101 trainees from various labels come together to compete for the top 11 spots, and whoever ends up in the top 11 will get to debut in a girl group together. And while some of these girls are from labels I've never even heard of before (LOUDers? REDLINE? YAMA&HOTCHICKS?), others are from incredibly well known labels (JYP Entertainment, MBK Entertainment, Cube Entertainment, Jellyfish Entertainment, Starship Entertainment, and more). All the girls are pretty much equally hard working, but not all the girls are equally talented... or, more importantly, equally well known.

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'Produce 101' depends heavily on the netizens' votes, which seems hardly, hardly fair. One of the most popular girls on the show is Somi, who was a well-loved contestant that people already saw on JYP Entertainment's show 'SIXTEEN'. She ends up very high on votes all the time, and has been a regular in Top 11 since the show started. However, I can't find any fault with Somi. There are many other girls on the show who people are familiar with through other audition programs such as 'Superstar K' or 'K-Pop Star'. Same goes for MBK's Dani, who may as well have debuted (and for a short moment, almost did, with T-ara N4) but haven't actually done so. However, while I'm still unsure how fair this game is, none of these girls (including Somi) have officially debuted, so I don't think their participation is illegitimate.

However, girls I do bring into question are girls like Chanmi, Ki Heui Hyun, Jung Chae Yeon, and even girls like Yun Chae Kyoung and Cho Shi Yoon. All of these girls have debuted already (in the case of Chanmi, debuted twice). As one of the girls said in the first episode, is it really fair to bring on girls who've already debuted before? These girls already have a confirmed set of voters, some of which will never vote for anyone else, no matter how much they mess up. 

That, inevitably, led to the biggest outcry the show has seen so far...

Starship Entertainment's Yoo Yeun Jung's team's loss. I'll admit it up front - I'm Yoo Yeun Jung's fan. I started the show because I saw her sing, so I'm going to be a bit biased. But no one can argue that Yoo Yeun Jung's performance was better than Chanmi's performance - and perhaps anyone else's performance on the competing team made of Chanmi, Ki Heui Hyun, Jung Chae Yeon, Somi, and Jung Eun Woo. The team was nicknamed the 'Avengers' team, because it consisted mostly of girls who were incredibly popular to begin with and had experience. However, going up against each other, Yoo Yeun Jung performed so well with vocals that she was the hottest issue of episode 3. Her articles and video on Naver and Youtube were the hottest things looked at for the episode - so much that Yoo Yeun Jung, who had never had the spotlight in episodes 1 or 2, got a lot of it in 3 and 4.

Team 1: Yoo Yeun Jung (main vocal), Park Hae Young (subvocal1), Yoon Chae Kyung (subvocal2, leader, center), Cho Shi Yoon, Kang Kyung Won

Team 2: Chanmi (main vocal), Ki Heui Hyun (subvocal1, leader), Somi (subvocal2), Jung Chae Yeon (subvocal3, center), Jung Eun Woo

Chanmi's less-than-stellar performance is admittedly not her fault - she'd said her throat condition hadn't been so well lately (aka she was sick), and that happens to the best of us. However, it still holds that her voice cracked and she made noticeable mistakes. Her voice wasn't at its best condition, sure, but if judged for this performance, she should not have done well. But she still scored 36 votes out of 417 (Yoo Yeun Jung didn't get that many more at 67). Most of the votes went to Somi, who was cute and good at her part (honestly, probably much better than Chanmi) but didn't do anything striking. Somi got a whopping 118 votes out of 417 and carried Team 2 to victory despite the performance. Chanmi and Ki Heui Hyun admitted that the victory was all due to Somi - in fact, Ki Heui Hyun had aimed for this to begin with and had brought Somi into the team.

So is that really fair? 

No, I don't think so. Even though the show claims its goal is for netizens to unearth 'hidden gems' (girls such as Somi, Dani, or Chanmi are gems but definitely not hidden), this isn't a talent show. It's a survival show that unearths idols, and popularity is a very important factor of being a girl group, no matter where it stems from - face, previous recognition, talent, or anything else. And it does, on occasion, unearth gems such as Jellyfish Entertainment's Kim Se Jung. 

It's not to say people didn't like Kim Se Jung before (she'd ranked #2 at episodes 1, 2, and 3) but her absolute command of Wonder Girls' "Irony" as well as her unending care for cute-but-not-so-talented REDLINE's Kim So Hye so she could blossom. She garnered a whopping 204 votes out of 506 for her "Irony" performance, the most out of all the girls.

It also yanked Happy Face Entertainment's Hwang Soo Yeon into attention. She'd ended up with 180 votes out of 593, winning even over the well-loved Choi Yoo Jung who'd become a favorite after standing front and center of their 'M! Countdown' "Pick Me" stage. Her 180 votes for "Hot Issue" is the 2nd most votes of all the girls for the episode. Just like Yoo Yeun Jung, she'd never had the spotlight before (she'd had even less than the vocalist), and with this chance, her talent had finally been cast in the spotlight.

The same happened for Magic Fresh's Park Min Ji, who had pretty much never shown up in episodes 1-3, even though she'd been Rank A from the start. Her vocals during KARA's "Break It", a difficult song to begin with, won her the most votes for the performance, landing her in #11 for episode 4. 

That leads me to another big problem of 'Produce 101' - the editing. In the staff's defense, it's hard to give 101 girls (now 97 and soon 61) an equal amount of time on a show, and it's hard to notice all the girls. It's also understandable why so much time is given to girls like Kim So Hye, who's adorable and works her butt off to stand with girls more talented than she is. She's a fan favorite, always ranking high in votes, most likely because she's very likable, which probably explains her frequent appearance on the show. But it still seems unfair that someone like Kim So Hye can get so much time on air while someone like Park Min Ji can't even get a minute.

And of course, the infamous 'devil's editing' also has made its way into 'Produce 101'. The biggest victim of this seems to be Chanmi and Ki Heui Hyun. Chanmi came out as incredibly arrogant in her interviews, claiming Yoo Yeun Jung was chosen as JeA's teaching aide only because her throat was in a bad condition. Some people saw well-placed confidence, but most saw baseless arrogance, especially combined with her reaction faces during Yoo Yeun Jung's high notes and her own voice breaking. 

Ki Heui Hyun, on the other hand, came out as bossy and scheming when she gathered all the popular girls. Frankly, her choice was understandable, and her reason legitimate: she pointed out this was in the end a competition. However, her team designation was questionable. She wasted no time placing Chanmi at main vocal and then herself quickly at subvocal1. It was made worse when Somi timidly pointed out during an interview that she wanted to be subvocal2 but couldn't say anything because she was the maknae. Her team designation was also strange in that subvocal4 (technically the least talented subvocal) took the parts that the main vocal was supposed to have - meaning she probably should've been subvocal1 right after Chanmi.

I doubt either one of the girls are actually as they were portrayed. In fact, when Chanmi first heard Yoo Yeun Jung sing, she mouthed, Her voice is so pretty to Ki Heui Hyun. We also saw Ki Heui Hyun try her best to help other girls in Group C when she was chosen as the leader.

But the results? Well, if the 'Produce 101' staff were purposely targeting these two, they succeeded because a lot of netizens now hate them. In a show where voting matters pretty heavily, that could be a critical hit... or the pair could be safe with their fanbase. The pair of them have always placed in Top 11, and in either case they are safe for next week with the 1,000 votes they got from winning the competition.

There seems to be a lot wrong with 'Produce 101' - and of course we have to wonder if the Top 11 aren't already decided for, and if voting matters at all. It's clear there's not going to be a system that satisfies everyone, but do you think the show could have been better formatted? What do you think about the including of already well-known trainees others with debuting experience?