TVB 2021 Variety Shows

Hello everyone,

Happy Halloween! We hope you have all been doing well this year! It's sure been a while since our last post on this blog. For a long time, we didn't really feel inspired to write anything. So far, the dramas aired in 2021 have been average or low quality (we'll share more thoughts on this later on).

However, we decided to give our thoughts on some of the variety shows that aired this year because TVB has put in a lot of resources into creating new ones this year under the direction of Eric Tsang and Wong Cho Lam. Although we skipped most of the variety shows in previous years, we found more interest in the ones this year especially staying home due to the pandemic. Some old shows were also revamped like Jade Solid Gold. Other shows were new ideas, but didn't really land on the execution part. Although TVB still needs more creativity and new ideas if they want to keep their audience, we're still glad to see some progress on this to ensure TVB keeps with the times and provides an HK twist to these popular shows that have already been done in China and overseas. 

Jade Solid Gold - 勁歌金曲

There is a new format for the JSG show unlike previous years which we totally skipped out on. They introduced many new elements such as a public voting segment, sing with a star, getting feedback by music professionals, singing old JSG chart songs, etc. This revamp was much needed especially with Viu's Chill Club bringing in singers from different record labels. It was nice to see different guest "judges" provide their commentary on newcomers or new songs. 

Now that TVB has reconciled with other music label companies, we can finally see some artists other than Voice Ent singers which is much more interesting. However, we still think their ranking system is a bit inaccurate because we saw one of Ruco's songs top the chart for one week, and we didn't think that many people were listening to it...

Dub of War - 好聲好戲

This was inspired by the Chinese show. We really liked how they introduced us to the professional TVB voice actors. Having watched many of the Cantonese dubbed animations from TVB, it was neat to actually match the iconic voices of characters to a face. This show also demonstrated how difficult it was to dub even a short clip, needing to match the characters' mouth shape, tone, expression, volume, etc. This made us appreciate the dubbed shows and animations even more, and we hope they continue to release them. This season led to some breakout successes like Yoyo Chen. We also enjoyed watching Sisley's performance as Amy Kwok—she nailed it! For each episode, they also included an amateur who usually spoke Canto as a second language. Even though they weren't there to win, it was a great learning opportunity for them. We are looking forward to the second season.

Cook War - 煮戰

Cook War reminded us of other cooking competitions like Top Chef or Chopped. The format was a bit rushed in our opinion. We did not even know who got kicked out that first episode! Then half of the chefs are kicked out in the subsequent episodes leaving the rest to battle with Ricky or Bo Gor. The top 2 ranking chefs in their battles with Ricky and Bo Gor are in the finale. Although the chefs were serious in their craft, for some reason Bo Gor was not quite up to standard. We can't even remember if he won any of his own battles. We could tell that Ricky faked his loss a few times, especially the episode where he made chocolate dipped strawberries and spam. The judge said come on, even my 4 year old son can do this! 

The finalists, Alan and Ken wowed us with their skills. Alan's creativity and presentation was beyond the rest of the chefs competing. Ken put a lot of thought into each of his dishes and made sure a story came with them. They both put their heart into cooking for the final, one from a Western culinary background and one from Chinese. One thing we didn't really like was the fact that the hosts especially Elena Kong constantly asked the chefs questions while they were cooking. It got really annoying because we don't see that happening in the usual cooking competitions we watch. We also have to mention that they should stop with the big big shop 特賣場 at the end of each episode. It's this big advertisement that happens for 10 minutes when they just introduce products to buy (see picture below) We also see the 特賣場 for other shows like Top Sales (where it got started) and Long Time No See Japan, and we think it makes the shows look cheap.

Miss Hong Kong Pageant 2021 - 2021香港小姐競選

Revamped with better stage and guests like Jacky Cheung and Stars Academy performances. The performances were the focal point of the show for us, not the actual Miss HK candidates. We can't even remember who won this year unfortunately. 

Case Unclosed - 死因有可疑

Another version of this type of mystery reality show was done in ViuTV. Although we didn't watch Viu's, we can say that TVB's was a bit of a mess. The actors were not familiar with their characters and were surprised themselves to find evidence that belonged to them. They kept going out of character and tried hard to stifle their laughter which made the whole thing very unconvincing. At least they had a disclaimer at the beginning of each episode saying there wasn't enough budget or people, so we could feel free to laugh at the plotholes and issues.

Top Sales - 識貨

We could not finish this show because it was disappointing. We felt like the artistes weren't actually selling anything, but forcing their friends to purchase their goods. If their buddies were reluctant on buying the stuff, the contestants would just promise that they'll pay for rest or take whatever is leftover. The hosts including Dodo Cheng had nothing to do expect stand there.

TVB All Star Games - 明星運動會

To welcome the Olympics, TVB hosted its own company games. This was a great team building activity and exposed the public to the talented artistes that we consider as kelefe's. It was nice to see the variety of sports that was included, and how they showed us highlights of the games instead of the full events since that would take too long. Some of the editing was weird so we weren't sure which competitions already happened and seems like they would cut to the final match when we didn't even see all the elimination matches. 

Have a Big Laugh - 開心大綜藝

This is a live show with actual audience going in to watch like older variety shows with games, singing, promotions, etc. We watched a few episodes here and there, but we aren't too into that comedy style with silly impersonations or playing pranks on other people. We think it's time to move on from these shows if TVB wants to win some new viewers.

Stars Academy - 聲夢傳奇

Stars Academy was one of the biggest variety shows this year for TVB and generated a lot of buzz. This was a show that we followed closely because it has been so long since TVB hosted a singing competition. Their competition, ViuTV has been hosting King Makers for the past few years and produced the hugely popular idol group MIRROR as well as up and coming stars like Mike Tsang, MC Cheung, AnsonBean, etc. These singers have been dominating the charts, and it's time TVB came up with their own roster of new stars. We really enjoyed the production with the 25 judges sitting above inside hoops that light up. The beautiful AR backgrounds and rearrangements for each performance definitely displayed the huge budget that was put in which ultimately paid off. 

With Hacken Lee as the lead coach and other coaches including Janice Vidal, Gin Lee, Aga, Pakho Chau, Vincy Chan, JW (guest judges Mag Lam, Jay Fung, Phil Lam, Hins Cheung), it's not surprising this show would attract a lot of viewers. In particular, Gigi Yim, Chantel Yiu, and Yumi Chung's competition footage respectively passed 1 million views on YouTube. Initially, we thought the young contestants were not that appealing, but as the show progressed, we were astounded by how much contestants improved. In particular, the top 5 contestants (Rock, Archie, Yumi, Chantel, Gigi) truly wowed us with their growing star quality from their performances in Stars Academy First Live on Stage Concert.  Gigi's win was not a surprise because the judges seemed to like her well enough since the beginning. She is a very versatile singer who can execute different styles at just the age of 16. 

Chantel and Yumi are youthful (15 and 14 years old only!) and are able to own the stage with Chantel's sweetness and Yumi's incredible dancing. Yumi also seems to be improving with her popular performances at Harry Ng's concert that just happened in October. They have a lot of potential in the future! Meanwhile, Archie and Rock are very stable vocally and actually better live than a lot of "singers" now. Archie sang incredibly well on Harry Ng's live show (and concert) with Yumi and Vincy, nailing some Eason Chan songs with his own style. Rock's voice is raw and heartfelt especially when he sang Jacky Cheung's 李香蘭 at the Stars Academy concert. We are excited to see how they all fare as singers and actors in their new youth drama. So far, we were happy with Gigi and Chantel's debut songs that were tailor made for them. It's a good starting point for both of them. We were glad they deviated from the conventional Voice Ent theme songs track. Seeing how many fans some of these students already have, we are sure they will make an impact on the music industry in the future. With attracting generally younger kids who likes these students, TVB also has the hopes of sustaining their influence for generations to come. 

Love For My Home. Hong Kong - 尋找家香情

This was a short program introducing some famous people who come from around the world and decided to settled in Hong Kong. It featured Yusuke Hatano, Gin Lee, Nima King, 楊雲濤 (couldn't find English name) and Sun Yue, as they explained their life choices, respective careers and what living Hong Kong means to them. It was alright, but not very memorable.

Dance For Life - 盛·舞者

This resembles the Street Dance China show. While we were impressed with the talent from the HK street dance community, the show itself was programmed poorly. There was no explanation of how the competition works, and we remember the MC, Fat Joe, saying something like "You all know what a dance battle is, so let's just start", so the hosting came across a bit sloppy to us. The editing was confusing with a contest talking randomly for the first few seconds of the show, which made us wonder if they were going to be eliminated this round. Some parts were too long like watching some dancer performance as a prompt for the next battle. But then not spending a lot of time on the rehearsals or the battle. Episodes were inconsistent and therefore unable to showcase the dancers to their full potential. We lost interest really quickly after a few episodes.

Music War Hall - 演鬥聽

Here's a type of music show that we have never seen before. Led by Jonathan Wong, Music War Hall was able to deliver what Dance For Life could not. Every round, there would be some graphics and a narrator explaining how the game works before they actually played the game, so it was very easy to follow. The activities were creative and fun, like writing a new song based on an instagram post or message, making new mashups, remixing classic Cantopop songs in a new style, creating music out of everyday items, etc. After starting this show, we were amazed by how talented the musicians were in the 演鬥 band, being able to create music when they wanted from small pieces of inspiration. We definitely recommend this show if you want to see some Hong Kong music talent that deviates from conventional Cantopop.

Please Mind the Gap - 代溝關注組

We surprisingly liked this show. This is a talk show that discusses a lot of the differences between the young and older generation. Each episode features a different theme like dating, marriage, finance, and so on. On one side, you have guests of the older generation and on the other side, you have younger TVB artistes who debate about issues, share their perspectives, and teach each other new and old phrases and slang. 

Long Time No See Japan - #好掛住日本

It wasn't until this show that we realized how greatly the pandemic affected Japan. The busiest crosswalks were empty and the restaurants barely had any customers. Jarivs Chow and Kwan Gor were obviously funny and had good chemistry as hosts. We have seen other Japan travel shows hosted by Jarvis that seemed more informative, showing us more locations and restaurants to try, but this was overall a satisfactory watch.

Family Feud - 思家大戰

We haven't seen Johnson Lee on screen for so long, and he really fits this hosting role. It's the classic Family Feud with a twist of questions pertaining to the Hong Kong audience. Not much to say about this other than if you like Family Feud, then you'll probably like this. 

Clash Of Chefs - 教煮爭霸

This show is another cooking one, featuring 鼎爺 (李家鼎), and 三姐 (蕭秀香) as they cook off with different dishes each episode and see who comes out with the tastier plate. Not too bad, but feels a bit underwhelming especially since it was aired right after Cook War. These dishes are more accessible to make by the average family, and 鼎爺 gives a lot of useful tips for cooking. It might have been better if they aired if a later time so we don't have a direct comparison to Cook War.

We hope you liked this post. Feel free to let us know what you've been watching! 

- CeeJay

Reference:

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%BF%A1%E7%BF%A0%E5%8F%B0%E9%9B%BB%E8%A6%96%E7%AF%80%E7%9B%AE%E5%88%97%E8%A1%A8_(2020%E5%B9%B4%E4%BB%A3)

Images retrieved from:

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