Wow, Seasons 1 and 2 could not be more different. All the issues I had with Season 1 were
(1) bad structure of competition. One of the contestants placed first several times, but she was eliminated because her teams didn't do well in the group competition. This is dumb. It means they penalized her basically for being successful individually. And naturally she was very upset being eliminated. Rightly so and not fun to watch or fair.
(2) the judges asked really awkward questions about how contestants feel that are pretty obvious. Like someone will be crying and they judge will be like "how does that make you feel?" and it's pretty obvious how they feel. It's like they were doing things just for TV drama. Like why ask a contestant "who do you think should be cut from the show"? Unless you want a cut-throat show, that's just unnecessary. The contestants clearly like each other. So there's no need to put them on the hot seat. No one wants to say "Take me, kick Adam off" and kind of unfair to expect them to do that.
(3) I like when contestants show emotions, but sometimes it got a bit stale. Perhaps this is partly the judges' fault. Would have felt more natural if it had been more human instead of cold. I personally blame the directors. The contestants were overall very compelling. There had to be a way to keep that, but make the show feel more entertaining. More natural empathy would be better instead of like an interview.
But WOW season 2 did a 180. They fixed all those things. So rare. Rarely do shows admit they screwed up and fix the issues, but they did just that.
Season 2 is amazing and I loved it.
Contestants still super compelling, but now it's competitive in a good and fair way. They also stopped asking for contestant advice on who to send home.
I'd say
Season 1 = 4/10
Season 2 = 9/10.
