we get to those performances, there is the standard filler content to kill time.
This time it’s a drive-in fan meet where some lucky fans get to see the remaining contestants sing, dance and interact with them in a large field. This was their first time being in front of real people for some girls, so they were excited about the opportunity.
Did this have any effect on the competition at all? No, but I guess it was nice to see the remaining girls in a more relaxed setting. The fun fact to take away from this segment is that Guinn Myah is afraid to sleep alone, and she likes sleeping in Yujin’s room the most.
With 20 minutes wasted, it was on to see the results of the work the girls had to endure to prepare for their songs. Since they were not doing cover songs, the masters commented that it is up to each performer to show their creativity and stage presence. That is what they will be looking for as they critique each song.
The first team to hit the stage was “Shoot!”. The road to the stage was a bumpy one. They initially believed everything was smooth sailing until the mid-point evaluation with the masters.
That is when the team’s flaws were exposed. Their vocals were terrible, and Chen Hsin Wei had awful timing for her parts. In addition, it seemed that there was not enough effort being put in, and Yujin was called out for being too nice to her team.
After getting negative reviews from the masters, the girls resolved to work harder with their remaining time. Yujin also started to give some of the tough love to her members to whip them into shape.
Their hard work paid off as the girls managed to put on an energetic and crowd pleasing performance. The viewers certainly got the members of this team right as the song suited all of them perfectly.
The standouts in this group were a much improved Chen Hsin Wei, Ikema Ruan and Choi Yujin. This performance was so good that it even made Huening Bahiyyih tolerable.
There were no issues like at the mid-point review, and the masters gave the entire team positive comments.
Next up was team “Utopia,” which had problems with two members. Huang Xingqiao, much like in Fiesta, was unable to come up to speed with the complex choreography.
Meanwhile, Kim Chaehyun’s vocals were not up to par, and she was ranked last in her group because of that. She felt pressured to do a good job, practicing up to the last minute to get her high notes right.
In the final performance, Huang Xingqiao made a small mistake early in the song but maintained her composure to make it to the end without further issues.
Kim Chaehyun sadly was not so lucky, and her nerves took over, causing her voice to be shaky and unstable.
The remaining members did very well. Yurina was stable with everything, Bora was a vocal powerhouse as expected, and Kang Yeseo fit the concept like a glove.
Overall the masters found this performance enjoyable but called out Huang Xingqiao for her small mistake and Kim Chaehyun for allowing her fears to affect her performance.
Third on stage was team “U+Me=Love.” This group cobbled together from the decimation of the second elimination, and the outcasts from other teams had something to prove.
Kim Suyeon continued to be concerned about whether she fit the song or not and was practicing diligently. Then, Baek Koo Young made a surprise visit to see how they were doing with his choreography.
His sage advice was, “Don’t make it cute.” I’m not sure how that is helpful at all, but okay.
Suyeon’s fears were alleviated when she was ranked as the top member after the mid-point evaluation with the masters. They had nothing but positive things to say to her.
With renewed confidence, the entire team continued to practice hard and build their teamwork.
They showed the same type of unity that team “Shoot!” had for the real thing. The result was an exciting performance that highlighted those who were dismissed from their former teams.
Kim Suyeon showed why the masters saved her with the planet pass while Nonaka Shana and Seo Youngeun killed their vocal parts.
Other highlights from this team were Kamimoto Kotone, whose talent for rapping is starting to shine through, and the often ignored May, who stood out a lot in this particular song.
The masters were full of praise for this team and called them professional. However, they mentioned that team “Snake” should be worried since the girls they kicked out did very well.
Speaking of them, they were the last team to take the stage. This team’s issues lay with who was doing the main vocal. None of the masters liked the simple way Su Rui Qi sang her lines and were more partial to Fu Yaning.
Of course, this caused conflict within the team between two of the Chinese members. Su Rui Qui put up a fight resisting the change. The other team members tried to convince her to give vocal two a try.
She relented but did not go down willingly, expressing her dismay at every opportunity. Finally, her poor attitude started to affect the mood in the room and disrupting practice so much that the other Chinese members held a mini-intervention to get her to co-operate.
Well, almost all the Chinese members. Cai Bing did the wise thing, kept practicing, and stayed as far away from the drama as possible, and Fu Yaning was off somewhere else.
With tension rising in the room, the team held a meeting to air out their differences. Finally, Su Rui Qi admitted that it wasn’t that she didn’t like vocal two but that the masters shattered her confidence.
She put aside her personal feelings for the sake of the team and continued to push through practice.
Fast forward to dress rehearsals with the masters commented that Fu Yaning was ahead of the song and moving too fast. Her vocals were also unstable. They started to question whether they made the right recommendation for the position switch.
Did any of that drama carry over to the live performance? Not really, in my opinion. The masters kept saying that Fu Yaning was singing ahead of the beat, but I think they needed their ears cleaned. She seemed to be on time as far as I could tell.
The quality of her signing did leave much to be desired. She did not deliver as the main vocalist, and I doubt Su Rui Qi would have done any better, to be honest. This team screwed themselves over by sending Youngeun away.
Ezaki Hikaru was in her wheelhouse for this song, which I guess is a good thing and further makes her a one-trick pony in my eyes.
Kim Dayeon was complimented for breathing. I shit you not, breathing. Whether her inhaling was meant to be audible or not, it didn’t seem like a big enough deal to receive praise. It looks like the mega push for her continues. Hopefully, this doesn’t backfire.
Shen Xiaoting didn’t impress the masters at the interim evaluation but stepped her game to alleviate their initial concerns about her. She also had the best outfit of all the members and looked incredibly good. Something that Sunmi noticed about her when she stepped on stage.
With all the performances over, it was time to announce the winner of the Creation Mission. Winning by a slim margin over the unnamed second-place team by 1.34 points was U+Me=Love ending the mission on a happy note with the underdog team pulling out a win.
If you thought that was the end, it was not. There was one more mission that was totally out of the control of the girls. This was called the O.O.O. mission.
The viewers vote for their favourite girl by watching her fan cam video of O.O.O. on MNet’s YouTube and giving it a thumbs up. However, it looks like this mission is skewed towards the more popular contestants, who will most likely get many likes on their videos.
Hopefully, that is not the case, but we’ll have to see what the details of this mission are and find out the results in the next elimination episode.
