going seventeen | insomnia zero ii
premise:
the same as the first insomnia zero, with the added rule that a member of the going staff 'sleeps' along with them. if the staff member has the lowest heartrate range out of everyone, the team they are a part of (sound, cameras, or lighting) get to go home along with the winning members.
comments:
insomnia zero ii came out in going seventeen 2021, over a year following the original season, which speaks well for the kinda underdog success of this series compared to the early bird TTT and the immediate icon-status of the explosively hilarious don't lie. meanwhile the members acknowledged how popular the memes coming out of the first insomnia zero became, essentially cementing themselves as part of a gose hall of fame of sorts.
while i did worry they were going to lean on those inside jokes a little too much towards the beginning, especially when it comes to insomnia zero having to do an individual round for all the members (of course, always really great for chemistry, but the biggest drawback is that the 13-member count means it'll always take so much time, even if junhui and minghao aren't in this episode). so i think the first half of this sequel does lag a bit. there's a lot of 'tasty's thrown around, and i get that the members love the joke as much as we do, but it just keeps begging for this episode to make itself worth it while constantly calling back to the first part's shadow. when that first round happens and the first three members are dismissed (unlike most of my reviews i am not going to spoil insomnia zero) you kinda expect, because of who the members are, for the rest of the second part to be a bit more boring. fortunately, insomnia zero has made itself a beloved episode for good reason, because the second episode just gets better.
new inside jokes ("그래? 그래!" and "i practiced a breathing technique") are just as iconic as first episode jokes to me. as much as the members get concerned and think the episode will reach carnival-levels of boredom, they're going to try their hardest at the game because the looming award of leaving going seventeen filming is always hanging overhead (i'll bring this up in later reviews, but the transparency in the fact that they always want to wrap up gose filming as soon as possible is a bit of a double edged sword for me ㅎㅎ). so you get the phone-unlock moment and the insanely annoying mukbang.
as for some criticisms i have, i think the looming threat of the staff leaving as well was a bit weak and has some room for improvement. it's a fun concept, but ultimately it didn't really amount to much. i haven't seen insomnia zero iii before, so i don't know yet if they improved upon it. something that's becoming more apparent as the episodes go on is that some members just have really wide heart rate variabilities -- which is actually really healthy and a good thing, but very very bad for insomnia zero. so at some points it does start to feel a little hard for members who are consistently ranking low throughout not just insomnia zero ii but the first run as well. then again, that's ultimately the fun of the game, so i don't know how they'd fix that :p o well
ranking:
concept: 9; don't fix what isn't broken
chemistry: 8; it's literally just getting more of insomnia zero i. i will say though the stories about each member felt more fun in i.
enjoyment: 8; not as good as insomnia zero i, but definitely more fun than the average episode.
overall - 8.6/10