12 participants have to show their knowledge and wit in this survival game show where one will stand victorious. The show is constructed of a Main Match and a Prize Match each day where contestants earn Pieces which can be used in-game benefits, and these pieces will at the end be added to the final pot.
Rating: 3/5
It was a pleasant surprise that the producer of my favorite game show The Genius was also the producer of The Devil’s Plan. I didn’t know beforehand, but the visuals and the set-up was the same/really similar to The Genius so eventually I found out and my expectations peaked. Those expectations were short-lived as the show progressed.
Is it worth watching? Yeah and no. There are aspects that are good and bad. The games are not the greatest, but the thing that made the show enjoyable was the dynamic between the contestants.
If you did like The Devil’s Plan or want a game show with more well-thought out games I would recommend The Genius.
!!SPOILERS!!
The casting for the show was not it. Half of the cast just wasn’t smart enough or didn’t know how to play the game on their own. They brought very little to the games and the show. Eventually they became headless chickens under Orbit’s alliance. Kyung-lim as the reporter revealed her character too recklessly in the first game. Dong-jae and Hye-sung got eliminated because of Yoo-min who got easily swayed by the Orbit’s big alliance. There were more moments where people were more than expected naive and clueless, which ruined the show for me.
Only 3 people knew about the pieces and its puzzle, and none of the other contestants really tried to figure out the code to the prison safe. This could have been a more exciting aspect of the show if more people were close to solving it.
The Prize Matches did nothing for me, but it created one of the most exciting and memorable scenes in the show with Dong-joo and her memory skills.
The games were not enjoyable to watch. They were either too complicated or too easy. The 1st game was actually very enjoyable. The 2nd not so much. In the 3rd game I didn’t understand how anyone was going to survive without a betrayal somewhere, and the game just got lucky by the end with the whole Yoo-min situation.
Day 6 is a good example of what was wrong with the show. There are 7 contestants left (could have been 8) who just get thrown in the most undramatic game of Poker/card game because the producer needed to remove 4 players and 1 more in the Prize Match. In the start there 0 to 2 players eliminated each day then suddenly they had to get rid of 5 in one day. It ruined the whole flow of the show and it felt like the producer didn’t have enough control over their own show. In the Main Match everything went as expected. Dong-joo, Orbit and Seok-jin were the only players in my eyes that deserved to be in the final of those who were left. The other 4 just weren’t good enough and didn’t even put up a good fight. Orbit eliminated Don-joo during the Prize Match with a mistake that felt really unsatisfying as a viewer.
There are multiple moments in this show that felt really unsatisfying like the prison game. After figuring out the puzzle with the pieces to then find the word for the code to the safe in the prison they have then play a fairly difficult game to either be eliminated or earn a decent advantage going forward. The reward for all that trouble was not that satisfying.
For anyone interested The Devil’s Plan is on Netflix.
