Queendom Puzzle

Queendom Puzzle (

The show serves as a spin-off series of Queendom, however it does not share a similar format with the previous seasons, only taking the name of the series.^[2]

Concept and format

On January 26, 2023, it was announced that the Queendom series would have a third season, but would be different from the previous two seasons.^[3]

The show will focus on forming a global project girl group by taking members from currently active girl groups as well as solo female artists and piecing them together like a puzzle. It will take on a completely new format from the pre-existing Queendom series, with individual competitions taking place rather than team competition.^[4]

Out of the initial 28 contestants, they will compete through performances to finally become a 7-member supergroup, El7z Up (Korean: 엘즈업; RR: eljeueop).^[5][6]

Promotion and broadcast

On April 10, 2023, Mnet released the first teaser video on their YouTube channel. In the teaser, iconic girl group songs play in the background as well as the silhouettes of seven female celebrities are shown. Along with the confirmation that the first lineup will be revealed in May, the teaser includes the mysterious code on the bottom, "IURP WZHQWB HLJKW WR VHYHQ", which deciphers "from twenty-eight to seven".^[7]

On April 24, Mnet confirmed that

On April 25, it was revealed that WJSN's Yeoreum would be a contestant in the show.^[12] On April 26, it was revealed that members Jiwon, Chaerin and Bora from Cherry Bullet would participate in the show.^[13] On April 27, it was revealed that Yuki from Purple Kiss would also be a contestant.^[14]

On May 2, the remaining member of

On May 9, Mnet released a second teaser to officially announce the program's premiere date of June 13, 2023, at 22:00 (KST).[1] In the teaser, silhouettes of the cast members are revealed as well as Taeyeon standing in the center.^[16]

On May 18, Mnet released teaser photos of the first 13 contestants in silhouettes, as well as two teams created, Pick on the top and Pick-Cat. The two teams also released two theme songs titled "Charismatic" and "Snap" respectively on the same day, accompanied by two performance videos shown on M Countdown.^[17] It was also shared that the rest of the contestants would be revealed the week after, and that they would be releasing and performing the same two songs on M Countdown in their own versions.^[18] On the same day, Lee Chae-yeon and Haein were reported to have withdrawn from the show. They would not be replaced and the show would continue with 26 contestants.^[19] On May 19, Mnet released individual teaser videos and posters previewing the first 13 contestants revealed.^[20]

On May 25, Mnet released a second set of teaser photos of the remaining 13 contestants in silhouettes, as well as the two teams, Drop The Beat & Athena.^[21] The two teams also released different versions of the two theme songs on the same day, accompanied by performance videos shown on M Countdown.^[22] On May 26, Mnet released individual teaser videos and posters for the remaining 13 contestants.^[23]

On May 29, Mnet released a group poster containing all contestants and MC Taeyeon, as well as the profiles of the 26 contestants.^[24] On June 2, Mnet released the first teaser trailer.^[25]

On June 6, a behind-the-scenes video was released, showing the contestants meeting each other for the first time.^[26] An exclusive preview, also known as Episode 0, was also released, showing the first hour of Episode 1 that was to be aired in the following week.^[27]

On June 8, a special stage of the contestants was aired on M Countdown.^[28]

Cast

Host

• Taeyeon

Contestants

All of the contestants have previous experiences in the K-pop industry, either as a current or former member of a girl group or as a soloist. The lineup of contestants includes members of Cherry Bullet, Rocket Punch, Weki Meki, H1-Key, AOA, WJSN, Purple Kiss, Weeekly, Woo!ah!, Lightsum, TripleS, and former members of Lovelyz, CLC, Momoland, BNK48, and NMB48. The show originally had 28 contestants, though Chaeyeon and Haein of Laboum both left the show prior to its airing due to personal reasons.^[29] Both made appearances in the first 2 episodes.

Color key

Contestant Progress

Episodes

The final group will be decided based on votes through the Mnet Plus and Twinkple applications, where each voter choose 7 contestants to vote as an ideal final group.

First Voting Period

• The voting period for every week began from the start of the episode, to 2 hours before the airing of the following episode. The entire voting period started from June 13, 2023, during the broadcast of Episode 1, and had concluded on July 25, 2023, 23:00 (KST).
• One new vote (from each application) would be provided at the start of each episode, for 7 weeks. Hence, each voter would have a maximum of 14 votes throughout the voting period.
• All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the eventual ranking after this voting period. The voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

Second Voting Period

• The votes in the first voting period would not be carried over to the second voting period.
• The voting period would begin from after Episode 7, to during the broadcast of the Episode 9.
• Voters can vote once every day. However, on August 8, which is the live broadcast for Episode 9, voters can vote twice on this day: once before 20:00 (KST), and once during the broadcast of the episode.
• All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the eventual ranking after this voting period. The voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

Final Voting Period

• The votes in the second voting period would not be carried over to the final voting period.
• The voting period would begin from after Episode 9, to during the broadcast of the Episode 10.
• Voters can vote once every day. However, on August 15, which is the live broadcast for Episode 10, voters can vote twice on this day: once before 20:00 (KST), and once during the broadcast of the episode.
• All votes cast to each contestant would be accumulated throughout the voting period and will be reflected in the eventual ranking after this voting period. The voting results would be based on 50% for Korea and 50% for all other global regions.

Round 1: Up-Down Battle (Episode 1-2)

The 28 contestants are split into four tiers, based on the following criteria (as at April 24, 2023):

• Number of times the contestant has won first places in music shows (50%)
• Largest number of first week orders among all physical albums released (50%) (based on data from Circle Chart)

The two scores are added up and each contestant would be placed in Tiers 1 to 4.

Each contestant would then have a solo performance, and the remaining 27 contestants would each vote for the contestant. "Up" would be pressed if the voters each think that the performing contestant has performed better than the voter, and if otherwise "Down" would be pressed. After the performances, the contestants would be rearranged into their new tiers based on the results of the performances.

Order	Contestant	Song(s)	Original Singer(s)	No. of Ups and Downs	Original Tier	New Tier
Episode 1
1	Dohwa	"Elvis" "Bingle Bangle" "Come See Me"	AOA	Up: 11 Down: 16	1	3 (2)
2	Zoa	"After School" "Rum Pum Pum Pum"	Weeekly f(x)	Up: 16 Down: 11	2	2 ()
3	Jiwoo	"Rising"	TripleS	Up: 7 Down: 20	3	3 ()
4	Jiwon	"Gotta Go"	Chungha	Up: 24 Down: 3	3	1 (2)
5	Suyun	"Advice"	Taemin (Shinee)	Up: 12 Down: 15	3	3 ()
6	Nana	"Move"	Taemin (Shinee)	Up: 19 Down: 8	4	1 (3)
7	Chaeyeon	"Toc Toc Toc"	Lee Hyori	Up: 20 Down: 7	1	1 ()
8	Fye	"Hype Boy" "Gone Gurl"	NewJeans Fyeqoodgurl	Up: 16 Down: 11	4	2 (2)
9	Riina	"Rose Blossom" "Pop!"	H1-Key Nayeon (Twice)	Up: 8 Down: 19	4	3 (1)
10	Jihan	"Pop!"	Nayeon (Twice)	Up: 17 Down: 10	2	2 ()
11	Wooyeon	"INVU"	Taeyeon (Girls' Generation)	Up: 4 Down: 23	4	4 ()
12	Yeoreum	"As You Wish" "Mmmh"	WJSN Kai (Exo)	Up: 24 Down: 3	1	1 ()
13	Bora	"My Sea"	IU	Up: 25 Down: 2	3	1 (2)
Episode 2
14	Juri	"Heartburn"	Sunmi	Up: 7 Down: 20	3	3 ()
15	Yeonhee	"Dumb Dumb"	Jeon Somi	Up: 12 Down: 15	3	3 ()
16	Soeun	"28 Reasons"	Seulgi (Red Velvet)	Up: 13 Down: 14	2	2 ()
17	Soojin	"Flower"	Jisoo (Blackpink)	Up: 13 Down: 14	2	2 ()
18	Seoyeon	"Cherry Talk"	+(KR)ystal Eyes (TripleS)	Up: 2 Down: 25	3	4 (1)
19	Miru	"Shine Bright"	Miru Shiroma	Up: 5 Down: 22	4	4 ()
20	Yuki	"Wh0 Cares"	Yuki	Up: 13 Down: 14	2	2 ()
21	Sangah	"Black Dress" "Tomboy"	CLC (G)I-dle	Up: 11 Down: 16	4	3 (1)
22	Yeeun	"Cherry Coke"	Yeeun	Up: 19 Down: 8	2	1 (1)
23	Haein	"Journey to Atlantis" "Between Us"	Laboum	Up: 5 Down: 22	2	4 (2)
24	Elly	"Sonata of Temptation"	Ivy	Up: 4 Down: 23	4	4 ()
25	Chaerin	"Bicycle"	Chungha	Up: 4 Down: 23	3	4 (1)
26	JooE	"24 Hours"	Sunmi	Up: 6 Down: 21	1	4 (3)
27	Hwiseo	"Rose Blossom" "Tomboy"	H1-Key (G)I-dle	Up: 23 Down: 4	4	1 (3)
28	Kei	"Destiny"	Lovelyz	Up: 18 Down: 9	1	2 (1)

After Performances

Round 2: 7:7 Team Battle (Episode 2-3)

For this round, each contestant would choose one of the 2 signal songs, "Charismatic" and "Snap", in order of the number of Ups received from the Up-Down Battle, and there would be 14 contestants per song. In the event when there are already 14 contestants in one of the songs, the remaining contestants that have not chosen would be automatically allocated to the other song. Each song would consist of 2 teams: "Pick" and "Drop". After the contestants choose, in the Puzzle Room, contestant Jiwon would form the 2 teams for "Charismatic", while contestant Bora would form the 2 teams for "Snap". The formed teams would practice and then record performance videos for the songs.

• A panel of 13 expert judges (BtoB (Seo Eun-kwang, Lee Min-hyuk), Hyolyn, dance group La Chica (Gabee, Rian, Simeez), choreographer Choi Young-jun, music producer Ryan S. Jhun, film director Kim Do-yeon, music video director Lee Gi-seok, journalist Park Hee-a, and music critic Kim Yoon-ha) would watch the performance videos and evaluate them.
• In addition, the 14 contestants of "Snap" would evaluate both teams of "Charismatic", and vice versa.
• For each song, the team with more votes wins. The contestants under the winning team of each song would get a benefit of 10,000 votes.
• There would be 1 MVP for the winning team of each song, based on the selection of the expert panel. The 2 MVPs selected would have the right to form for the next round.

Round 3: Re-mix Battle (Episode 3-4)

The contestants would form new teams and recreate top K-pop songs by various K-pop acts.

• The MVPs of the previous round, Nana and Hwiseo, have the right to form all 6 teams, with both of them having the right to choose the song they want to re-create first. After that, the contestants of the winning teams would be distributed, then followed by the contestants of the losing teams. After the puzzling, only the contestants of the winning teams of the previous round can raise objections, and Nana and Hwiseo can decide whether to make the change or not.
• After each performance, the audience would evaluate it, and the score would be revealed immediately after voting ended. From the second performance onwards, the current first place team's score and the current performing team's score would be revealed simultaneously, to show whether the current performing team would replace the current first place team.
• The members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 20,000 votes.

Round 4: All-Rounder Battle (Episode 4-6)

The contestants would be split into Team Queendom and Team Puzzle immediately after the Remix Battle performances, starting from contestant Yeonhee being picked into Team Queendom and contestant Kei being picked into Team Puzzle, with the rest of the contestants choosing Team Queendom or Team Puzzle afterwards. As part of winning the Remix Battle, contestants Jihan, Dohwa, Nana and Suyun can bring contestant(s) from one team to another. Lastly, if one team does not have 13 contestants, through voting among the team with more than 13 contestants, contestant(s) would move to the team without 13 contestants.

• For this battle, each team would perform 3 rounds of vocal-rap songs, and 2 rounds of dance songs.
• For the vocal-rap songs, 3-4 songs would be shown, and each team will pick one song on a first come, first serve basis.
• For the dance songs, they would be newly produced songs, and the selection of the songs would be through a dance battle between the two teams; the winning team would get to pick 2 of the 4 songs available first, while the remaining 2 songs not picked would automatically be allocated to the other team.
• For each round, the audience would vote for the better performance of the 2.^[ap] The team that has the higher total score after the 5 rounds would take the battle, and the members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 20,000 votes. The winning team would only be revealed in Episode 7, which would be a special live broadcast.

Teams

Final Score

Round 5: Semi-Final (Episode 7-9)

The Semi-Final voting assembly-choice voting began from July 4 to 7, 23:59 (KST), via the Mnet Plus application, where voters listen to snippets of three newly produced songs and for each song, they pick 7 contestants they want to put in. The three teams would then be formed based on the votes. Subsequently, elimination of 5 contestants would be conducted on Episode 7 (special live broadcast), followed by member adjustments to the teams, such that each song would only have 7 contestants. The eventual performances of the three songs would be held in the Semi-Final, which is Episode 9 (live broadcast).

Through live text votes in Episode 9, the winning team is decided. The members of the winning team would each get a benefit of 30,000 votes. Subsequently, 7 contestants would be eliminated.

The following contestants from the three songs are eliminated before the performances:

Round 6: Final (Episode 9-10)

The 21 contestants would choose one of the two newly produced songs. After the elimination of 7 contestants that happened in Episode 9, the remaining 14 contestants would be split into 2 teams, through the grouping by the top 2 as at Semi-Final, Hwiseo and Nana.

The following contestants from the two songs are eliminated before the performances:

Discography

Queendom Puzzle Team Battle 1

Queendom Puzzle Team Battle 2

Queendom Puzzle Rise Up

Queendom Puzzle All-Rounder Battle 1

Queendom Puzzle All-Rounder Battle 2

Queendom Puzzle Semi Final

Queendom Puzzle Final

Chart performance

Ratings

Notes