#tl;dr I'm a little frustrated with many of the formatting tweaks this season

[shadowetienne]

I’ve been watching Produce Camp 2020, though I’m not nearly as invested in it as I was/am in Youth With You 2/Qing Chun You Ni 2. The way they’ve formatted it and paced it this season is really not entirely doing it for me, though I do really like several trainees. First elimination I kind of just shrugged, with the way screen time was distributed, I had barely started recognizing anyone who got eliminated. There have been several performances that I quite enjoyed though, and I thought that the individual talents segment of the initial audition was an interesting addition (possibly the only “innovative change” they’ve made that I’ve actively enjoyed). Second elimination, I cared more for sure. (Putting my comments about trainees that were eliminated that I’m going to miss and the trainees that I currently especially like under the cut for spoilers reasons.)

First, trainees that I’m going to miss from this elimination (in no particular order)...

Cui Weimeixu: I enjoyed her personality on the show, and felt like she had a pretty solid skill set. I felt like we never quite got the chance to see all that she could do.

Miao Jingou: I really loved her voice in “Poem,” and I think that she was just starting to get the chance to show how talented she is. I’m sad to see her go, and hope that I’ll be able to see her do more in the future.

Tu Zhiying: I thought that she was cute and worked hard. She was clearly a very quick learner when it came to dancing, and seemed to be pretty talented. And she was rapidly improving vocally and seemed to have some solid ability. I’m sad to not see her get the chance to improve further.

Trainees I really like currently working my way up from the bottom of the rankings to the top of the rankings, so in order of most worried about to least worried about making it through the next eliminations:

Zhong Feifei: I really like her voice and think that she’s very talented. She’s also gorgeous and has awesome stage presence. I think that she’s clearly showing a lot of improvement and growth as she moves through the show, and I really hope that brings her more votes.

Wang Ke: I like her personality, and I’m really enjoying how hardworking she is and how well she learns and improves. She’s got so much stage presence, and her voice is really lovely and interesting. I want to hear more of her singing.

Hu Maer: I really enjoyed the TH Ent girls to start off with (we’ll get to the one I wan already invested in later), and I think that Hu Maer is well rounded. She’s a really solid and expressive dancer, and she’s got a really nice, stable voice. Also her smile is so attention catching.

Lin Junyi: I really want to see her do well partially because she didn’t get her chance the first time around (and I was rooting for her to get further first time around). She’s an excellent dancer and performer.

Wang Yijin: I really really like her voice. I’m excited to see how she does with the next performance.

Liu Xiening: She is (was?) one of my favorite Gugudan members, and I was always disappointed that she didn’t get many chances to show her abilities, so I’m glad that she’s really getting support here.

Zhao Yue: While I don’t particularly follow SNH48, she was one of the members that I was aware of and liked, so it’s good to see her doing well here in a format that I honestly get to enjoy her talents in more.

Chen Zhouxuan: This is the main person I came into the show pre-invested in! I liked her voice a lot already from what she’d done in the past (mainly on The Untamed/CQL’s soundtrack, but also I’d seen her singing clips from the singing competition she was on before). I honestly think that she’s got my favorite voice in the entire show, and I do appreciate that while she’s a far stronger vocal than dancer, she’s able to solidly keep up and look like she fits in during the dancing elements.

Nene: Her voice is good, she’s a solidly good dancer too. While she’s not in the very top of my favorites, I really do think that she’s earned her spot in the show. I’m relieved to hear her Mandarin getting more comfortable as she goes on because I felt stressed for her sake at the start.

Xilinayi Gao (Curley Gao): I was somewhat aware of her in advance of the show because she’d been on Sing!China (but not one of the seasons that I watched really closely). She’s got an amazing voice, and she is also solidly well rounded. I definitely think that she’s earned her spot as well, and I’m really happy to see her doing this well.

I’m very interested in this next round of performances, and I’m glad that it looks like the pacing of the show is going to tighten up a little bit from here on out based on the time frame of the next voting round. While I don’t expect all of my personal top 7 (Chen Zhouxuan, Xilinayi Gao, Wang Ke, Xu Maer, Zhong Feifei, Wang Yijin, Li Junyi) to make it through the next elimination round, I’m at least happy that I’m expecting 7 of my current top 10 to make it through. I just hope that the ones who do not get good screen time and are able to do interesting things in the future.