When HYBE, a major South Korean entertainment company, and Geffen, a prominent American record label, decided to join forces to create the world’s first “global girl group,” they gave themselves a year to create pop music’s next big thing from scratch. The goal of the venture was to apply traditional K-pop development practices and aesthetics to an ensemble of international girls that would be marketed in the U.S. and beyond. The process: a heavily abbreviated version of the Korean entertainment industry’s notorious, grueling training programs (called “training and development,” or “T&D”), followed by a Korean-style survival competition show to finalize the group. The result: Katseye—a sextet of girls from the U.S., Switzerland, South Korea, and the Philippines—whose first EP, SIS (Soft is strong)debuted on Friday.

Not surprisingly, for such a large, costly and – as HYBExGeffen points out – unprecedented project, those responsible decided to record the entire operation and turn it into a documentary series. Pop Star Academy: Katseye finally hit Netflix on Wednesday, with eight gripping episodes exploring the hectic world of forming pop groups. Although the series is touted as the first of its kind, it doesn’t really reinvent the wheel. Instead, it takes its cues from a handful of the great “making a band” shows of the 2000s – including The founding of the band, Pussycat Dolls present: The search for the next dollAnd Rock SchoolAnd fortunately, it fills a gap in today’s reality TV landscape.

Traditionally, trainees enroll at Korean labels at a very young age and stay in the program for years. They go through a demanding schedule of dance and singing lessons, media and etiquette training, language courses and more, in the hope that they will eventually debut. The operational aspect here (besides overloading minors in some cases) is Time– and the first half Pop Star Academy is all about there not being enough of them. The show takes us through the strategy of scouting and compresses that process into a period of less than a year, resulting in 20 girls being selected to live together in Los Angeles for the “first course of HYBE America training and development.” During the T&D period, the HYBExGeffen team evaluates the trainees every few months, candidly assessing them on their performance skills as well as their attitude and development, and sending the lowest-ranking members home before new girls are admitted, both to keep the remaining trainees’ competitive spirit alive and to strengthen areas where their trainees may lack weaknesses (like having a great singer in the ranks).

The last 20 girls then take part in a survival show, Dream Academywhere they compete in performance challenges that are voted on by fans and judged by HYBExGeffen executives to produce the final version of the group: Katseye. In this way, HYBExGeffen not only gives the audience some input into the final ensemble, but also creates a fan base before the group even debuts.

Much about this approach to creating a pop group is certainly unique to Korean entertainment principles. Humberto Leon, the project’s creative director, describes its goal as “highlighting unity while celebrating all of their individuality.” This happens to be a typical ethos of K-pop groups, whereas Western groups traditionally perform as a cohesive collection of individuals—there are classic roles to play, like the bad boy, the nerd, the rebel, the cute one. Besides the international factor, the institutionalized T&D operation is probably the most unique K-pop method employed here. Sure, other labels develop groups, but they lack the infrastructure of boy band and girl group factories. And of course, one can imagine that the group’s sound emerging from this program would fit into the sugary, cheery sound world of K-pop’s leading girl groups—and indeed it does.

But the depiction of the process is incredibly reminiscent of The search for the next doll and especially The founding of the bandIn 1999, Lou Pearlman, the talent scout responsible for the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC (and who was best known for running one of the largest and longest-running Ponzi schemes in US history), set out on a nationwide search for the next big boy band. His search not only produced O-Town, known from “All or Nothing,” but was also documented in a series, The founding of the bandwhich originally aired on ABC in 2000 before moving to MTV. After a few seasons after O-Town, Diddy took over the baton from 2002 to 2009 and produced his own versions of the show –The creation of Volume 2, 3And 4— which mainly produced the girl group Danity Kane and the male R&B group Day26.

Similarly, in 2007, the formidable pop group Pussycat Dolls aired a TV show to search for a seventh member (who would leave the Dolls shortly after the show’s finale aired). It was here, in this micro-genre of reality series, that the foundation was laid for Pop Star Academy These shows were peppered with the drama of girls and boys vying for coveted spots that would supposedly change the course of their lives, balancing the fine line between supporting each other as good group members would and letting their competitive spirit take over. They were put through grueling dance lessons with legendary choreographers like Laurieann Gibson, had to dance live in high heels in a choreography cover, or had to sing a live cover of a song in front of a panel of judges. All of this is the foundation of Pop Star Academywhich, while lacking in interpersonal drama, takes you through a rollercoaster of emotions as these girls push their bodies and minds harder than ever before. The show even gives the pop hopefuls a makeover reminiscent of the infamous transformations in America’s Next Top Model.

As you might expect, however, there are major differences between the competition programs of the 2000s and this new version. The shows of the golden era of reality TV dealt with adult contestants, not teenagers; they didn’t search for candidates in multiple countries or have to account for language barriers between contestants and executives; and there was less emphasis on the other aspects of being a public figure, such as media training. The biggest difference, however, is that the earlier shows didn’t mix one docuseries with another. And a survival competition show. But Pop Star Academy is above all a revival of a micro-genre of reality TV that we have lost. In terms of cultural education, this is does important. Because for these young women, it’s not just about making good television, it’s about more than anything else they’ve ever experienced.Pop Star Academy offers viewers a glimpse into the pop machine. Those band formation shows from decades ago were informative about the industry, its demands on the young women in it, and every little detail that is considered or weighed against each other to form what a few rich adults in a room hope will be a successful group. It was an insight into how hard it is to create a successful group actually is.

Pop Star Academy gives us that, but also offers a point of comparison with its predecessors, as well as a fascinating juxtaposition of how Korean and Western media operate. It’s also smart of HYBExGeffen, of course – the show helps build a stronger fan base for their expensive experiment and reinforces the idea that this has never been done before. None of this is entirely new. The Korean industry has learned from American and European models – at one point in the show, someone hilariously says that with this unprecedented project, they are K out of K-Pop Musicas if pop music hasn’t existed worldwide for generations – but they’ve since perfected the methodology in a way that seems to present reliable success stories. And as for expansion, HYBE isn’t stopping there: Earlier this month, the company announced plans for HYBE 2.0, an initiative aimed at expanding the company’s global reach, including by using HYBE America (led by the infamous Scooter Braun) to bring K-pop to the American pop scene. Only time will tell if Katseye really comes off the runway as successfully as executives hope, but at least Pop Star Academy is proof that reality TV in the pop industry has finally back.