Skibbies

1 season. there should be 2 more, not filmed yet.

There's 5 notable historical dramas airing rn, I think there's one more with confirm air date, and likely more in January. what is with this drama dump.

This drama's airing schedule is little messy, it got different update rate domestic vs international, so they dumped bunch of episodes and increased the update rate 2nd week. 3rd week they introduced vvip (pay for more episodes despite being already vip) which got extra 6 episodes dump. 4th week which is this week there was a bug on monday for iqiyi so this week's update was all out on monday. So it's on accelerated track and it had less episodes than one would expect (46 ep). I'm super curious how they'll handle the last ep, since next week vvip should be 39, then 45, so that leaves one more episode? LMAO? if the finale gets leaked, this is going to be wild.

Anyways, this is different from western approach or some of the other dramas. The book it's based on is fairly long, and interesting enough for its length so I do think 3 seasons is fine. It's not endless, I largely dislike endless story and a lot of them were episodic, but I digress. Otherwise you get dramas like Martial Universe or Fight Break Sphere, popular IPs with butchered adaptations.

You could always pick it up when you are less swamped with drama, and I think you might need it after the somber tRoP and Royal Nirvana. I mostly like this one for originality, clashing of modern vs feudal values and fast pacing, and that! supporting! cast! also because I quite like this scriptwriter. I'm so tired of perfect everything and the writing tanks for various reasons. I think this season should wrap up a big arc? but I'll get back to you on that when it actually finishes.

They haven't even started the script. Probably getting to it now. This supporting cast is hard to get back though.

For people who might want something similar, check out Young Blood whose original creator and first arc (and fourth? partially at least) writer is this drama's scriptwriter, Wang Juan. Do note that JoL is more politics and Young Blood is more adventure, not to mention the scope is lot bigger for JoL due to Mao Ni's original novel. There were also 4? other scriptwriters for Young Blood so a lot of details aren't from him. It was my favourite of the year for being refreshing, original plot (idea-wise & no novel base, so I didn't get bombarded by spoilers), fairly on point acting & adorable cgaracters. Pretty underrated on MDL. The subs are at 16/42 at the moment I think.

Side note: Wang Juan wrote s1 script for Dou Luo Da Lu (Xiao Zhan's xuanhuan drama that's finished filming) and is working on adapting another popular massive wuxia/politics webnovel. He's so busy omg. He has written other original dramas (and better according to his fans) but they don't have subs.

I really rather there would be no more leaks so they can make enough money to ensure s2 & s3 are done properly.

relatively unknown actors + viki/netflix/amazon didn't pick it up, it's not officially on youtube either. definitely a shame, but someone is subbing it at a pretty decent pace so I'm pretty happy :D it's also pretty well received domestically, not super popular, but it did make a splash.

Everyone caught up with Zhao Jian, she left so easily because the emperor and secret cabinet condone cooperating with Mi Qin Mu Bei, and she's using rescuing her dad as a cover. She left so suddenly cos she didn't want to drag everyone into it, but she also travelled fairly slowly because she didn't want Yuan Zhong Xin to go through the suffering she did before (when he was trying to protect her but not telling her anything). There's small cute moments between each otp. They wanted to convince the other four to not come with them, but that's obviously no go, so they go adventuring in Xia together!

s2 hasn't been filmed yet.

the book is long enough for 3 seasons, like ever night. this is the 2nd of 5 years that ZRY signed up for. they DID add in more scenes for Lin Wan'er because she was a more minor character in the book. while i'm not huge on the back & forth, note that they also use the time to introduce various parties in power play at the moment, and establish main otp + character relationship + let protag find his purpose in life.

yeah, streaming sites usually update according to vip episodes.

vip is inconsequential to int audience usually, since youtube is generally up to date with vip episodes. non vip is generally behind by 3 ep for this drama, so ep 8 for non vip today.

lol. Launch day/last tues it released with 1 non-vip ep & 3 vip ep. wed got regular 2 ep update. Original schedule was 4 ep per week. There was a miscommunication between the youtube team or something, so youtube got 7&8 early. Due to drama hitting off pretty well + other big production drama competition, they decide to add one more day to airing schedule (Mon) and dump one additional episode. So that's why on Mon you get 7~11, the next two days will just be 2 ep per day.

I believe the main cast dubbed themselves, the director (?) specifically requested it. ZRY & SY definitely dubbed themselves, I remember someone posted a list and they were on there.

ahhh no. It was 2 ep each tues & weds, vip just got an extra two episode the first day it started airing, so we had 6 episodes to start with, originally this week we'd get 7&8 and 9&10.

It's great that XZ fans are looking forward to the drama, but this drama have always been anticipated due to its high profile author (top ten male protag web novel author + two other novel of his have been adapted in drama/donghua), as well as subject matter (political intrigue have decent market) AND it has pretty good cast and scriptwriter. I know people that's watching it for Chen Dao Ming (the emperor).

It hasn't been shot (I'm not sure the script has been complete yet....), but the rumour is the main cast signed for all three seasons. Hope they start filming soon, Ever Night filmed for second season while first season was airing (and its s2 filming was delayed too)

It's pretty fun drama and I really like the way the story is set up. I haven't rated it yet and was looking forward to the drama due to political intrigue + good scriptwriter (which is ultra rare) + good cast. XZ hasn't appeared yet and will be a minor role, I sure hope people aren't rating it based on him.

This is lot lighthearted than I expected for an epic story focused on (probably) political intrigue. So I was pleasantly surprised, it's much easier to get into as a consequence. I'm enjoying a lot of the jokes (the name gags, dream of red chamber) and the relationship protag is forming with everyone so far. The redubbed lines are unfortunately pretty noticeable due to different audio quality but other than that, it's fine. For a somewhat comparable drama, check out Young Blood that aired earlier this year, as they share the same scriptwriter, I think the tone is partially due to scriptwriter, (the gags are all Mao Ni though, lol)

I like XZ too and yes he helped the drama trend a bit. However, you severely underestimate the author (Mao Ni) and how anticipated the drama was before Untamed.

? no, it was always going to be pretty long. the novel is same length as Ever Night's (same author, different production team), almost 4mil characters. Ever Night planned for three seasons, it make sense this planned for three seasons too.