As The Zone: Survival Mission returns to Hulu for its third eight-episode season, dropping three installments on us at once, it soon becomes clear that the series has switched things up a little bit. Actor Lee Kwang-soo, who co-hosted seasons 1 and 2, has departed, leaving its mainstays, comedian and media personality Yoo Jae-suk and actress and former Girls Generation member Kwon Yu-ri, to be joined by two new “agents of mankind.” That’s what the hosts of this variety/mystery series are called, as The Zone places them in various simulated environments with the challenge of navigating their way through. For season 3, Jae-suk and Yuri are joined by former mixed martial artist and entertainer Kim Dong-hyun and Kim Jin-young, a YouTuber and former member of the Korean special forces who goes by Dex.
Opening Shot: Over upcoming scenes from the series, we hear the voice of the show’s in-house AI program. “The virtual space has been activated. Do everything you can to survive.”
The Gist: That’s not as serious an ultimatum as it might sound. The Zone: Survival Mission is like a variety show in motion, with its hosts subjected to constantly changing environments where they’re expected to work together to solve new problems, with the constant being lots of laughs and exclamations. As the “updated AI 3.0” greets Jae-suk and Yuri from its virtual pagoda, they meet Dong-hyun and Dex. (Jae-suk razzes Yuri for being coy, because while Dex is a former soldier, he looks like he could be in a boy band.) As the AI explains, this season on The Zone will focus on the new normal post-pandemic, as humankind confronts different kinds of issues. Like AI itself, for example, and the prevalence of stuff like ChatGPT. Artificial intelligence informs the first Zone challenge, which begins with each host’s watches being set to a four-hour countdown.
The team enters a large room that resembles a special effects studio, where they’re greeted by many different “AI” versions of Yoo Jae-suk himself. They’re all actors with Jae-suk masks, of course, but The Zone demands a certain level of suspended disbelief from both its hosts and the viewing audience. “They’re all Jae-suk!” Yuri exclaims. “This is crazy! Are they your relatives?” The Yoo-bots proceed to pursue Jae-suk, Yuri, Dex, and Dong-hyun through various rooms in the facility as they work to unlock virtual easter eggs and protect their Zone-issued watches from being stolen by the bots. It’s about teamwork, it’s about improvising – often madcap – solutions on the fly, and it’s about messing with Jae-suk in a good-natured way that highlights his lengthy resume of Korean variety show appearances.
An animated map inset with player positions and power-up locations suggests a video game as the hosts navigate various chambers – a water balloon room, a maze, an upside-down house complete with an inverted slot machine – and are needled by onscreen text, like giant arrows highlighting Yuri and Dong-hyun not helping Dex and Jae-suk as they’re harassed by multiple Yoo-bots. We even see the occasional flash-forward drop-in, courtesy of AI 3.0, that hype other challenges and sticky situations to come on season 3 of The Zone: Survival Mission.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hulu also features Outrun by Running Man, a spinoff of the perennial variety show hit Running Man, which shares a production team with The Zone: Survival Mission. And Yoo Jae-suk and former Zone co-host Lee Kwang-soo are both in Korea No. 1 on Netflix.
Our Take: The Zone: Survival Mission is kind of like being given a series of cameras to watch a group of people you’re familiar with work their way through a haunted house, with the added bit of the haunted house actively trying to impede their progress. It can be a bit disorienting, with our understanding that what Jae-suk, Yuri, Dex, and Dong-hyun are up to is actually pretty low stakes despite all the yelling. But they are committed to the bit from the get-go, and what emerges is a natural, inviting chemistry. Throughout the early going of season 3, there’s a kind of getting-to-know-you thing happening between the two veterans and the two newbies, with Jae-suk prodding Dex – “Are you scared of ghosts?” – and Dex saying no, only for The Zone’s AI 3.0 to show us a flash-forward of Dex being jump-scared during an upcoming episode. It’s all kind of ridiculous, but the show’s “agents of mankind” are all-in on the joke, and that creates an energy similar to the quizzes, hot wings eating, and reading of tweets that celebrities promoting their projects always have to do nowadays. Yuri, Dex, Jae-suk, and Dong-hyun could be sitting around a table gabbing, and that would probably be funny, too. But isn’t it more entertaining to watch them get chased around by Yoo-bots?
Sex and Skin: None, unless you count The Zone, as a gag, digitally obscuring Jae-suk’s chest as he uses his nipples to virtually unlock a chamber.
Parting Shot: Over scenes from next time, where the team will be stuck in a house made of paper, AI 3.0 joshes The Zone’s noobs. “Despite the increased difficulty of season 3, I expected a lot more from Dong-hyun and Dex. I see that you guys are not off to a great start.”
Sleeper Star: “How can you be so silly and cute?” This season, The Zone seems to be playing up a fun bit of attraction between Yuri and Dex, but Yuri herself is still its secret weapon. She’s always game for whatever the show throws at the team, and her exclamations are always really funny. “I’m sick and tired of all the Jae-suks!”
Most Pilot-y Line: The Zone’s in-house AI introduces season 3, which originally debuted in the wake of COVID. “Though the pandemic is over, the world is more chaotic than ever. To survive in such a world, the current agents of mankind will need a lot of help. Two secret weapons will be joining us.”
Our Call: STREAM IT, because The Zone: Survival Mission asks nothing of you other than to be mildly entertained by the antics of its hosts. While its challenges are appropriately harebrained and unpredictable, it’s the chemistry between Jae-suk, Yuri, and new additions Dex and Dong-hyun that will keep us coming back.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.