Beatrice

The drama got a strong handle on seriousness and when to add humorous moments most of the time. There were moments where it didn't work, but it wasn't too bad considering it was on the rare side. I love the dual language aspect of the bilingual actors who are able to speak both Cantonese and Mandarin do get to speak both. Though all the characters understand each other, for those who don't speak either languages, they are not automatically mutually intelligible in real life. They need to be learned. There is some English at some point too, but that's not exciting. I know that the production filmed in different cities with big Cantonese speaking populations, and the news within the story is entirely in Cantonese, but maybe I missed it, but I never quite got where the show was supposed to be taking place with so many people also speaking primarily and only in Mandarin as well. I appreciate the male lead giving a few Cantonese phrases a go. I spotted a Life is Strange poster Ding Qi's house. That coupled with the over writing gives me the sense that the writer(s) have an appreciation or familiarity of various time travel stories and tried their best to make fresh new take. I really like that there is an explanation for the time loop ability and there is side effects as well. It's fun seeing how Ding Qi figures out the best ideal way to save the day and him going against fellow loopers.

The weakest part of the story is when Ding Qi and An Lan are forced to go through romantic trope scenes which doesn't work when we know nothing about them together, especially when there's no romantic chemistry to coast on. The saddest part is that it's not that the writing is unable to do a believable romance because Yuan Chi and Wan Qing's love story was strong and believable to be what drives Yuan Zhi. Ding Qi and An Lan working together later down the line actually strengthens their believability more when she also gets to be a full fledged three dimensional person. She's the coolest when she gets to be her scientist self, instantly getting down to science business when Ding Qi tells her about his time loop ability. The guy who plays Yuan Zhi is really good at playing up the charisma that tech bros think they have. He totally was sporting an Steve Jobs inspired outfit too. Ding Qi's death scene was way too overdone with too much focus on all of his individual team members freaking out. It's supposed to be sad, but it became silly. An Lan's cure out of nowhere seemed weirdly tacked on with no transition as well. The last second new loop was not a bad way to end, but I think I would have respected it if Ding Qi just died too with An Lan continuing her work after saving her mom. Maybe have her become a new looper with an improved formula instead.