Letter #108: Transit Love 3

Good morning, Erin.

I hate having to wait a week for each new episode of the dating shows I watch. It’s fun to keep up with the rest of the world (though we will revisit this topic later), and the weeklong anticipation buildup makes it undeniably exciting when the new episode drops—but I’d much, much rather be able to consume these at my own ravenous pace. 

However…

The one thing I genuinely enjoy about the wait between episodes, though, is that it allows me time to recap each new episode to…well, to whomever I can sucker into listening, of course, but (relevant to this letter) to Theresa at work. I love reliving the episode in my head, organizing the events into a story that someone who isn’t watching can not just follow but connect back to the discussions from previous weeks, and essentially performing a monologue for an audience. I look forward to it every week almost as much as I do watching each new episode. 

The running joke about this routine is that Theresa thinks of it as us doing a podcast that’s just me explaining Korean dating shows to her week to week as someone who isn’t watching. But I took the joke a step further and named the podcast: “Real Quick—Let Me Tell You….” Because that’s usually how I start my recaps: we finish talking about something at the start of the workday, and then I introduce the recap by telling her I just want to quickly catch her up on what’s going on. (There’d also be a sort of sub-podcast, an intermission segment called “Can I Interrupt? I Brought Snacks!” (so named because that’s what she’d say to introduce the segment), where she has me try a fun new dessert she’s found so we can discuss how we feel about it before going back into the recap.) She and I have been through this little routine probably six times, by now, and Transit Love 3 was no exception. 

But how was it? How did the new production team stack up? What about the cast? Have we finally met the girl who pushes So-e from my heart???

Well, strap in, dear seonbae—all this and much, much more as we plumb the depths of Transit Love 3. 

1. So-e’s still my favorite. No worries there.

2. …but my favorite girl from this cast has probably moved into the #2 slot.

3. I thought this season was great! I really, really, really enjoyed it. And I think the new production team did a fantastic job. All in all, I probably don’t think it was (objectively) as good as Season 2—but I’m pretty sure I liked it more. 

3A. From the production side, I think they really nailed pretty much everything: excellent storytelling (pacing, foreshadowing, timing, twists), excellent casting, and excellent balance of established formula versus new ideas. They never strayed too far from what they inherited, but they also knew how to tweak things juuuuuust enough to keep the cast off-balance (given that they all knew what to expect from previous seasons) while introducing entirely new elements that felt both recognizable and fresh. 

3B. Complaints from the audience were mostly about the show being too slow or the cast not being very interesting, but I think all of those people just wanted the mess of Season 2 all over again—which, much as I loved Season 2, I’m very happy to have avoided. Instead, we got a very deliberately paced, “character”-centered series. slowly revealing its story in unofficial little three-episode arcs that always kept you focused on where things were at that moment while also quietly hinting at where things were going to go—either very soon or towards the end. (I mean, go back and scrub through Episode 1 and the editing choices are plain as day, with hindsight.) Where Season 2 was excellent reality TV, Season 3 felt more like a documentary: a curated—though, crucially, not scripted—tale of individual stories told holistically and with its ending very, very much in mind. And the cast was, all things being equal, pleasantly chill with each other, often with multiple people breaking off to have interesting (if not always romantic) conversations that usually came around to feed into their individual storylines. And I’d happily watch the whole thing again. 

3C. …which is not to say that things don’t get messy and drama-y and repetitive towards the end, because they absolutely do. It’s just not the majority of the show. Just the end. Where it’s after A) the ex- reveal, which means the fighting is expected; and B) after the network issued its order to extend the season from 16 to 20 episodes, so…gotta fill that runtime with something. 

3D. And the new stuff…oh goodness did I love the new stuff. (More on that later on.)

3E. …which is saying something, I want to make clear, because the new production staff came over from Pink Lie—and, when I heard that, my shoulders slumped. I absolutely DID NOT want any of that getting into my Transit Love…but, to her credit, the new director saw what was in front of her (be it the previous seasons or the casting pool) and adapted to it. 

3F. That said…there was no giant inflatable bus in the front yard that would have the newest “mission” for the cast stuck to it. Which was a terrible disappointment. 

4. The start of Transit Love 3 overlapped with the end of Single’s Inferno 3, so I was in no state to jump right into a new dating show, even though I’d been looking forward to this one. I think three or four episodes were out by the time I felt comfortable enough to give it a look. And, though I was immediately hooked, residual bitterness from 11 hours of motherf***ing Gwan-hee be a pile of dicks in a raincoat absolutely affected my tolerance level for certain interpersonal shenanigans—and, yes, we’re going to get into that. 

5. Great New Decision for Season 3 #1: the string motif. To give you an idea of where everyone stands before arriving at the house, each member of the cast goes into a room with a very dramatic setup: a large device holding aloft a piece of string over a table with a placard that instructs the individual participant to either cut the string (if he or she was ready to move on) or tie a knot in the middle (if he or she wanted to rekindle the past relationship). It happens pretty much right away, and just seeing this new beat gave me a bigger thrill than when we found out there was a second island on Single’s Inferno 3. 

5A. For what I’m guessing were narrative reasons, production doesn’t do as much with this as I’m sure they’d intended to—especially since, as it turns out, the cast goes back to this room a second time and is allowed to change their answers…and, with one exception, we don’t see any of it. 

6. Last year, the house was at the bottom of this ridiculous hill, forcing everyone to climb an obscene number of stairs to get to their cars or the bus in the morning when they went to work. This year’s house, on the other hand, was located at the top of a hill, which, by virtue of only being silly rather than ridiculous, forced everyone to climb only an annoying number of stairs to get to the house in the evening when they came home from work. (See? Told ya production knew what tweaks to make!)

7. The show does a great job of picking when to reveal (one at a time) who the ex-couples are—and it doesn’t draw out the mystery, either. Whether revealed early on or later in the season, each ex-couple is given to us when knowing who they are most benefits the story. 

7A. And, not to brag, but I figured out who two of the ex-couples were by the end of Episode 1: one by methodically comparing various comments in confessionals with who was tasked with what during their first night dinner preparation; and one by doing the most rudimentary deduction about 30 seconds before the show revealed the couple to us. 

7B. Of course, it’s not like it took a great deal of effort to connect these dots ahead of time. I don’t mean to imply that the show makes things obvious, but it also doesn’t go out of its way to deceive you. (Remember what I said about its deliberate storytelling?) So, when I say I figured it out, I mean I noticed the breadcrumbs the show was leaving me—because it generally wants each reveal to grant the audience clarity of hindsight rather than to totally surprise them. Which I quite enjoyed as an editing strategy.

8. Great New Decision for Season 3 #2: cleaning. The cast of Transit Love 2 was notoriously sloppy—to the point where news articles were written to decry their slovenliness, prompting the staff of TL3 to preempt any such controversy by having one of the official rules of the show literally be that everyone had to clean the house every day. (Like, no joke: “do the dishes” was given as much importance as “don’t reveal your ex.”) The cast chuckled when they read this, the hosts broke out into fits of laughter, and I nodded in appreciation. Because we all knew what was up—and it was great. Well done, production.

9. I know, I know—you’re dying to hear about the cast. Well, we’re not quite there yet, Erin, but I’ll give you this little teaser for now:

This image is what immediately springs to mind when I think of TL3: that light blue dress across from that dark blue suit—waiting awkwardly as the rest of the cast wanders around the house. Less than an hour into the first episode, I didn’t even really know their names or what their personalities were like—but something about this image gripped me and never, ever let me go.

9A. Does that mean these two are my favorites? Is this my ship? Do I just like the pretty blue dress??? Patience, my friend. We’ll get there. Promise. 

9B. Except also F*** YES THIS IS MY SHIP. And we are sooooo going to get into it.

10. In hindsight, the show’s steady, deliberate setup of future story beats begins almost immediately in Episode 1 with how they edit together cast reactions—both body language in the moment and comments in confessionals—when each new member enters the house. While the audience is scrambling to suss out who is reacting to whom in a way that shows they might be exes, the production is carefully taking you through who is (or will soon be) attracted to whom, whether they are exes or not. It’s a clever way of using the premise to its storytelling advantage, since the audience is more primed for detective work than focusing on love lines. 

11. Every single cast member asked the others their names when they met for the first time, and I was like, “GASP! This is a family show!” The absolute scandal, Erin. 

12. When discussing their “types,” one of the men says he likes “sexy women, like Lim Ji-yeon”—that is, Main Bully from The Glory. And I said, “Is…she sexy?”

12A. Now, I don’t know whether he was talking strictly about the actress or if he meant her character in The Glory was sexy. Though, regardless, my reaction is the same.

12B. Which is not meant as a slight against Lim Ji-yeon, mind you. It’s just that the guy said it like it was a well-established fact that she was generally considered sexy, which I was surprised to hear. I mean, it could have been a translation issue or that common grammatical mistake we make when speaking casually, but the subtitles definitely had him saying that he was into someone sexy such as Lim Ji-yeon rather than into someone like Lim Ji-yeon, whom he finds sexy. Or, like, maybe he thinks everyone thinks she’s sexy because he thinks she’s sexy. I dunno. But, again, regardless, I raised an eyebrow. 

12C. Wait…she’s dating your boy from Hotel Del Luna?! Oh, that feels weird. I’m not entirely sure why, but…I mean, good for them, if they’re happy, but…don’t think I like that. 

13. On the other hand, one of the girls says her type is Hwang Min-hyun, the idol who played my boy Yul in Alchemy of Souls (...which is a great show that you should absolutely watch), which is a choice I absolutely understand. He is a very handsome fellow.

14. As with Season 2, the first round of official dates was determined by the girls picking anonymous cards submitted by the boys. Which was exciting to get to, of course, but also nerve wracking—because, in Season 2, this initial date selection was followed immediately by one of the girls being kicked off the show (for “breaking the rules”). Fortunately, nothing of the sort happened, this time. 

14A. I don’t think I mentioned it in that letter, but the accepted speculation from fans was that the girl in question in Transit Love 2 was discovered to have had a boyfriend outside of the show. The exact series of events which might have led the production to find out about this while filming (as opposed to ahead of time) is…a long story we won’t get into, but the basic idea is that the girl likely met her new boyfriend after being cast but before the show started—but she still wanted to do the show because she essentially “needed” to do it: she repeatedly referred to herself as being unemployed, and the show A) would have given her a good amount of exposure to put some wind in the sails of her career (she was freelancing as a makeup artist and model), and B) paid its cast a pretty good sum for being there. Her being kicked out disrupted the show, obviously, but it was doubly bad because she was clearly poised to be the breakout star of the season—and the production knew it. They must have been thrilled to cast her. 

15. I swear I know the “this is a lighter moment” background music they use throughout the season. From an anime series, I think. My mind keeps saying it’s from Just Because (which is one of my favorite shows of all time), but it could just be a stock track used in a lot of anime series.

16. Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one ever seems to be on the same page about their end-of-day “who made your heart flutter?” text messages strategies: some people just go for whomever they like the most, no matter what; some people think there’s a sense of etiquette to consider and that you should always text the person you had a date with because that’s the polite thing to do; and some people take the prompt very literally, texting whomever made their feelings spike the most that day, regardless of whether they’ve got something bigger going on with someone else—to say nothing of trying to use the texts to split your attention and make a move on someone you haven’t had the chance to flirt with. All of which is fine, because all of these are valid ways to look at who to choose. What I don’t understand, though, is why no one ever seems to try to share their ideas about the strategies they favor as a way of letting people know what their intentions might be either in sending or (in some cases) not sending a text on any given day. I mean, maybe production tells them not to do that, which is the kind of detail we never see that undoubtedly jams people up when they try to have honest conversations, but…if they can get around the “no confessing your feelings in any way!” rule by saying they’re “curious” about people, surely they can speak in riddles about their preferred texting strategies. I dunno. It’s just one of the things that always gets me, especially when the texts can make or break the rhythm of your game. 

16A. I’m just saying…if you and I had a little something going on maybe, but I ended up having an awesome date with another girl after you and I had started having that something going on maybe, I’d absolutely make sure you knew why I did or didn’t choose to text you that night. 

16B. …unless this awesome date with another girl totally turned my emotions around. In which case I’d hardcore ghost you for the rest of the show.

16C. Kidding. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not saying I wouldn’t make an awkward mess of trying to quietly handle the situation, but I’d never ghost you. 

16D. Pfft. As if anyone would be stupid enough to jump ship from you. 

17. With Transit Love 3 fresh in my mind as I jumped straight into binging the first third of My Sibling’s Romance, I became very aware of something I…well, that I already knew about myself but hadn’t given much consideration to: I really like to invest in one strand of the overall story, when it comes to these dating shows, and I am waaaaaaaaaaay less concerned with (one might even say actively against giving the faintest whit about) much of the rest of the romantic entanglements. Which…why do I love these shows so much, then? Weird.

18. Oh! This is a great spot to mention: if you haven’t been watching Frankly Speaking on Netflix, start right now. It’s so much fun. Probably neck-and-neck with Branding in Seongsu for my favorite K-drama of 2024, so far.

19. This season makes a BIIIIIIIIIIG production out of the mandatory truth-or-drink night, sending everyone to a fancy restaurant to do it. Half of everyone dreads having to do it. The other half is, like, pregaming how angry they’re going to be at their exes. The segment goes on for about an hour, if my notes are to be believed (which…I’m not sure that’s right—but it was a pretty long segment; I remember that quite clearly). You know I’m not a fan of this game, but I didn’t hate this one. I didn’t exactly enjoy it, but we sort of get helpful information out of it, which is nice. And it doesn’t turn into an uncomfortable blood bath. Which is also nice. 

20. …I really hope you brought snacks, Erin, because we’re not even halfway through this one. 

21. Great New Decision for Season 3 #3: utilizing the chat/talking room to amp up tension. So, in the previous season, the participants would sometimes be sent to sequestered off-site rooms to communicate anonymously with each other, either through a messenger app (“chat room”) or through a speaker system that would scramble their voices. They were one-on-one conversations designed for one person to elicit information about another’s ex, typically because he or she was interested in or was going on a date with that person’s ex without revealing who was who’s ex. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes the person being asked questions gets jealous and just frikkin’ lies—you never quite knew what to expect, but you knew it would get interesting. But for Season 3…they ditched the whole one-on-one thing and had people meet IN GROUPS. You wanna see people gettin’ upset about their exes being on this dating show? Put them in a room with a bunch of other dudes/chicks who are hidden by voice scramblers or behind keyboards and lettin’ everyone know if they think they’re hot or not. It messes with the ex, it messes with the others who may not have realized there was so much competition—it’s great. It was one thing seeing people come back wondering which other guy or girl had been sniffing after their exes, but it was something else entirely knowing they were surrounded by adversaries. (To say nothing of what they did to the ladies with the phone booth—but maybe that’s a detail too far.)

21A. And speaking of rooms I forgot to mention in Transit Love 2:

22. Great New Decision for Season 3 #4: skipping the “ex” room. The “ex” room (which I cannot believe I didn’t mention in my previous letter) was a big event in Season 2, where the participants had a chance to reminisce about their past relationship with their exes, if they chose to—the implication being that they’d be given the chance to go speak with their exes in private, which they had not yet been able to do…but the reality was that, rather than meeting their exes, anyone who accepted the offer to visit the “ex” room would walk into…y’know what? I’ve been on a kick with these photo inserts; might as well show you:

Yeah, they walk into a Dexter Kill Room of their old relationship: this creepy, macabre shrine to their most private moments and cherished memories—photos and letters and emails and ticket stubs and perfumes and shirts and bread from that Italian restaurant they always went to. Skeeved me right the f*** out, but the cast found it quite sentimental. I, um, I guess you had to be there. (Actually, I assume the participants had a moment of “Ah, so this is why they asked me to give them printouts of all our text messages!” when they walked in, which would probably have lessened the degree to which it felt like stumbling into a stalker’s lair.) So, this time around, the cast is all prepared for their turns to come…and they don’t. Instead, they are given the chance to visit the…I don’t remember what they call it…I dunno, the “new love” room? Let’s say that: they get the chance to visit the “new love” room, which is the same kind of Dexter Kill Room but for one new person that each member might be interested in and, as such, glean some cherished information about. Which, when we see them, feels even more voyeuristic and weird, somehow. 

22A. …except there actually is an “ex” room! Twist! Yes, upon arriving at the location of the “new love” room, the participants are met with a sign that tells them they have to make a choice: continue on to the “new love” room to get a more intimate sense about whomever they’re interested in…or pick the “ex” room and go through the stuff they saw in Season 2. Which was a brilliant move by production—not just because it’s a sweet twist that throws the cast off-balance, but because, given the focus on making them date new people for so much of the show, this was a great way to keep the “your ex? or someone new?” conceit front-and-center by yet again making them confront the question with a yes-or-no decision. 

22B. Though I feel bad for the production staff who had to keep setting up the various Dexter Kill Rooms only for people to not choose them. 

23. One of the contestants likes girl groups, and she specifically mentions fromis_9—and I know who that is! “Love Bomb” is awesome. And Jiheon is my fave. (Followed by Gyuri, who apparently left the group. Which stinks. ‘Cus I can’t figure out who any of the others are.)

24. Speaking of faves, though…I think it’s about time to take a whack at our participants—which will be especially fun to do since you won’t have any idea who they are! Which means it won’t really matter that I am totally going to spoil one or two ex-couples with my nickname choices! Hooray!

24A. Okay, we’ll start with the ladies, going in descending order from least favorite to the one I’d have fallen for the moment I walked into the house (and please forgive the dull, functional nicknames):

• Hot Young Girl - the obviously hot one, and the most obnoxious—not necessarily because she was inherently a jerk or arrogant, but because she had the absolute wrong attitude for approaching a dating show: she treated it like she was out in the real world…which is to say that she overtly treated the attention she got from the boys as annoying if she wasn’t immediately interested in them. She just DID NOT CARE about their feelings or their attempts to express them—on a f***ing dating show. I’m not saying she had to flirt when she wasn’t feeling it, but she didn’t have to constantly roll her eyes and sigh loudly. Which is not to say that this attitude didn’t sometimes result in a funny moment or two, but she was undeniably bad TV. I liked that she looked a bit like my #2 girl from Weki Meki (Elly), but, otherwise, she can jump in a lake. 

• Dental Hygienist - the big mystery of the season, I think it’s fair to say. We never quite knew where she stood for most of the show, and I’m pretty sure it was probably 50-50 between it being a narrative decision and her being so neutral on the boys that production couldn’t scrape much of interest from her confessionals to share. On looks alone, she was probably the most “my type” of the girls. She was charming and funny and really knew how to be good at dates, and I quite liked her—but she’s low on my list only because I didn’t think she was quite as interesting to watch as the four remaining women on the list. 

• Speed Skater - an Olympic gold medalist—seriously—and an absolute ball of never-ending energy. She was a total dynamo and absolutely awesome. She was also…a bit much, I think, if the boys’ reaction to her is any indication—though whether or not that was actually the case, I dunno. From what we see of her, I thought she was rad as hell…until she locks horns with her ex, and then she comes off as a bit hard to handle. (Though I’m happy to blame him for all of that.) I don’t know if I’d have been interested in her, exactly, but I promise you I’d have started smiling every time she walked into the room. She was my #2 for a long time, but she didn’t finish as strong as she started. 

• Pop Star - the undisputed winner of the season—regardless of whether she coupled up or not. (No spoilers for that one!) She’s a former member of a legit idol group, she’s hot, and she’s just about the nicest, most poised, most sensible person I’ve ever seen on one of these shows. She frikkin’ rules, and if she doesn’t end up on a dozen variety shows or as a new host on Transit Love 4, there’s no justice in the world. I can’t imagine anyone dislikes her—and, if someone does, he can jump in a lake. She was the heart of the show and just…just the coolest. Why is she in third, then? Because we have to split hairs, when it comes to this, and she’s just not as much my kind of pretty as the other awesome girls. 

• Doctor - the even-keeled late game-changer (um…spoilers) and, as far as I’m concerned, a total knockout. I was taken by her quiet charm, her obvious thoughtfulness (as in, intelligence), and her…professional demeanor. Because of when she shows up, we don’t get to see as much of her as I’d have liked, and she came into a situation between the cast members that probably seemed more set in stone than production thought it would be, limiting her options in ways they absolutely would not have been had she been there on Day 1—which she might not have been able to do because she’s a doctor and couldn’t get a whole month off…or because production wanted her “charmer” ex-boyfriend to be able to participate without distraction for as long as possible. Either way, I’d have preferred more of her. 

• My Girl - not quite at So-e levels of immediately-hooked, but pretty close—and, yes, the blue dress had more than a little to do with that. She was the first girl in the house, and I thought she looked incredible, from her outfit to her hair color (which had changed since the montage of interviews that opened the first episode). I just couldn’t take my eyes off her—and I could tell it wasn’t just because I thought she was that cute/pretty blend I like so much. She had this…pathos about her that I…recognized, that resonated with me so strongly—this obvious depth of feeling, this lingering struggle with melancholy, this wistful desire for affection, this absolute joy just dying for a chance to burst forth into the world. And her laugh, Erin—her laugh. I just felt like I understood her, found myself forgiving her flaws or dumb mistakes because they made perfect sense to me. I’d have been more than smitten, if I were there, and spent most of the show just smiling shyly anytime I was near her. She…wait…waaaaaaaaaaaait…

SHUT UP SHE DID NOT JUST POST THIS.

…I don’t even know what to—you see this, right? I’m not imagining it? This is fate. I mean, it has to be fate, right? That settles it: ya boy’s off the market, Erin—I’m headed to Seoul! No, don’t try to stop me—fate’s fate. I can study Korean on the plane. Actually, wait, she speaks English! This really is meant to be!

24B. And then, of course, there were the boys—who were much more lackluster, honestly, but who often were elevated nicely when paired up with the girls:

• Surgeon - the only cast member worthy of contempt. A cruel, abusive, gaslighting piece of trash—or, at the very least, a gaslighting piece of trash (there are multiple, provable instances of this) whose fights with his ex look really, really bad from the outside…though I’d note that even a couple of the other boys casually tailed him and his ex one night out of (what clearly seemed to me to be) concern that this dude might do more than just argue with her. Admittedly, his good moments appear to have been mostly edited out of the show (there’s a clip in the finale that shows him having a blast with his ex several days before that felt unfair to leave out) and there were some pointed comments he made about his ex- were totally justified, but toxic is toxic. F*** that guy, the absolute prick. 

• Mr. Moves - ugh. Look, he’s a nice guy, I think—I just did not like him. Now, part of this is the Gwan-hee effect, because this dude was mackin’ on every girl, and none of it seemed sincere. Not that I think he was, like, lying to the girls or anything…it’s just that he was AAAAAAALLLL moves when he was on his dates, all canned lines and cheap gestures, so it felt phony as hell—and I had ZERO patience for anything even remotely insincere, coming right off Single’s Inferno 3. He seemed kinda cool when he wasn’t being flirty, but I couldn’t stand him when a girl was in his orbit—whether she wanted to be or not. He was a solid casting choice, but…ugh. Pass. 

• Old New Guy - booooooooooooooooooooooring. And proof that, when girls on these shows say a dude is “handsome” they just mean “tall.” If not for his narrative role in a couple of girls’ stories, he’d have been the dud to end all duds. He was only cast because they wanted his ex-girlfriend on the show—clearly. Not a bad dude by any stretch, but…woof. 

• My Girl’s Ex - one of the most sympathetic participants at the start, though my opinion of him waned considerably by the end of the show. He struggled early on because his off-show responsibilities took up a little too much of his time…and because he was a dope. He seems like a nice guy who wants to be a good boyfriend—but I also don’t think he has any idea what that means. I don’t think he had a lot of dating experience—which is fine—and you could see him trying to learn on the fly as he went on dates. When he relaxed and trusted himself, he seemed quite bright and charming…only to slip into being shy and withdrawn the moment he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. (Which I…I totally don’t…I mean, wh-what’s that like, right?) Circumstances beyond his control and issues with timing plagued much of his story, but, as I sit here looking back, I think I was rooting for him, even though I wasn’t. 

• Poofy-Haired Guy - …wait, seriously? I can’t believe he’s #2 on my list. Wow. I’d never have…well, anyway, here we are: a guy I was ultimately entirely neutral on—not because I didn’t care about him (...though I wasn’t keen on his storylines), but because the things I liked and disliked about him totally offset each other. I believe the Pop Star called him “the sweetest guy,” so I’m going to trust her on this. He certainly seemed nice, just not my cup of tea. He also got a bit of the “keep him mysterious” edit—or maybe what he had to say in confessionals was only limited to certain specific topics. I dunno. Not a great TV presence on his own, in my opinion, but a solid participant for the show taken in context of everyone else. Which is not a ringing endorsement of the guy, I know, but…he wasn’t gross, phony, or dull. And that’s a win.

• Pop Star’s Ex - my notes on him begin with “suave-looking; quiet” and pretty much just get more complimentary from there. (I don’t know that he ever recaptures the “suave” look he walked in with, for the record, but he certainly was still relatively quiet!) He was potentially the most sympathetic member of the cast—or, at least, the one with the saddest and most complex emotional story, which really spoke to me. He’s gentle and funny and had been out of the dating game so long that he was an absolute dufus about it (in the most adorable way). He wasn’t the quickest out of the gate, nor was his radar particularly well-attuned. But he benefited from the lengthy format of the show and was able to slow-burn his way to more than a little attention after the first third or so of the season. It wasn’t always the smoothest sailing, even when it should have been (both his fault and not), but…still: if I were into dudes, he’d 100% have been my pick. 

24C. ….okay, despite the harshness of some of my assessments, I swear I enjoyed this cast. I didn’t love all of them like I did with Heart Signal 4, but I think they were all great choices for being on the show (...though not for the same reasons). You come into these shows wanting to see romance, camaraderie, tension, and maybe a little flare-up or two. And this cast delivered. It just may have been that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, as it were—much like with Transit Love 2. 

24D. And a corollary to all of this: as I followed along with the internet, this season, I was surprised to see how different everyone’s thresholds were for granting the cast slack for their, um, unflattering moments—particularly when I found myself being one of the most forgiving. I always saw the exes as essentially still being in the midst of their breakups (particularly given how recent their breakups turned out to be)—and no breakup features two people at their best even without being thrust into the bizarre pressure cooker that is this show. As such, I expect people to go off on each other over stupid things, to look really bad from the outside but maybe not to the exes they argue with (who have more context for the way they fight, for the elements of the current fight, for what unspoken thing the fight may really be about), and to be worn down by the strain of the situation. So, when I see people being dicks to each other, I suppose I find myself evaluating the moment or the specific behavior and not the individuals—after all, the conceit of this show is admittedly stupid, but most of what spins out from it makes sense to me, which means I don't usually see anything to judge (even if I do critique it). I dunno, I just...find the fighting is more tragic (in the literary sense), born of fruitless good intention, than indicative of poor character. And I was surprised to see that I seemed to be in the minority on that front. 

24E. …along with Hot Young Girl, of all people, who is the only one to express both a lack of surprise and a lack of judgment about people being mean to their exes. 

25. Early on, there were two ex-couples I wanted to see get back together. And, by the end, there were zero ex-couples I wanted to see get back together.

26. There were a handful of locations for dates that I was pretty sure I’d seen in other dating shows—but I was 100% sure that one date took place at the abandoned amusement park from the end of Cafe Minamdang. Well, at a restaurant next to it.

27. Two different girls call out Mr. Moves for pulling moves, and it made me think very well of both of them.

28. One ex-couple’s breakup story is absolutely heartbreaking. And, when they both end up choosing to visit the ex-room to spend some time with the memories of their past, the whole thing is so sad that, after watching them, the hosts literally needed to take a 20 minute break to compose themselves. 

29. …which seems as good a time as any to mention the hosts! Four out of five of our hosts from Transit Love 2 are back, with a rotating cast for the fifth seat. I don’t have a ton of notes on the hosts, but what I do have is

• a lot of talking about how good looking Kim Ye-won (Good Boy’s Sister from Welcome to Waikiki 2) is, and how she looked amazing in that suit jacket and tie or this pink dress she had on. Oh, also that she talked a lot more—though, whether by self-determination or production mandate, I could not say. However, she did have a few insights that went against the majority opinion and turned out to be right. (Admittedly, half of these “minority” opinions of hers were only such because there were more men on the panel, and she and the girl group host were of the same mind about what the female contestants were thinking. But, still, hooray for more Ye-won!)

• a few sentences expressing shock that the girl group host is in the same group as the main girl from May I help You? and the best friend from Bo Ra! Deborah and disbelief that this somehow escaped my notice until now. Also, she looked particularly good, this year—but never as much as when she gave a very tsundere “Hmph!” in mock indignation in Episode 5. 

• I recognized three of the rotating guests: Secretary Brother from Business Proposal; the fencer girl Hee-do idolizes/rivals/befriends in Twenty-Five, Twenty-One; and the handsome traitor detective in the first season of Busted! (All of whom have real names, I know, but I don’t feel like looking for them, soooooooo…)

30. Relatedly: the girl group host said Poofy-Haired Guy looked like Good Boy, and it hurt my soul. 

31. Before exes are revealed, one girl lets her date know she’s sussed out his ex- by deliberately telling him the other girl is super-duper pretty, taking him by surprise and making him choke on his food. She laughs. I laugh. It is all very funny. 

32 Speed Skater unironically wears a giant ridiculous cheerleader bow on top of her head when she wants to look fancy for a date, and it’s just one more thing about her that’s awesome. 

33. On a day when one of the boys has two dates, his second date receives a text message from production while they are out at dinner. When she won’t tell him what the text was, he worries that it is a Change Days-style series of pictures of him out with the other girl. Which made me laugh.

34. They do two rounds of “your ex- picks your date!” in Season 3: one for the boys and one for the girls. WHen the girls pick, one of the girls gets picked for half the boys, and she’s delighted that the other girls are kind enough to want her to get a fuller experience of the show by dating more of the guys. And then she says, “Or, wait, it’s possible they picked me because they still like their exes and don’t see me as any kind of threat. Hmm. That’s…less flattering.” 

35. It took most of the season to get to this point, but we did eventually get the patented “it’s been 90 minutes—I guess we can play the opening credits, now” that we got so often in Season 2. Which was a fun moment. Love the classics. 

36. I don’t know much Korean—but I know enough to absolutely lose my s*** when one of the girls refers to one of the boys as “uri oppa.” Because let me tell you: the subtitles DID NOT do this line justice. 

37. Great New Decision for Season 3 #5: bumping up the Jeju trip—and all that goes with it. For Season 2, the cast spent its last few days on Jeju Island instead of in Seoul…but, this time around, the trip down to Jeju Island comes a little more than halfway through the show—which means the “plot points” that go along with the change of venue get moved up, too: A) the Single’s Inferno-style have-to-match dates for the trip down, revealing for the first time to everyone in the house who the current “couples” are (because all dates have been secret, to this point, so as not to reveal which pairs aren’t exes); B) the ex- reveals, which always throws the party dynamics into chaos (often because same-sex friends discover they’ve been macking on each other’s exes); and C) the all-night fighting the exes do, now that they don’t have to hide they’re exes and, as such, can finally let loose on each other for being flirty-flirty with other boys/girls, the absolute harlots. 

37A. …no, seriously: no matter how pleasant the day has been, once the sun sets on Jeju, everyone is suddenly spoiling for a fight. I don’t know if it’s because they drink so much, because production won’t let them sleep, or because they really just have that much pent up emotion, but…yeah, nighttime is fight time. Without fail. to the point where the show has dedicated “here we go again…” music it plays every time it happens. 

38. A strike against this series is that it hasn’t yet found the right balance for the exes aspect of the show. That is, it does so much to keep the exes from being in romantic scenarios and making sure everyone dates new people as often as possible that it is too restrictive about allowing exes to have the same fresh start for themselves. I don’t know what the balance should be, but I know neither Transit Love 2 (which allowed exes to date a little earlier but kept them secret longer) nor Transit Love 3 (which revealed exes earlier but wouldn’t let them date until the very end) got it quite right. I’m not sure what the best option would be—or even if there’s a good way to do it and still have the show work out—but I know it’s a flaw that has yet to be remedied. (I might suggest a sort of Russian roulette version, where, whenever everyone gets paired up for show-assigned dates, there’s always going to be one ex-couple in the mix. Something like that, maybe.)

39. Relatedly: anyone with any observational skills should be able to detect exes early on by seeing which people absolutely refuse to speak to each other for fear they’ll be discovered. 

40. As I said earlier, My Girl x Pop Star’s Ex were my ship for the season, initially because they were both my favorites and happened to get paired up for a date. But I thought they were really cute together and, gradually, they realized their biggest smiles were for each other: he’d be giddy as a schoolboy whenever he’d get to see her, and she laughed at literally everything he said. These two were just what they both needed, and I was delighted whenever it was their turn to be the focus. The hosts described them as “looking like newlyweds, but talking like an old couple” because they were so excited but spoke very simply and casually, as befit their personalities. They were absolutely adorable (the bubble date, Erin—the bubble date), and, regardless of the ending, they were the show, to me. 

41. …but my favorite ship of the season was My Girl x Pop Star. Talk about clicking! These two seemed to be the most natural pair on the show—even from the start of Episode 1. They were each other’s favorites, instinctively affectionate (My Girl falling into Pop Star’s arms after a brief glance when she returned from the chat room is iconic, as far as I’m concerned), and THEY EVEN WENT ON A DATE ERIN THEY WORE A COUPLE’S OUTFIT AND EVERYTHING LOOK LOOK SEEEEEEE???

…ahem.

Point is, the biggest win for me would have been these two walking off alone and being roommate besties forever. 

42. But speaking of them being a natural pair: something that had me scratching my head the whole season was how the girls chose their roommates while they were in the house. After everyone arrives in Episode 1, the guys and girls have to figure out who’s staying in what room. Now, the guys play  rock/paper/scissors to decide the order in which they’ll pick their rooms, which makes sense—but so do the girls, which, to me, doesn’t. Because, where the guys are sort of generically polite to each other (because they’ve only just met), the girls have already naturally paired off as they go to investigate which rooms are available to them: My Girl and Pop Star, and Dental Hygienist and Hot Young Girl. So, I assumed they’d sort of already decided on roommates but not rooms. But no. They just randomly got split into #TeamCutie (My Girl/Dental Hygienist) and #TeamHottie (Pop Star/Hot Young Girl). 

43. And if that disappointed me, the Jeju pairing of My Girl and Hot Young Girl is even worse. Because Hot Young Girl does not give a good goddamn about My Girl. 

43A. No, I swear to you, at one point My Girl pretty much said, “I think I might be in love with the Pop Star’s Ex,” and Hot Young Girl went, “Mmm…” and just applied mascara. I mean…what the f***?

43B. …at the same time, My Girl can sometimes be a bit of a drama queen about wanting Hot Young Girl to ask about how she’s doing, so I kind of get it—but, standing up for My Girl, maybe she wouldn’t have to give so many melodramatic sighs with you in the room IF YOU F***ING TALKED TO HER.

44. Wait, no…no, I actually have a note about the boys seemingly being naturally paired up, as well. Hmm. I guess I must have felt the girls clicked more obviously. Or I just didn’t care about the guys much. (What’s funny, though, is that the pairs I felt the boys naturally formed in the first episode seem to have ended up being how they freindshipped-up by the end of the show.)

45. Meanwhile, the Jeju Island roommate situation was decided by production—and it was frikkin’ brilliant: three separate dorms for the 12 participants; two men and two women in each; all mostly separated by most romantic tension; and no exes. So, we had maybe-couples dorming together, rivals as roommates, and daisy-chains of unrequited feelings—and it was great. I mean, it’s never as explosive as you think it would be; everyone just sort of wanders in and out of all the dorms anyway; and there’s a massive common area in the building that has the kitchen/dining area, so…it wasn’t quite as dramatic as the initial sting made it seem. But that first night was kind of hilarious. Plus, all the ladies had to share beds. Which, y’know, I didn’t mind.

45A. That said, it made it that much worse that Pop Star and My Girl couldn’t be roommates.

45B. …of course, Pop Star ended up sharing a bed with the Doctor. Which, again, I didn’t mind.

45C. Yes, I know, I’m terrible. Sue me. 

46. Great New Decision for Season 3 #6: being told who your ex- texted. Hoooooooly smokes, did this one shock the tar out of everyone: contestants, hosts, audience—EVERYONE. You were always told whether or not any end-of-day texts you received were from your ex-, but if he or she texted someone else, you never knew who. Until Transit Love 3 hit Jeju Island, that is! Oh, this was so much fun. Really raised the tension levels. And the look on everyone’s face when the message got delivered for the first time…priceless. In fact, the best reaction was from Hot Young Girl, who was the first one to get the message: she laughed—and was royally pissed. Hilarious. 

47. We get an awful lot of Pop Star’s Ex without his shirt on. Like, getting changed in his room. By himself. With the door closed. Seemed, um, seemed an interesting edit decision. (I mean, he looked damn good, but…still.)

48. I’m just saying: we didn’t get any of Pop Star doing morning stretches in her mini pyjama shorts. Which I’m sure she did. Probably. I mean, I would like to think she did. But, um, the point is that the show was playing by K-drama rules, and that felt a little unfair to me. And to Pop Star’s presumably mini pyjama shorts. 

49. Something that’s fun about this show is getting to see if there’s any crossover in who likes whom—as in, do you get along with someone and then find yourself attracted to his or her ex? (It gets even more interesting when we apply this game to My Sibling’s Romance—and, believe me, I’ve got lots to say about the crossover in that series.)

50. McDonald’s product placement isn’t as much fun as Subway product placement. But it did result in someone shutting down Mr. Moves pretty hard, so I can’t complain.

51. After a particularly sad night for one of the girls, most of the girls (after comforting her) go to bed. The one who doesn’t tells one of the boys that she’s staying downstairs because “everyone” is asleep in her room. I was excited for this to mean that Pop Star and My Girl were all snuggled together in one bed, but…no. 

51A. Look, you know I’m not going to apologize for this. 

51B. But, like, LOOK AT THESE TWO! Why wouldn’t they be snuggled up in bed together?

52. At one point, one of the girls is humming what I think is “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis (a song you know I love), but there’s an equal chance it’s the music that plays when you get the star that makes you temporarily invincible in Super Mario Bros. Because she is bad at humming. 

53. Here’s a great out-of-context line that is probably just as great in context: “What evil thing will they make us do this time?” 

54. One of the ladies loudly expresses her disappointment over not receiving the same kind of magical, hot-young-guy-sweeps-her-off-her-feet-at-the-end treatment that the saddest girl in Transit Love 2 got. Which made me laugh so very hard. 

55. Production had to stick with the same structure for the end picks (exes drive to a location, where either the passenger gets out of the car to choose someone else or stays in the car to choose his or her ex-), but they didn’t have as smooth a chain of picks as they did in the previous season. They did what they could, though, and there were only, like, two decisions that ended up looking ridiculous. 

55A. Regardless, it’s still a goofy way to do final picks.

55B. …except:

56. Great New Decision for Season 3 #7: the bus stops. Now, the overall motif for the Transit Love series is that love is a bus, and you can either get off at a stop or stay on the bus…or maybe it’s about choosing to get off at the old stop or the new stop…I dunno—point is, it’s a bus. And, for Transit Love 3, production went all in on it: rather than restaurants or parks seaside benches like in the previous season, participants were to drive to these little production-built bus stops. Like, there’s a bench and a bus stop sign and everything. It was completely silly, and I absolutely loved it—including what I, as the world’s greatest detective, quickly deduced was (appropriately enough for the way the season was structured) a tipoff for whether or not the person’s choice was a match: if the sign was blue, then the two did not pick each other; but, if the sign was pink, it was a love match, and the couple would leave the show together. It was a great addition, and a nice little bookend to go along with the addition of the string at the start of the season.

57. The show did its normal “and where are they now?” segment the end of the show to let us know if anyone is still together—but it also gave us a little behind-the-scenes bonus footage of what happens immediately after the final picks (which, to remind you, take all f***ing day to complete): everyone just goes back to the dorms so they can finish packing before the flight to Seoul in the morning. So, y’know, you have this really emotional goodbye with your ex- or with the person you pick who has rejected you and then you…just go back to hang out with him or her and your ex- and golly it seemed awkward. But still kinda chill and amiable—though I’d compare it to the atmosphere after a funeral, where everyone is on his best behavior and feeling that vague relief that the sad thing is finally over. 

57A. …we also may have gotten a hint that one or two of the exes who didn’t get together with anyone at the end maybe were going to get together after the show. Or maybe it was reading too much into things to think so. I dunno. The internet sleuths/gossipmongers probably know, though. I just haven’t bothered to check. 

And that, at long last, is that. 

I’m sure you weren’t looking for such a lengthy discussion of something you didn’t watch, but…golly, it was just such a good time, Erin—I couldn’t not. (And I could have included so much more. Believe me, you don’t know how much I left out.)

If nothing else, I hope you’ll consider Transit Love 4 when it inevitably comes out. Which it needs to. I am sooooo on board for another season of this fun. 

…or, alternatively, if you suddenly feel compelled to check out Transit Love 2 or 3 and want to do your own write-up…I’m on board for that, too.

Regardless, I’m glad this one is finally in the books. Something even less interesting to you is up next, probably, but I promise to keep it short. Well, me-short. And then there’s all sorts of stuff to follow. 

Thanks for reading this far. 

Hope all is well with you. And, barring that, I am ready to write an absolutely withering letter of complaint to whatever is preventing you from the good time you certainly deserve. Just say the word. 

More soon.

—Daryl