If I had to choose a TV series that is the best to just lie down and watch without thinking carefully, I would choose "Tian Geng Ji". The story is very simple. It tells the story of a modern girl who goes into a farming game to farm, raise chickens, run a business, and fight in the house. In the end, she leads the family to become rich and eradicates the local tyrant.

But this drama has a shocking ending, so let me explain it slowly.

Stills from "Tian Geng Ji"

The author first tries to do some analysis on the play as objectively as possible from the perspective of market and genre. In the years when there was a capital boom in the film and television industry, projects like "Tian Geng Ji" had no choice but to eat dust after the PPT was delivered to the platform or the employer's desk. At that time, who would think that urban white-collar workers would be happy to watch ancient people farming? After all, a costume drama has to have fantasy cultivating immortality and power-seeking palace battles, right?

But now, as a medium-sized costume drama with a length of 26 episodes, no traffic actors, and mediocre publicity, the drama’s iQiyi popularity reached a peak of 9371, and its real-time broadcast market share was the highest at 17.41%. This data comes from Beacon Professional Edition , other statistical platforms such as Maoyan Professional Edition and Yunhe Data, the drama ranked first in popularity (online drama) on the entire network for a long time during its broadcast period. It can be said that the results of "Tian Geng Ji" are quite good, and it is already a successful example of using small things to achieve great things.

"Tian Geng Ji" has a popularity value of 9371 on iQiyi.

From the selection of themes and element extraction in script creation, to the selection of actors, to the setting of the tone and style of the entire series, "Tian Geng Ji" has certain reference value for latecomers.

In fact, the author has always believed that farming genres such as "Tian Geng Ji" have their own potential markets. The farming text inherits the genes of the Chinese nation's farming civilization (think of "Chinese people growing vegetables around the world"), and it fits the story below. Young people who love simulation business games (who is born in the 80s and 90s who haven’t played “The Sims” yet?) are definitely a genre worth exploring.

However, its objective difficulty lies in the fact that farming articles themselves tend to lack strong plots and conflicts. With the blessing of the author's writing style and description, daily life can make readers read it interestingly. However, in film and television works, it is difficult to make dramatic waves in daily life. Will it be sufficiently attractive to viewers of the TV series? This is also the reason why there are so many farming stories in Jinjiang and few film and television adaptations have been successful.

Therefore, during the film and television adaptation process, farming stories usually have to be mixed with other elements. For example, "Tian Farming Chronicles" is farming management + love and joy + family fights, and even has a very simple investigation line, "General There is an element that attracts you." The script seems to be organizing the plot with this creative perspective (I can't comment on the original work if I haven't read it). So far, it seems that the show’s strategy of mixing elements is effective.

Relatives of the heroine

To be honest, the biggest value that the general public seeks in TV dramas is entertainment. Where does the entertainment come from? To borrow the slang of big manufacturers: it’s nothing more than “pain points”, “pleasure points” and “itch points”. "Pain points" are meant to poke at the audience's real-life concerns and worries; "cool points" are meant to allow the audience to briefly escape reality and experience the spirit of "counterattack" and "revenge"; "itch points" are It gives the audience the direct happiness brought by comedy content. "Tian Geng Ji" hits these three "points".

The house fights written in "Tian Geng Ji" are different from the house fights in the big houses in "Knowledge" and the palace fights in "The Legend of Zhen Huan". The latter two are also good-looking, but that kind of "fight" is still too far away from contemporary audiences. Far. However, the trivial fight between three brothers of a large rural family and their eccentric parents in "Tian Geng Ji" can really make most Chinese viewers feel sympathetic. The foolish and filial father, the swallowing mother, and the eccentric grandfather sacrifice the interests of other children for the eldest son. , the shrew grandma is stingy and domineering, bullies her daughter-in-law and bullies her granddaughter...Who hasn't seen a few of the bad concepts and troubles in traditional Chinese culture such as patriarchal preference for sons, clan inheritance, separation of families, and living alone?

It’s also about the unfairness experienced by the protagonist, the protagonist being thrown into the cold palace by the emperor, and the protagonist being forced to adopt a child to an older brother. Which ordinary audience can empathize more deeply? Therefore, although "Tian Geng Ji" is a costume drama, emotionally, contemporary audiences can seamlessly understand the situation of the characters in the drama because the "pain points" are the same.

And "Shuangdian" is also very "old and middle-aged". The grandparents who are stubborn, partial, stingy and indifferent, confront the selfish and harmful uncle, lead the foolish and filial father, and the weak mother to reborn and become rich together, and "counterattack" "Revenge" and "getting rich", these elements are all very satisfying to the audience.

The "itchy point" is the plot design of the light comedy and the choice of actors. There are many actors with comedy quality. For example, the character of the uncle, the character and the things he does can be called crazy, but the actor's comedic performance style makes this Characters are less hateful. There is also Jiang Shimeng, who performed very well, and interpreted the role of Er Bo Niang with great comedic charm. It can be said that one person drove the comedy rhythm of the entire play. Wang Qing, who came from the talent show, is also remarkable in his performances.

In terms of performance, this drama basically does not have the rigid performance paradigm that is prone to appear in costume dramas in recent years. Instead, it reveals some daily textures of real life. In this regard, the actors deserve the most credit.

The highlight of the show is the brilliant comedy.

But after boasting its advantages, we still need to talk about its extremely prominent problems. The popularity of "Tian Geng Ji" has benefited from the novelty of its subject matter and characters to a certain extent, but when looking closely at the quality of its script, I personally feel that there are many minor problems. For example, the heroine’s career line in the play involves making garlic peanuts, brewing brandy, growing off-season vegetables, and selling spicy hotpots. Everything sounds a bit interesting, but none of them go into depth to create a sufficiently exciting crisis and crisis. Obstacles and climaxes have become a light running account. If we take "The Son-in-law", which has a similar genre, as an example, "The Son-in-law" pays more attention to the career line arrangement than "Tian Geng Ji".

In addition, in a feudal imperial society, the male protagonist came to a small county alone to investigate the case as the queen's brother. The villain turned out to be just a businessman, and he faced life and death crises several times. Even though the businessman was trying to rebel against the prince. Despite the reputation of doing things, you still have a sense of confusion that the male protagonist is "killing chickens for the sake of the uncle of the country", which makes the entire main character line of the male protagonist seem untenable.

No matter how hard you try to whitewash the power of this businessman villain in the county town, you still feel a sense of childishness when you think of the male protagonist's identity as a relative of the emperor. I really want to make the male protagonist, who almost died several times in fights with a businessman in the drama, wake up. Think about your identity and the resources you should be able to mobilize for this identity and this task (investigating rebellion). Is this difficult situation reasonable? I really want to give him Chen Chong's words in "Sturdy as a Rock": "I will give you four words, scholar, farmer, industry and commerce."

Stills from "Tian Geng Ji"

Finally, it is the finale that I personally think is the most outrageous and offensive. Even if the big house sells the heroine to a ghost marriage and defrauds the second house of a huge sum of money, even if the big house deceives his own sister into becoming the old man’s concubine, even if the big house harms his daughter, The main character's mother almost killed two people and lost her child. Even if the family is so ruthless and commits crimes to such an extent, they still have to have a family reunion with Xini, and it is the heroine who takes the initiative to reconcile! Then the family reunites to have New Year's Eve dinner and light up the Kongming lanterns. I can't comment, there are so many things to say.

In view of the recent lawsuits and entanglements between the scriptwriter and the film studio, it is difficult to blame the script problems on the scriptwriter without knowing the full picture of the creation. I can only comment: Who finalized the ending of this TV series, and who seems to be alive An old zombie in the Qing Dynasty. It is not easy for Chinese TV drama creators to convey contemporary values and advanced ideas to the general public through this popular art form. Some people should not use your backward and ignorant creative views, which even have no basic concept of the rule of law, and let the efforts of colleagues Down the drain.

Don't say things like "Of course costume dramas must present ancient values" or "How can the ancients have the advanced ideas of today's people". First of all, the heroine is set to be a modern person who has traveled through the game, a contemporary college student. This behavior of being a virgin and a muddy person regardless of the facts of the crime is like a normal modern person who has received nine years of compulsory education? Second, even if it is a costume drama, it is certainly possible to present the dross of the times or backward ideas of the times, but the question lies in what attitude the contemporary creators have in this presentation process, an objectively presented attitude of scrutiny, can It is okay to criticize from a contemporary point of view after presentation; but one should not show an attitude of praise and approval for obviously bad values and obviously controversial choices. The ending of "Tian Geng Ji" is obviously the last one.

Dafang family

In fact, the TV series "A Certain Way" that caused widespread controversy many years ago is also an example of this, but that drama's attitude towards praising feudal dross such as "preferring boys over girls" and "giving life to your husband to give birth to a boy" was more obvious, while "Tian Geng Ji" " is even more covert. It uses the narrative of family fun in traditional Chinese concepts to cover up the essential disregard for facts and connivance of illegal crimes. The implicit values contained in this narrative are terrifying if you think about it carefully. If family fun is something that should be The highest value recognized by those who decide the content of the drama, so is "domestic violence" a harmless and trivial matter? So should relatives who commit crimes be shielded? So people who have been harmed by family members through criminal crimes can only obey the patriarchal dogma and forgive the perpetrators?

I have to say that I, a person who enjoys watching dramas easily, was finally thrown off guard by the ending of "Tian Geng Ji". But there is no doubt that the play succeeded with a small risk. It has its merits: in the future, it will not be so difficult to pass meetings and establish projects for "Farming Stream" projects.