Why “WONWOO’s Diary” is SEVENTEEN’s best episode the year

Yi Yunju (PLEDIS Marketing 1 team head): I think the “WONWOO’s Diary” episode of GOING SEVENTEEN was something only SEVENTEEN could ever pull off. The whole thing was made possible thanks to their sense of humor and their trustworthy acting skills. The members usually always pull GOING SEVENTEEN along, but their short skits and fake documentaries like “WONWOO’s Diary” are especially improvised, so there’s more raw fun. We have a teaser series for GOING SEVENTEEN called GGOYO-ILER, and in the teaser for this episode, WONWOO was dressed in summer clothes. But it was an intentionally misleading teaser. (laughs) We worked extra hard to make it impossible to guess from the preview what happens in the actual episode since it’s full of extraordinary characters.

They are SEVENTEEN

Yi Yunju: The whole structure of the episode was based on what the members improvised. We just gave them a general outline and the rest is all thanks to their skills. Now they don’t even feel flustered if we just, you know, throw them into a random situation. (laughs) I think the highlight is when Yoon Nieun (JEONGHAN) and Jo Giyeok (JOSHUA) are on-screen together. Previous episodes of GOING SEVENTEEN showed JEONGHAN to be a strategist and a master of mind games, while JOSHUA’s been painted as someone who very occasionally can’t hide his crazy side. We expected them to be a duo of handsome, lazy bums, but they did even better with their characters than expected. One of them stops in the middle of washing their hair and says things like, “You want? (Do you want to wash your hair?)” and, “Look Tho (You look like Thomas).” We never expected them to say such iconic lines. They really took abbreviations to a new level. Whenever we shoot the show, it never goes as expected. (laughs)

Behind the scenes of “WONWOO’s Diary”

Yi Yunju: You can see in “WONWON’s Diary” that there’s so many different kinds of people living in the town of Seong-ri, and they all have the same goal, which is to be on National Singing Contest. I think it can be seen as a metaphor for the way the 13 members of SEVENTEEN are all working toward the same goal together. This episode also showed us how serious fans are about GOING SEVENTEEN. We had absolutely no idea the “WONWOO’s Diary” episode would end up spawning a spooky story about Sevong-ri. It was fun to see them coming up with their own analysis that went beyond the content itself. S.COUPS was originally supposed to be a scarecrow who protects Sevong-ri, actually. He was going to be this scarecrow who’s everywhere in the town and so he knows all of its secrets. Seeing how popular the spooky story became makes me wonder what the episode would’ve been like if he had ended up playing that character after all.

GOING UNIVERSE

Yi Yunju: One of our goals is to create a big fictional universe that exists solely inside GOING SEVENTEEN. We want the episodes to connect in a way that the memes and characters from one episode carry over into the next ones. Fans really liked the character Fe Turin (DINO) when he first appeared at the group’s fan meeting, CARAT LAND, in a video called What on Earth. I always thought it was a shame to just let go of the character and “WONWOO’s Diary” was the perfect opportunity to bring him back. (laughs) And it isn’t just Fe Turin—there’s also the song “Zero Step” as sung by Jo Eulho (HOSHI), which is like an early version of “One Step,” a song Dan Dara (DK) and Hong Heungho (HOSHI) sang in another CARAT LAND video titled “Boo Drop Guru.” In the case of “Zero Step,” HOSHI was on set and trying to figure out what would be a good song to sing. Seeing as Jo Eulho’s a trot singer, it was a perfect fit, so that’s what we ended up going with. Fe Turin even made an appearance during their latest stadium tour (laughs) and I hope we can have more chances to take the fun things that get their start in the GOING UNIVERSE and give them to the fans.

What to expect next from GOING SEVENTEEN

Yi Yunju: The group members and the staff are always working to make sure GOING SEVENTEEN is always full of laughs without crossing the line. The members get fully immersed in each episode but they never say or do anything that would hurt each other. I think people naturally get a look into the real teamwork SEVENTEEN has by watching the show because they’re always so considerate. It’s amazing that there’s so many fans of GOING SEVENTEEN that there’s even a whole separate fandom, CUBIC, and we’re so grateful for that. I feel sorry that we couldn’t make as many episodes toward the end of the year since things are getting busy again with the endemic phase approaching. We’ll be back with a refreshed and more diversified GOING SEVENTEEN next year, so I hope everyone’s looking forward to it!