Tag Archives: Mango TV

Reality TV Round-up – May to July 2025

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Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer (2025)

A look back at the women who disappeared from New York City and Long Island before the 2010 discovery of female remains found in the Gilgo Beach area of Long Island, which lead authorities to believe the deaths were all connected. – IMDB

With any crime documentary series, its always interesting to see how certain events unraveled. With this one, its intriguing because it starts off as one case that actually verges off into something else that seems much bigger. However, its how things sometimes are when

Netflix documentaries are always something of a mixed bag. Gone Girls is one that caught my attention because of its name similar to a book that I love Gone Girl which made me want to see what its about. The documentary centered around the disappearance of a young girl which eventually led to finding the multiple bodies in an area that was suspected to be connected. While the documentary spent a lot of time unearthing all the other connected murders and who could be involved, it circles back to its start and addresses the cold case at hand which still has a lot of unanswered questions and suspicions.

Gone Girls is a pretty decent look at this case which focuses on the unfortunate women who are forgotten because of their profession that has distanced them from their own families. There’s been a few documentaries on Netflix that does go into that angle. I don’t really want to go deep into this since its well worth a watch especially on how the case unfurls.

Sisters Who Make Waves 乘风2025 (Season 6, 2025)

Sister Who Make Waves is a show that invites successful female figures from all walks of life who are 30 and above to break out of their comfort zones to create memorable performances while being in competition to stay in the show based on audience voting.

While I haven’t watched the first few seasons, the last season introduced an international element that I thought really made me want to keep going. I usually watch these things based on the celebrities that I like to watch and the same goes for this season as they included veteran Hong Kong actress Cecilia Yip and Sheren Tang but also have younger faces like comedy duo Zhang Xiao Wan and Guan Yue as well as a few familiar faces from TV series in recent years like ex-Rocket Girl 101 Wu Xuan Yi. I think I’m the minority but I actually wanted to see this for a less popular choice, Jiang Yi Qiao, a talented singer songwriter that I think doesn’t get enough credit.

For what its worth, the show actually managed to put together a really interesting group that had a lot of space for growth. There was no doubt that Cecilia Boey’s group would be a highlight with her great girl group skills. This group also having some fun surprises but all the groups unlocked a lot of potential from celebrities that haven’t been in the public eye as much due to family or whatever other reason.

In a world where girl groups and boy groups are all the rage, this show (and the male version Call Me By Fire) highlights the attractiveness of being 30 and over which maybe its my age right now but I appreciate what this whole show represents.

I’m The Surprise 我是隐藏款 (Season 1, 2025)

Thirty innovative “designer toy” creators bring their original IPs to the show, teaming up with six celebrities to form three studios. Through a series of themed creations, they closely collaborate and continually challenge themselves in creativity and design. Using painting as their artistic language, they witness the “72 transformations of IP,” infusing these trendy emerging IPs with vibrant artistic value. This journey also brings domestic “hidden gem” original IPs and talented designers into the spotlight. – MyDramaList

As blind boxes have become a rather permanent wave in the younger community, I’m A Surprise strives to highlight Chinese designers with their original IPs which different degrees of popularity. They focus on three pairs of celebrities who start the show putting their allocated show’s currency to invest in different designs to build their teams and then set them on various challenges and after its main challenge, having to eliminate their own team to start the next phase of challenges to eventually find the top one based on audience vote from both live, the “big bosses” (the group of collectibles experts) and online voting.

The whole show is a refreshing take on new material. Its one of the things that have given Youku a facelift recently the last few years as it starts to build these trendy shows. However, unlike other shows like dating or whatnot, collectibles are incredibly subjective to all kinds of preferences from the style to the color to the purpose to its emotional value and having the actual designers sell the toys along with different celebrity teams with their own different level of popularity plus normally some skewed “professional” opinion, its hard to not feel like sometimes things don’t quite go the way it should go.

Not to mention some of these designs have had incredible following online so its not weird that the competition while supposed to be locked into secrecy, still get leaked through their various live streaming promotions. Whether its fair or not, in the end, truly depends on an individual’s view. For myself, who is quite an oddball when it comes to collectibles, actually liked a lot of the lesser loved properties. Although to be fair, the designer team that won did deserve it since their design did prove to be very adaptable to all the themes.

With that said, it was a pretty fun show overall. I do hope to see a second season but maybe with a few added rules to keep it more balanced and fair on the entire process for each of the teams whether its budgets or other elements.

Clarkson’s Farm (Season 1-4)

I honestly never thought I’d sit around watching Jeremy Clarkson run a farm. I liked Top Gear and Grand Tour and watched it every once in a while especially for the Top Gear specials but to actually be watching four seasons of Clarkson’s Farm was unexpected but my husband’s love of this and the few times I’ve watched it gave me the push to check out and see why he liked it so much.

To say the least, it was a surprisingly an enlightening experience. Every season has a different endeavor and added a different twist because of the challenges and it would seem since he’s started the Diddly Squat Farm there’s been mostly challenges because of both inexperience, natural and environment extremities and the town council being a hurdle in itself. The first season had a fun and basic one like wilding which I personally enjoyed since I’m kind of in a similar task for my garden so its on a smaller level. Its just a quick example of how some of it is rather educational or maybe just partially learning as Clarkson’s Farm makes their own mistakes but also as he learns about the various aspects of farming.

Watching a farming show like this does have its purpose to spread some great knowledge about the importance and difficulties in this crucial industry in a more entertaining way. I was also skeptical when I started but it has been a pretty fun time between the silly decisions and the banter.

Reality TV Roundup – September 2023

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Great Escape Season 5 (2023)

Cast: Yang Mi, Justin, Wowkie Zhang, Xu Kai, Guo Wei Zhang, Evonne Xie

Great Escape is one of the Chinese TV variety shows that I catch all the time and follow closely. Its pretty incredible to see how the staging for these elaborate escape rooms have developed. The puzzles themselves are sometimes unique as well. For those who don’t know what this is, its basically a big escape room puzzle in a big setting with an elaborate story where 5 celebrity cast works together to solve the puzzles to escape. I actually reviewed the first version of this before it became Great Escape called The Chamber of Secrets Escape. What Great Escape has become is truly something both scary but comedic. Part of the fun is watching the many settings scaring and challenging its cast.

Season 5 takes Great Escape in a different direction where it brings in a quests mode where every setting has 3 quests. Some of these are individual and some are team quests and this will give them all their own ranking. For those familiar with Mango TV shows, its taking a direction similar to that of Who’s The Murderer. It isn’t surprising since Mango TV is trying to cross-promote its different shows lately. Even Great Escape has a spin-off IP Encounter where celebrities from their other original shows like Call Me By Fire and Sisters Makes Waves, shows up for escape room setting. Not to mention the VIP blocked Master version which puts a bunch of young celebrities, a few of them with strong academic background, joining together to solve the escape rooms which sometimes are changed up or if the same, it shows a different approach. I haven’t watched the spinoffs for Season 5 so I won’t comment on it here.

This season, Great Escape also welcomes back season 1 regular Evonne Xie who has been joining into a few more Mango TV shows. The last one was in Run On Time 2023 which I talked about last roundup. She’s always a fun addition and a member that I missed from the first season because she always adds a bubbly happy vibe to the group. This season, the normal regulars like Yang Mi and Wowkie Zhang all seem less scared and this development makes it more comedic as now they aren’t afraid to interact with the jumpscare NPCs. However, the scaredy-cat role gets taken over by Xu Kai after his guest appearance in Season 4 as he challenges himself at the start of the season that he will be able to be more brave by the end, which he somewhat achieves.

Great Escape Season 5 keeps up its fun elements. This time, the settings are more elaborate and meticulous in its creation. The background story they have to navigate is also well structured and unique. As usual, it always has some kind of message to ponder. There is a central element of time travel in this season which adds the sci-fi element of the show which was always there since previous seasons always had the blue-blooded aliens story in between. This time, it builds up a deeper world full of different dimensions which brings them to different time periods. If there was something that I felt was lacking in this season, it probably is the lessened amount of physical obstacles. Still, its a great time and I’m looking forward to the next season next year.

The Next 2023

Mentor: Charlie Zhou, Ella Chen, Qishan Huang, Jay Park, Ningning, Amber Liu, Wowkie Zhang, Jackson Wang (Creative Director)

Contestants: Ziwei Xu, Weize Cai, Oscar Wang, Veegee, Caelan Moriarty, Jinxin Cai, Lok Tung Tsang, Meiqi Meng, Babymonster An, Wonderframe, Leezi, Yubo Huang, Weier Bao, Jeryl Lee, B3Rich, Yuzi Zhang, Wanlin Chen, Yu Pu, Tianze Li, Sunny Lukas, Wang OK, Yaotao Wu, Deying Dai, Lyly, Zheyu Lin, Haofan Shao, Muye Qiu, Haibai Mei

26 performers, who are at different stages in their music careers as well as in life, step up on stage to perform as their authentic selves. Through different challenges, they compete against the others to earn a spot in the top 5. – MyDramaList

Its been a while since I’ve watched music competitions especially after the boy and girl group shows got put on the backburner after what happened after the last season of Youth With You which got cut right before its final performance. This show is not one of those shows but it is Tencent’s way to promote young singers, some of which are completely new to the industry while a few have been there for a while. Its understandable to have some more popular young celebrities mostly because it helps to pull in the viewers at the very least if the mentors don’t pull some weight either especially since Jackson Wang is present but is doing background work as creative director.

Since we’re talking about Jackson Wang, its a good starting point to talk about the mentors for the show. If you look at the list above, the mentors are really well-rounded. All of them has their own background and experience from being the music industry and entertainment business. They also all have their individual musical styles which helps the contestants. Charlie Zhou is multilingual and has a background in opera and pop music and is known for his wide vocal range especially his soprano voice. Ella Chen who found her fame as part of the Taiwanese girl group S.H.E. also brings her knowledge from her exceptional vocal abilities. Jay Park is the international mentor who is the most objective in his opinions and has his own hip-hop background while the rock music representative who got her fame from being part of a band is Qishan Huang. Its a well-rounded group of mentors who all have their expertise to share and a pretty good dynamic as they double as the host of the show.

The contestants are a decent selection. There are a lot of 18 year old musicians who is still studying in music or independently making their own music while some others are more in the indie music scene in different musical styles and then there are the few who have a big following mostly because of other shows like Produce Camp, The Coming One, Youth With You, etc. What is unique about this show is that it doesn’t have to be individual singers but rather they could also join as a duo where there were 2 groups that were bands. There’s not a whole lot to say about the contestants since its all in their performances and you can find all of that on Youtube on The Next channel but in a nutshell, my faves were teamed up for a performance which also happens to be my favorite performance of the whole show.

The Next 2023 had a lot of discussion from its viewers and while I think the winner is pretty good but it was a pretty predictable and safe choice for a music show, the show did achieve its purpose for this cast of contestants by helping them gain popularity by having all these stages to share their talent. I do hope that this show gets another season.

Reality TV Roundup – April & May 2023

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Come Sing With Me我想和你唱 (Season 4, 2023)

Hosts: Sijun Qi, Mengchen Shen, Han Wang

Guests: Alec Su, Cyndi Wang, Yuexin Wang, Yuan Zhang, Hu Lu, Chusheng Chen, Reno Wang, Bibi Zhou, Wilbur Pan, Chenyu Hua, Fiona Sit, Paul Wong, Wowkie Zhang, Nicholas Teo, Yisa Yu, Silence Wang, Miriam Yeung, Roy Wang

After a long hiatus since 2018’s Season 3, Come Sing With Me finally returned with its season 4 of six episodes for their wonderful concept of having fans sing live with their favorite singers. How it works is that they start with a pre-selected hundred people who participated in their online sing together session and start with the entrance with everyone sings along and then 3 of the hundred are selected to compete to perform together with the singer and eventually one person is chosen for the final duet. As a perk this time, the first few episodes also gave a chance to join the Youth Pi Project which aired shortly afterwards.

Come Sing With Me is a pretty neat concept that I would gladly participate if I was in Asia, although some people are able to access it via their app (something that I haven’t figured out how to do in North America or perhaps its closed off post-pandemic). The singers they choose are often pretty much the ones that I’ve grown up with with a few younger or older celebrities but still have a purpose of being introduced to some new music.

This time, the hosts changed to a newer duo with Mengcheng Shen and Sijun Qi, the latter really picking up the host status since his involvement with a few seasons of Great Escape Master Version which helped him boost his popularity and has been hosting a few other variety shows as well in the past year or two. They have a good dynamic and charisma and paired with the older host Han Wang who takes up this season hitting the road to meet certain fans face to face, really brings out a nice personable element to the contestants. The hosts are supported by somewhat of a comedic support group which consists of various singers, hosts and celebrities in general which offer their opinions and help boost the mood, involvement and excitement. They bring in the entertainment and create a much more interactive space as they usually share their thoughts which are usually not influential but still manage to add some fun reasons behind it most of the time.

The choice of singers this time is pretty decent. The best probably still being Paul Wong who is the key member of the now Beyond who represents what they were in the early days of the band. Fiona Sit was an interesting choice considering her singing career never really took off until the recent decade or so much like Cyndi Wang who I used to think only had a few hits in her discography but proved to have a pretty decent selection. There are some great choices with Yisa Yu and Silence Wang who is popular but mostly for their TV series OST music and Chinese-Malaysian singer Nicholas Teo who gained popularity in my teens and had some of the best vibes. Plus, they ended it with Miriam Yeung which no doubt is one that I enjoyed immensely considering I also recently did a Music Obsessions on her discography HERE.

Queer Eye (Season 7, 2023)

Hosts: Jonathan Van Ness, Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown

Queer Eye heads to New Orleans in Season 7 as they continue their makeover journey for diverse people. There really isn’t a lot to say about Queer Eye but that I’m a big fan of the show because it is a reality show that truly brings out an accepting and positive vibe.

This time they start off with a bang as they follow up from the previous season’s prom makeover by making over a group of people and a shared space with fraternity boys to upgrade both their space and give them the boost to take care of each other, themselves and their living space. Its a pretty great tone to set which gives the show a great overhaul that its been building up to over the past few seasons where it no longer is just Karamo that delivers on his culture aspect and helping with their minds and personal hurdles but the team in general helps drop their own wisdom and guidance. This episode set the perfect tone for the rest of the season.

While I’m going to save the spoilers and skip analyzing each episode, the most touching makeover is probably “Superfan Steph”. Its a rather heartbreaking and education story about someone who has come out but also doesn’t realize that she actually has a phobia of herself because of the community around her. Its something that is incredible to watch since its easy to see the LGBT community but then there are still so many community and personal hurdles for some people to go through that no one really knows about.

At the same time, the one that probably connects the most would be “Jenni Seckel’s Diary” since her story is something that I struggled with when I was a young adult with body image and comparison which makes for a lot of hiding, which I’ve mostly been able to get passed but to watch this makeover for this hero who is doing something so significant somehow reminded me of those days so on a personal level, this episode connected the most of me.

To be fair, Queer Eye is much more than a makeover show now and its always been a show that I’ve enjoyed because of all the positive, no only the Fab Five and what they teach their heroes but also the heroes they choose bring hope that while the news delivers a lot of bad news about the world in general, there are still a lot of people fighting for a better tomorrow in their own ways.

How To Build A Sex Room (Season 1, 2022)

Designer Host: Melanie Rose

Couples looking for more spice in the bedroom hire luxury interior designer Melanie Rose to create stylish spaces where they can carry out any fantasy they wish. – IMDB

Every once in a while I like to choose something completely out of left field and this time its How To Build A Sex Room mostly because I was trying to find something relaxing and fun and makeover shows usually are pretty cool especially when they are themed. How to Build A Sex Room is exactly as the title says where Melanie Rose goes out to use their designated space for a sex room that matches their needs.

The show itself was pretty diverse in the couples they chose in many angles. There were both heterosexual couples and LGBT community but also some more interesting structures like one that calls themselves a family where their sexual relations include a group of men and women all with different needs and it all ends with a solo project for a recently divorced woman looking for a space to have fun. With the different spaces and requirements, it also lead to a variety of design styles and atmospheres. That’s probably one of the best parts of the show as well since it shows that a “sex room” is not always a sex dungeon as portrayed by different forms of entertainment but rather it can be in any form as long as its a specific private space where some form of intimacy happens.

Overall, How To Build A Sex Room is a really fun show. There’s a lot to see and learn from this show surpassing its home makeover element in a sexy and kinky way. Most of the sex rooms turned out to be incredibly elegant and functional. While the show doesn’t seem have any news of a second season but I definitely wouldn’t mind to see another season of this.

TV Binge: Use For My Talent (我亲爱的小洁癖, 2021)

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Use For My Talent (我亲爱的小洁癖, 2021)

Director: Cong Cai

Cast: Yue Shen, Jasper Liu, Yunfan Dai, Charles Lin, Yanan, Mengdi Su, Sirui Huang, Quan Tan, Ran Xiao

Because of his incomplete family, Gu Ren Qi has a closed up personality and mysophobia. Shuang Jiao used to have a happy family, but later lost her mother in a car accident, and became a slovenly person. The two became acquainted when Shuang Jiao becomes an employee in Gu Ren Qi’s cleaning company. The two became closer as they get to know each other. Under each other’s influence, they began to heal from their wounds. – MyDramaList

Watch on: Mango TV (Youtube & App) & Netflix

Use For My Talent is a Chinese adpatation of 2018 Korean series Clean With Passion For Now. Let’s just get this out of the way right now that I’m not a big fan of Korean series so I usually don’t go and watch them so I haven’t seen the original of this series. However, Use For My Talent landing on Netflix was such a treat although it does have Shen Yue who is on another Netflix series, Meteor Garden (a Mainland China modernized remake of the 2001 Taiwanese series both directed by the same director Angie Chai) and Jasper Liu in Taiwanese Netflix series Triad Princess and Korean/Taiwanese collaborated variety/travel show Twogether (review). These two main cast members are no doubt talented in their own regards and great to see them together especially as Jasper Liu seems to have moved his focus into Mainland Chinese series now and making a more frequent appearance.

Running at 24 episodes (my favorite length for these types of romantic comedy-drama series), Use For My Talent is a fun one to watch. There’s a good balance of humor, drama and romance that blends together to create this one. It does get a little peculiar in parts but the characters are done pretty well. Not only the main couple, Ren Qi and Shuang Jiao is fun to watch but the two other supporting/secondary couples are also very fun to watch and each having their own dynamic which gives a good variety. Plus, it takes time to look at mysophobia that Ren Qi has and dives into that angle to give it its own drama moments but also using it as some parts of humor especially when encountered with his polar opposite Shuang Jiao who opens up his eyes to slowly accepting the world and treatment to be able to get closer to her. I’m sure some of this stuff is either exaggerated or simplified for the drama’s purpose but it does expose an element of this phobia which leads to using the cleaning company while having a focus on how technology can’t necessarily replace the human element of some services.

Having touched on it a little before, the characters here are absolutely a treat. The main leads played by Shen Yue and Jasper Liu are really great. Shen Yue is probably one of my top favorite young actresses in the last few years as most of her series and roles have been both fun and believeable especially as she gradually moves into TV series set outside of the school setting. I’ve seen most of her shows (even if I never got around to the review). She has this natural and down to earth essence to her that makes her really believable in her roles and carries the emotions really well. The same applies for Use For My Talent where she plays as Shuang Jiao and the character is pretty decent. Funny how things turn around as this show adapts from a Korean series and earlier this year, Korea adapted a Chinese series that was her debut role in A Love So Beautiful (review). On the other hand, as popular as Jasper Liu is, I haven’t seen him outside of two variety shows but there’s something about him that is very charming and he does have pretty good acting skills as well. The chemistry between the two worked really well and came off fairly natural even by the end when he would do the very sappy/cringy sweet talk. It was hard to not cringe but also secretly like it just a little especially as it was a nod to a conversation from a prior part of the series.

Of course the series isn’t just about them but also has some colorful characters. Another couple is RenQi’s assistant DongXian who is very slow and unromantic but ends up with a popular lifestyle streamer QianQian. They are a little fun to watch especially since DongXian’s character is rather hilarious overall but has a little bit of a sad backstory (like a lot of the main cast). Aside from them is ShuangJiao’s little brother JunJie who ends up chasing up her sister’s best friend Yan who has their own sweet moments. The process for both of these having a similar dynamic but pretty funny and entertaining. No series is complete without some sort of love triangle and that brings in Yunfan Dai’s character Lu Xian, a psychiatrist that recently returned to China for 2 purposes: one to repay a debt that ShuangJiao’s mom offered him at a young age (which leads him to falling for her) and the second to act as the consultant for RenQi’s phobia and hopefully control and cure him to a certain extent. His character is pretty decent as well. In most Chinese series, family is also a big part and here the two leads family can be considered opposites of each other and on one side very comedic in dynamic and on the other side, very strict and maybe a little intentionally frustrating.

If there was something to nitpick a little, it definitely would be regarding the choice of melodrama that they used to break the two apart which is an inevitable part of these series but how is always where it works or doesn’t. What they used is always a frustrating choice although props to the two leads for being able to create some genuine sad feelings for this break-up.

Overall, Use For My Talent is an absolute treat. In terms of pacing, comedy and romance, everything works really well. The ending is a little odd with the whole melodrama but thanks to well-connected characters, despite the situation set up, they still manage to carry through the heartwrenching breakup feeling between the two. Its a rather impressive one which highlights some of the talent in the Chinese market.

With all that said, next mission…catch up on Jasper Liu’s series. Anyone have suggestions from the Netflix available ones? Please let me know.

What’s Up 2020: Week 23

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Another week has gone by as we step into June! Weather is warming up and we’re starting to find the reason to get back to the great outdoors and hike some more to escape a little and get back into shape a little more. We will leave that for the next Weekly Adventures and upcoming posts.

READING

No Signal

  • No Signal by Jem Tugwell (Review)
  • Reaper: A Horror Novella by Jonathan Pongratz

Currently reading: Call Numbers: The Not So Quiet Life of Librarians

Fantastic progress with reading this week. I’ve been reading outside by the pool or in the sun a little during lunch time or weekend mornings. Its a lovely feeling and very efficient in terms of just catching up to the book commitments that I have to try to wrap up before the end of June. I’m definitely getting back on track! Both of the books that I read are really pretty good but I’d have to say that No Signal is impressive as both a sequel and the premise it takes and especially the world building. You can check out the review linked above.

PLAYING

hidden folks

Currently playing: Hidden Folks: On Tour

Hidden Folks, in general, brings me immense joy and then they always deliver new levels for free and that makes me also very appreciative. There’s just so much to love about Hidden Folks from its sound effects made by humans to its cute little things you need to find in the level and the quirky descriptions they use as clues. Its really a lot to love and their latest free DLC level is On Tour is just great. I’m still playing through the 2nd of 6 levels or something so still a long way to go.

WATCHING

the garden of words

  • Harith Iskander: I Told You So (2018)
  • Hannah Gadsby: Nanette (2018)
  • The Foreigner (2017, Review)
  • Gwen (2018)
  • The Garden of Words (2013)

A little bit of stand-up comedy shows and a few more movies this week. Its really quite the improvement from the last 2 weeks at least. About time too, since I was running out of movies to review for the double feature if I didn’t start picking up some more movie watching time. Some solid movies here which were very different. One was slow-burn, one was nice and the other was action so it had a nice balance. The Garden of Words is my highlight of this week, although the two stand-up comedy shows were pretty decent also. This anime is only 45 minutes and is directed and written by the creator of Your Name and still has some great storytelling abilities as well as visuals.

BINGING

welcome back to sound

  • The Big Flower Fight (Season 1, 2020) Review
  • Welcome Back To Sound (Season 1, 2020)

Currently binging: Produce Camp 2020, Me To Us, Woof Meow Story, Go Fridge 6, Yes I Do 2, We Are Blazing, Queer Eye S6

While I had a lot of fun with The Big Flower Fight, I do have to say I’ve been really loving Mango TV’s latest variety reality show, Welcome Back To Sound which is pretty much bringing back the concept of radio shows where people call in with their stories and they listen and give their advice or discuss and try to suggest or guide them. The goal of the show is to pull people away from the screen life and bring back human contact of being on the phone or writing letters, etc. Some of the stories are incredibly touching and some are fairly bizarre and quirky and then each show, they have a listener goal and a different mission/challenge as their own showcase or structure. Its too bad that Mango TV doesn’t have English subtitles as its one of those shows that would be definitely worth a watch especially since the three hosts and their guests are all very fun to watch. At least Season 2 is confirmed so looking forward to that hopefully before next year.

That’s it for this Week 23’s recap!
What have you been reading/watching/playing/binging?

Music Obsessions – March 2020

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Welcome to March 2020! Its time to do a monthly roundup of music that’s been on my playlist! Its been quite a mixed bag and some of it is from various phases I’ve gone through and shows I’ve been watching and whatnot.

Just Let It Be – Dimash

A few years ago, I heard Dimash’s first performance on I am a Singer 2017 snippet and it was awesome! He sang this French song called S.O.S. Although there were pronunciation issues, his voice is amazing because of its range and control. I hadn’t realized that he had released music since then but then I found this song and its just awesome. Its nice to see him break out of his classic music and head into something that brings both this classical skills to something a little fast-paced and modern.

Amazing [Find Yourself Ending Theme] – 林世民 Shimin Lin

I just finished Find Yourself this past week and TV binge is coming up soon. A little backlog this year so it’ll happen soon. The ending theme for Find Yourself was unusually an English song, albeit a little language issues in the lyrics but the rhythm and the singing is pretty soothing. Because of that, then it played during the series, it actually matched a lot of the scenes well and this one kind of really grew on me over the process of watching the 40 episodes.

皮囊 Pi Nang – 蕭敬騰 Jam Hsiao

I can’t believe that I haven’t shared songs from Jam Hsiao sooner. This Taiwanese singer actually came to fame around the time that I had fallen out of Chinese music so he’s somewhat of a newer discovery. Jam Hsiao is part of The Singer 2020 this year and he has a killer voice with a wonderful grasp on the falsetto and higher pitches plus he likes fast, quirky and more hard rock style plus adding on his performances, it all works really well. This song is amazing. Honestly, it seems like a fun one to just sing to your heart’s content (even if its not going to be easy to sing).

《爸爸去哪儿》第五季主题曲MV
Dad Where Are We Going 5 Theme Song

I went back the past month to check out Season 5 of Dad Where Are We Going because of my recent wrapping up of Ashes of Love and my new obsession with the actor Alan Deng. In this reality show where celebrity dads take their young children on various trips to challenge and build their bond, Deng Lun takes on the trial dad where he takes care of a little girl who seems to have some social media fame. Its just incredibly cute and heartwarming to watch. This theme song is so cute that I can’t help to listen to it non-stop. Plus, almost all of these dads were celebrities that I grew up with: Jordan Chan (from Young and Dangerous series), Will Liu (Taiwanese singer where I went through a phase of loving his album), Wu Chun (from ex-Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit).

等爱 -[“海棠经雨胭脂透”片尾曲MV] – 邓伦 & 阿兰

Well, I did say that I’ve been looking up Alan Deng’s stuff so while I haven’t went on to other TV series yet but I did find that he has a talent for singing and this song for last year’s series Blossom in Heart is a beautiful duet that he does. It has some more harmonizing moments with the female singer Ah Lan, who I also do like her music. I’m still debating whether to watch this series since it seems to hit a few things I don’t like about TV series from the snippets here so we’ll see. However, this song has been playing on repeat! Love it!

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
Its been a pretty solid month for music discoveries!
I actually had to make some decisions to not overload!

What have you been listening to?