Korean Variety Show: Two Days One Night

Photo taken when the show was on the TV - [KBSWorld]

First of all, I would like to confess that I don’t watch Korean dramas, I’m not into K-Pop and I’m very under-informed in that area. But there is a variety show from that ‘K’ establishment that I watch regularly, or rather almost religiously.

The show is a travel, game, culture mix that falls under the ‘reality TV’ variety because, for the span of two days and one night, the cast members will be followed and filmed as they travel and play games for meals and sleeping arrangements. A more in-depth article about the show can be found on its Wikipedia page.

I need to point out here that the ‘reality’ part of the show is very different from the US interpretation of a reality TV which often involves people shouting at each other, which I’m not a fan of.

I don’t even remember when I first saw ‘Two Days One Night’. It was probably around late 2007 or 2008 because I did not watch the show from the very first episode; I later found out that there were a few members who left the show before I started watching.

I love travel shows. I guess that’s what made me first watch the show. I love experiencing the places they go to [although only virtually] and the games they play and the members are just entertaining. But don’t think this is a real game show - it’s not - and the members even admit that they are there to entertain; in other words they sometimes, in good spirit, cheat and exaggerate and purposely lose the games just to make it interesting - to have more ‘air’ time. But one thing that is consistent throughout the years is that when they don’t get to eat, because they lost a game, they simply don’t get to eat; which some of the guests have voiced their surprise that the members skip a meal for real including the guests, whom one might think should be treated with some consideration because most of them are celebrities, also will have to skip a meal.

More than anything, I really enjoy watching the interactions between the cast members. The current group seems close; they even talk about doing things together outside of the show.

Photo of image on TV: Kim Juhyeok during a Seollal visit 2017 - [KBSWorld]

It was early 2017 when I thought of writing about this show, but it was when they celebrated their 10th anniversary later that year that I felt I should write about it. I was watching what was supposed to be the second part of the 10th anniversary episode and thought it was weird, even if understandable, that the segment was like a tribute to Kim Juhyeok who left the show a couple of years before, after a short stint. It was towards the end of the show that I found out about his sudden death. I guess it was because I was alone and because I was also dealing with a death in my family that I actually cried for someone I didn’t even know.

To talk about the show and not talk about Kim Juhyeok would not be right because even before his death, he had left a deep impression in the two short years he was with the show; they were contemplating of having a special episode with him. It’s pretty evident that the production staff feel the same way because the opening of the show hasn’t changed; it still contains his pictures. If you can imagine someone who wears his sincerity and kindness on his sleeve, and men around him look up to him not because he’s tall - those are my impressions of him. And, in my opinion, he has shown a lot of himself more than any of the other cast members past or present. To say anything more would be unfair because I don’t know the man. By the way, I thought the ’Most Handsome’ award should have gone to him, and I’m not saying that just because he’s gone.

Photo of image on TV: The cast members and Kim Juhyeok during the 2017 Seollal - [KBSWorld]

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It seems flimsy to say that a TV show leaves a deep impression in you, and that it gives you a bit of happiness. Ideally you’d want to be able to find happiness within yourself. But when you’re going through a difficult time every little thing helps.

& More

- Talking about happiness, this here is just happiness for me; to watch a family of cats in Korea - the Suri & Noel cat family. There are a lot of YouTube videos featuring cats, and cats everywhere are just fun to watch. But I like how the cats are treated here and I enjoy watching the human’s interactions with the cats as much as the cats themselves - even if I don’t understand Korean; some of them don’t have English subtitles.