Yidenia

So it's not bad, I watched the whole thing and to call it mediocre might even be a little unfair. There are a lot of things I really liked and very few things I really disliked, but it's also not the most tightly-written script.

Things I liked:

Bai Lu's character Li Peiyi is an unapologetically strong, mature woman who is easy to rally behind. She's very focused on her goal, sometimes to the point of being careless with her own well-being, but this is understandable because her sense of justice is so strong and she is a very likeable character. There aren't a lot of female characters who are portrayed this way, she has no weird quirks to make her girly or damsel-like or a trait that is clearly meant to make the male lead look extra masculine somehow. She has talent and a very analytical mind, well-suited to her position as a sleuth, as well as clear compassion for the innocent and vulnerable. The characters around her are loyal to her and it is easy to see why.

Wang Xingyue's character Xiao Huaijin brings in his own set of skills that complement Li Peiyi without undermining hers. He is, unlike Li Peiyi, not a martial artist, and aside from having the default dude strength (which he really doesn't get to flex much), he's not really the tank of the duet. In fact he's kind of physically weak, if anything (which is a hard sell, honestly, because Wang Xingyue's shoulders aren't those of a weak man. The guy lifts, let's be real here) But he's noble and brave in his own right, absolutely respects Li Peiyi, and more than anything else, not only fully understands her and her motives but is also interested in understanding her, which is what makes their chemistry work so well.

The overall plot is kind of cliche, but through a series of #MeToo-based mysteries, the pair are able to make a subtle if profound difference in many people's lives, ensuring that even if justice isn't necessarily served, that the truth is at least made known. There is an energy that drives the series along which, for the most part, works very well to sustain my interest at least, even if the following seek to undermine it, and here's where I get to:

Things I don't like:

So almost all of the mysteries in this series have some very glaring plotholes and logical consistencies. They didn't stop me from watching, but some of them were a near thing. For a show based on detective-work, it's a little disappointing when as a viewer, the reason I can't reason out the real culprit was because of something like faulty logic rather than something truly clever on the part of the show. The motivations of the main characters are very grounded and make sense, but the supporting minor characters who make up the ensemble for the mysteries are occasionally really absurd and deranged, to the point where instead of sympathizing with the characters, I'm outright laughing at them sometimes. I will say that the individual mysteries, while occasionally ridiculous, didn't take away from the main plot, and they didn't affect my perceptions of the main characters, so they can almost be dismissed as simply there being some really dumb people in the world. Truth being stranger than fiction, this might even be valid. I was able to almost ignore them, but the fact that I had to, well, that's kind of a shame, considering all the effort placed into producing this drama otherwise, I feel like such things could have been cleaned up for a slightly better experience.

Pacing/editing sporadically feels subpar. The editing in the beginning 2-3 episodes was occasionally really confusing, almost like certain scenes were accidentally deleted by a cat walking across the laptop, and while this didn't affect my ability to understand the show, it did feel sloppy, which I felt was unfortunate. Then the show occasionally progresses very slowly and lingers on scenes for too long; part of it was to enhance the drama, but this often falls flat when the characters in question are dramatic because of they are imbeciles or just plain crazy as per above, so this did not have the intended impact and would interfere with the momentum. It wasn't a lot, but I've had to skip such scenes.

At one point the main leads get into a quarrel, which leads to a misunderstanding that I thought was weirdly done. I didn't mind the hitch that it caused, just how it came about. There was a way for it to happen that would make much more sense, particularly since the two of them were portrayed to understand each other so well, so to have them have this bit of misunderstanding didn't make a ton of sense and made one of them seem weirdly self-absorbed when the other had just watched everything they worked for fall apart. As an overall contour of the plotline, I didn't mind it, and it didn't occupy too much of the story, but it was just very forced.

Still overall, not a bad show by any means. Again, the parts I didn't like were kind of easy to deal with especially if you skip over it, because their impact on the main characters and the overall plotline was pretty limited, and the main leads and their story is quite solid. It's not a 9 or a 10 because they are a little glaring, but I did enjoy the show on the whole and I feel this is one of the better dramas out there. It's a little like a cake where the frosting is too sweet, but the cake itself is alright, and you're sort of able to just eat where there isn't that frosting. You kind of wish the whole package were more perfect, but the hero of the dish was on point, and that certainly counts.