DramaAjumma

I guess I always knew that she was having bad dreams about him right from the start so it wasn't a problem for me.

Frankly I don't think we should be too hung up on the missing dream sequences. If the show chopped them off it means that they're not essential to our overall appreciation of the storyline. What do the dreams represent? Who knows? A possible reality that can be changed or a reality without its context. They might tell us something but they don't tell us everything. At best they're just pieces of the puzzle.about destiny and self-determination. I haven't cared about them since Day 1 because it seems to me that the primary purpose that they serve is to keep Fu Rong from falling for Xu Jin too easily.

There's a sharp pointy end to the fan. That's probably the point. :P

It's not really bad. The disappointment lies in the fact that it could have been much better than what it turned out to be. The first six episodes were great and built expectations accordingly. But the show made a number of missteps -- either broke its own rules or mischaracterized what it was doing. Plus it seemed to be flirting with certain kinds of romance taboos.

Some of us got attached to the ensemble cast but in the second half of the show most of them were neglected in favour of the leads.

If you can be forgiving of plot holes and sloppy storytelling, there are things you can enjoy.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it aside from a couple of niggly things.

The two male leads are really quite swoony: Xu Jin and Wu Baiqi that is.

Xu Ping on the other hand is becoming more ridiculous and despicable.

From what I'm seeing, I doubt length of the source material has anything to do with the quality of the adaptation. Besides, the live action version of LoYX veered off in quite a different direction to the source material as well which I think is probably more the point. The choices made by the writer is a far more important factor. The storyline in Ruyi Pavillion is better and more complex regardless of the length of source material.

I can't help feeling he's a just a big whiny kid who's got a lot of expensive toys throwing a tantrum.
But that's just me.

Honestly, as much as enjoyed and loved LoYX, this is the better show on almost every level. It's hard to believe it is written by the same person. The political savvy except for the bratty duchess Xinhe is on a different level.

I usually like an antihero character but I can't relate to or even like Xu Ping. He's too extreme for me. Can't he use his brains and resources to find out the truth about his mother's death. His plot seems rather nonsensical.

Both romances are well done IMO. Fu Xuan might be a smart girl but she's a bit of a fuddy duddy. There's a rebel in her and Wu Baiqi senses it. A bit of corset loosening might be in order.

Huh.... it's nothing like the LoYX.

Yes, that would be the logical outcome but for reasons unknown to us, they chose to end the show the way they did. Probably more for marketing purposes than any sense of narrative logic. Or perhaps they're still clinging on to the conventional notion that a happy ending means that the top-billed actors have to appear together at the end.

It's not a republican drama. It's a drama set in the waning years of the Qing dynasty, pre-WW1.
Anyway... enjoy. It's fun so far.

I agree that 16 episodes was ample. In fact if they had cut out all the JG and TY pussyfooting, they could have easily done it in 12 or 14. All the good sci-fi shows manage it so I don't see why they couldn't have. But even if they wanted to utilize all of the 16, I would have loved more insight into the people of Alice, discovery of time travel, flashbacks of the early attempts, the origins of the Book of Prophecy and how things went so wrong.

If the show ever thought that having a romance between Prof TY and JG was a ratings winner or had popular appeal, they seriously miscalculated. I know many people from different platforms who dropped the show as a result of it. The optics was terrible. The ratings saw a noticeable drop when it was on its way to double digits.

This is not to say that Joo-won or Kim Hee-sun aren't good actors but making them play house with rom com cliches together while he's thinking of mother in her house... yeah... not a good look.

It's a point of leverage. Ruyi Pavilion trades in secrets and engages in high end blackmail. So what it does is give away one person's secret to another for payment so that the other party can use it for whatever purposes suits them. Liu Ruyi acts as a broker.

It's pretty scummy stuff.

I find their translation of titles rather off the beaten the track to be honest.

For me personally there was a fair bit in the final act that raises more questions ... quite unnecessarily, than provides answers. In fact, I don't know that the show gives very many answers in the long run. The resolution was so rushed and someone thought the show needed more twists at this late stage to confuse the issue even more.

Perhaps some viewers can be forgiving of the mishandling and mischaracterization of popular time travel sci-fi tropes but if you're a hardcore sci-fi fan, you'll be tearing your hair out.

Seems to be. I watched it on Netflix.

What makes zero sense is JG even existing on the same timeline as TY? Did he fall from the sky?

I could tell from Episode 2 that TKEM was utter rubbish. Episodes 3 and 4 confirmed it.