Running Man ep 195 – I Am MC Yoo

Running Man ep 195 – I Am MC Yoo

Aired: 5/11/2014

Overview

The guests and members form three teams and compete in a series of games, while MC Yoo narrates the action.

Staff Scores

Planning and Direction: 5

The basic concept was quite good and held a lot of potential, and the choice to do a “survivor series” style elimination at the end was a good choice considering the number of guests, as it would have likely been a mess if everyone was involved at the same time. However, the mini-games before the main event were pretty lacklustre, and the use of the guests could have been much better – 2NE1 and 2PM are ‘big name’ guests and Mystic89 are very good at variety, so each group would have been more useful as the only guests on an episode. Finally, it felt like the MC Yoo concept could have been improved with a bit more importance to the games, such as including a twist to the role that impacted the final mission or something similar, rather than just having him do play-by-play from beginning to end.

Postproduction: 4

Very so-so as usual from Running Man, with the usual boring soundtrack and solid but unspectacular visuals.

Songs Featured:

David Bisball – Baleria
2PM – Heartbeat
2NE1 – Fire
Yoon Jong Shin – Reincarnation
Lim Kim – All Right
2NE1 – I Am the Best
2NE1 – MTBD
Hi-Standard – Pink Panther Theme
Mission Impossible – Theme
Gabry Ponte – Time to Rock
Moby – Extreme Ways
Parov Stelar – Hotel Axos

Cast Scores

Yoo Jae Suk: 7

The main character of the show, Jae Suk had an enormous amount of screen time as he was tasked with narrating the action throughout the episode. His performance was solid, but not spectacular, as he spent a large amount of time playing the role straight by simply narrating the action without much comedy. He had some good moments too though, such as his taunting during the food segment and his many antagonistic interactions with Jong Kook.

Kim Jong Kook: 6

One of the best Jong Kook episodes in awhile, he was active in the show from beginning to end and did very well in portraying his character in effective ways, as well as working with Jae Suk to provide comedic moments.

Ha Ha: 3

HaHa was practically invisible in this one, as he did not appear much at all during the mini-games and was eliminated very quickly during the main game.

Ji Suk Jin: 4

Another member who didn’t appear much, he provided some comedy with his inept cup-throwing and name-ripping skills, but that was about it.

Lee Kwang Soo: 4

Kwang Soo worked well with Jong Shin in the opening segment, but disappeared afterwards.

Gary: 5

Gary had one of the best moments of the episode during first game, when he mistakenly took off at light speed without the ‘baton’, his flippers flapping in the wind. He also worked hard during the final game, even though he didn’t add a lot of creativity to his role.

Song Ji Hyo: 3

Also disappeared for most of the episode, and didn’t even take part in the final game at all.

Guests

2PM, 2NE1, Mystic89 (Yoon Jong Shin, Cho Jung Chi, Muzie)

The guests were overall not too bad, although there were too many large groups for anyone to stand out much. 2PM were typically solid, they tend not to do too much or too little, which is usually fine for Running Man. Mystic89 were easily the funniest, which is to be expected since they have by far the most variety experience. 2NE1 were boring as usual, unfortunately. They’ve never had great variety/talk show personalities, but they were also hurt by the structure of episode a little bit as well since the games were mostly physical, which precluded them from a lot of scenes.

Episode MVP: Yoo Jae Suk

Considering how much of the episode was centered around him, it would be shocking if he wasn’t the most important member of the episode, and he did a standard but professional job as the lead character.

 

Final Score: 5

Very up and down episode, with a mostly boring first hour and a good final 30 minutes. Jae Suk did a good job, but there was a bit of guest overload going on as well. All in all, an ‘OK’ episode of Running Man that somewhat failed to reach its potential.