Skibbies

you write reviews?! omg. the lackluster second cp and love rival were tagged on by drama, which would explain why they are tired and tropey, I found them somewhat annoying since it breaks fl (and sml at times)'s characterisations. I felt like demon arc could use less time, and mortal arc bit more time, not that I super trust this drama team to not add bunch of terrible writing choices, but it might make it feel bit less lopsided.

maybe they filmed the mortal arc first so the actors didn't ease into their scene as easier mhmm. I think wang yinglu's big emotional scenes could be better in general, but I was super super surprised at her chemistry with chen feiyu, and the effortless comfortable acting around ep 13-17, I feel like thsoe are lot harder to do for most actors. I ship this cp so much that I'm almost on the rps ship omg.

It's okay, I can remind you when you actually have free time :P Feng Baobao is a very unique character, and very hard to play tbh, so I was surprised and impressed the live action pulled it off, for casting, directing and acting.

It's not!! and even for s1 it honestly was that starting bit and a minor char's ability lol. but I think the starting few ep is bit hard to get into for some anyways. if you end up liking s2, there's backstory in ep 10-11 (i think, need to double check) for feng baobao (wang yinglu's character) that I think is worth watching.

If you can speed or skip watch all the zzz bits for you, that works too. It's still bit better than Princess Gambit lulzy second half that wasn't salvageable for me. it's rare for me to really love a cp in drama for both the chemistry and the writing, so I stuck out.

Wang Yinglu could do better with some emotional scenes but she worked pretty well for me in the early over the top comedy bits and the comfy domestic romance bits that you are stuck on, I think those are harder to do. Oh oh, you could check out I am Nobody s2 when you are out of dramas too, I know you dropped s1, but this has different vibe (more mysterious-ish) that might work for you, and it's an arc by itself. Wen Qi was also fabulous in it!

LOL yeah this one isn't meant to be then, I mostly like this drama for the cp dynamic and surprising chemistry. The novel was very slice of life and mostly just about the otp, I think they could have kept the drama original chars/setup but the scriptwriting was just way too subpar, and got worse in second half for me.

14 is like middle of the fluffy bits, there's more plot later, but I don't really like the drama original bits cos they cause more misunderstanding and is kinda shoddily written (which is what count as "plot" in second half.

Re: sexual assault and how society at large treat it, there's Imperfect Victim from 2 years ago.

I liked the idea but I felt the execution falls bit flat for me at times, I think there was also bunch of slice of life stuff I didn't care about or something. I'm not actually bothered by the production value or the acting as I've seen this team's far more amataur works (Moral Peanuts) and liked the later seasons, which predate filming time of this series.

I also prefaced that 6 and 7 are decent ratings to me at the start, my ratings are far closer to douban, compared to MDL.

I found his role reasonable memorable in Trilateral Slope, but I loved Jiang Qilin so much more, and I feel Jiang Qilin probably won't get another role close to nominations, ahhh. The movie/drama circle kinda really like Jiang Qiming, he got really good movie resources that made me scratch my head (first billing small budget moviex2, second billing to shen teng). For Nie Yuan, I think I liked his role as well, he was sorta exasperated at FL a lot, which isn't what I expected from his role. I think generally they just exceeded my expectations, I don't think it was amazing enough for nominations but I don't really object I guess.

Magnolia is most definitely balancing between different dramas (and sometimes big companies), but as are Golden Eagle and Feitian. Magnolia's nominations/winners picks are smidge better in recent years. I always handwave the ones I don't agree with hahaha.

Yeah Douban doesn't let you do .5 ratings, which is really dumb. If 8.5 and 9.5 have similar 5 stars, then 8.5 must have more lower ratings, maybe antis, or more people that might nitpick, which I think cnetizens excel at LOL. Douban do clear out ratings it thinks is suspicious, but with the amount of votes it gets, I don't think the low ratings super matter.

You can't actually downrate a drama en mass usually without fans that would boost it. Mass rating drop usually only happens with big scandals (stark drop of Pretty Li Huizhen after Dilraba's controversial Golden Eagle win). They CAN be tanked significantly if plagiarism (Fall in Love with Your Smile, there's some combo of disrepecting real life esport players/industry + problematic plots being widespread) or negative feedback became widespread (Firework of My Heart) oops, I guess that was kinda tangent.

Mostly the 8.5+ shows tend to be hard to rate 1 stars. For lot of them, I think people that don't like the show either wouldn't watch it/finish it or bother rating it. There's also been bit of rating boost in recent 5 or so years compared to before, I guess fandom started caring about drama ratings more? (movies always cared about them but it has its own rating scale) There's also bit of recency bias too, iirc in mid-2010s, it was really hard to get 8+, and 2020 had more than 8+ in the year. A lot of the high rated dramas also get more votes of 4 or 5 stars from new accounts (fandom do it for new accounts to make it look more legit, yes it's a thing. it's why Bad Kids have something like 100mil+ votes, which is way way over its viewcount level.)

Support are often fierce competition since there's bunch of veterans, you basically have to be really lucky to end up getting award. I think only Huang Yao lucked out (for Minning Town)? Jiang Qiming got best supporting actor for Escape from Trilateral Slope this year, I feel like he took the "encourage young people slot" on top of something for Trilateral Slope, even though I think Francis Ng or Jiang Qilin (Dantuo) should have gotten nomination instead of Jiang Qiming. Song Jia def got bit buff'ed up from Zhang Guimei's personal achievement + how well the drama was received, but I also think it's not easy to play a real person, especially one so highly regarded, as there's certain level of expectations.

Lan Xiya did get a magnolia nomination, which is an achievement in her age, Jiang Xing in Romance in the Alley took it, and she's pretty much a lead role in ensemble drama.

While Gu Yu is fictional, her experience was cobble of I think three people or something? I remember from some behind the scenes stuff.

I actually like the other girls alright, although they don't get as much focus. I think I actually liked that they have pretty normal problems, and newer generation of kids have slightly different set of regular problems. It humanises the students more than poverty/tragedy focus would I think. I also really liked that they end up at schools/career that fitted them, no one magically end up being amazing and go to a school that's way out of league. (looking at you The Hope)

Patrotic shows don't get rating boosted, unless they are done decently (and make a splash somewhat), then they sorta get buff'ed up. A lot of the other patrotic shows don't get enough ratings to have a rating or they have mediocre ratings (esp compared to measley amount of people that rated them, which usually boost ratings, like anything niche). Some of the dramas douban ratings might be bit boosted to promote a platform project, I think To The Wonder (promo'ed Altay region) and Long Season (X Theatre) got boosted from that. (or I'm just salty they got really high scores I don't think they deserver :P) For this drama specifically, it's Zhang Guimei herself and her story that got it boosted, the widely panned movie version helped a bit, as did the humour and pacing and zero focus on romance.

Non mainland shows have always done better on Douban, including hk dramas, cos they are more niche (people who bother to watch them and rate them are already fan of them usually). Hollywood movies are actually bit less overrated, compared to US tv shows, cos they are watched by the public more, but only blockbusters I guess. cdramas are also subject to diction issues/fandom stuff/plagiarism/scandal etc that can influence its ratings, cmovies are also bit lower in general compared to dramas, since it has a bigger pool of people rating them.

she appears in ep 15 and they marry in ep 21, she has a baby in ep 23. it covers 1998-2008 and is more of a business drama, so it blitz through a year in roughly 3 episodes at a time (some of the years are shorter, some are longer).

anniversary of establishment of ccp today so cctv 1 is airing something else, cctv 1 does this a lot, but usually around chinese new years is the worst, unless you get really really lucky like long life journey or always on the move.

17 won't air today, it airs on monday. this drama is airing on tv, cctv 1 airs dramas mon-fri or mon-thurs (like the first week).

People looking for Song Zu'er, she appears in ep 15 or 16, this is on par with the book, where her character appears 40% through the book. The other ladies are shown as a comparison why Cui Bingbing is a right choice for Liu Jun I think.

For Like a Flowing River audience, Liang Sishen aka Yang Caiyu appears in ep 7, her husband Song Yunhui aka Wang Kai who's been namedropped multiple times should appear in ep 13/14, they are both cameo though.

Liu Jun is very idealistic, I love that his dad and best friend is very supportive of him, but will explain to him why his way doesn't work as well.

it's ep 15-16 i think, 13-14 is cctv 1's ep numbers. she appears 40% through the book, so this is on par with the book.

ep 7 airs in 4hrs, this week it airs mon-fri.