Reality TV Shows in South Korea

Reality TV Shows: we have no shortage of them. We’ve got heaps of singing competitions on every channel, then there are cooking battles, model searches… We don’t need anymore of these shows but they keep popping up. I have lost interest in these shows!!!! However, in South Korea they have some really novel reality TV shows that I find oddly interesting.


Pic of Lettuce Couple in 'We Got Married'

Let’s start with a show called ‘We Got Married’, as the name suggests it’s about newlyweds. Don’t be so quick to judge, the show doesn’t follow ordinary couples that just got hitched. That’ll be too ordinary. They actually follow celebrities, the show is nothing like the US reality show ‘Newlyweds’ starring Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. Let me run through the premise of the ‘We Got Married’. They randomly pair up celebrities together (A List Celebs), then they have a mock wedding and begin a pseudo marriage for the cameras that follow them everywhere. Each week they have to complete tasks together like do a photoshoots... Top Korean celebrities have participated in this show for a few months, they can choose to leave the show when they want to. They learn each other habits, have little arguments… It is a warm fuzzy, humorous family show. It’s not wild or vulgar. I’ve watched some episodes about the ‘Lettuce couple’ a cute nickname coined by fans for couple Hwang Bo and Kim Hyun Joong. They made an interesting couple to watch because Hwang Bo is quite outspoken and not girly. Kim Hyun Joong has a blunt sense of humor and his not gallant. They had some really funny moments on camera, like their last night on the show Joong did something out of character and corny just for his wifey. He decided to make a good-bye video. While he was working on his costume through the night he fell asleep, hunched over sitting on the ground. It was very funny. They cried in the last episode because they were so sad that their time together was over. It’s really nice funny show, check it out.

The boy band MBLAQ got their own reality TV show called “Kim Suro’s Prestigious University Class”. This show documented the 5 members trying to get a place at the prestigious Seoul University. To get a place they have to pass the University’s entrance exam. It might be interesting if USA did a version of this show and have wild teen celebrities study like crazy to get in to Harvard or Yale. The show followed the boys studying and studying and more studying. Of course all the fans and viewers want to see the boys succeed after following their journey and watching all of their efforts. When the results came out… all five of them failed their entrance exams. Clearly from the result you can see the show isn’t rigged and I imagine the boys would find the result especially embarrassing when it was aired on national TV. I wonder how their parents reacted? Poor guys. Hope they get better luck next time.