Knotrope - Episode 1｜A big gathering of year-end dinner dramas

【Editor's note】

The "First Episode" series to help you watch the drama is here. Is the recently launched drama worth getting into? Good-looking and weird, let’s play together on the weekends.

Maybe some dramas will get better gradually, and some dramas may start high but then slow down, so this article only represents the author's opinion on the first few episodes and is for reference only. If there is any subsequent slap in the face, we will inform you at any time.

"The Boy Who Calls the Dragon"

First broadcast time: December 10, 2023

Broadcasting platform: CCTV8, Youku

Stills of "The Young Man Who Sings the Dragon"

This show is really both love and hate.

What’s interesting is that Lei Ming led five weird students from Class 11 to conduct a special teaching experiment. I think this is the life that all those who have experienced the domestic college entrance examination long for. He does not need students to call him teacher, he talks to students on an equal footing, guides learning with interest, and shares the results of his hard work for free. He even helps students find the essence of "learning" in the first class: concentrate, eliminate distractions, As a hobby and mastery of methodology, a new concept of comprehensive learning ability was also proposed. Not only that, but he also helps solve family difficulties, personality problems, social barriers... Lei Ming is simply the dream lover.

But it makes people laugh while watching it, also because it is too dramatic. The series bought the rights to "Dragon Sakura", inherited some of the hot-blooded secondary sense, and made it more comic-like, but this does not mean that it has to be divorced from reality.

First of all, although Lei Ming is not a perfect person, he seems to be too perfect at being a teacher. This perfection makes the character divorced from reality.

Secondly, the school and student atmosphere are also divorced from reality. For example, bullying does exist among students, but is it really so common that it can be seen everywhere, or even openly bullied? In the author's memory, the senior year of high school was more busy with books and test papers. Even if there were frictions between classmates, it was only a small fight. The bullying in the drama is more like a Korean drama campus, with a drama atmosphere and a bitter lover.

Not only that, the series also includes quite a few other hot social issues, such as sexual harassment by stepfathers, preference for sons over daughters, the poor hating the rich, the rich being brainless, cowardly mommy boys...a whole social news slam. Of course, the purpose of this is to make the series hotly discussed, but over-concentrating on hot topics has a strong sense of utilitarianism, and the audience has become a part of being arranged to send them to hot searches. But for a TV series, only if it is good-looking and smooth It is the most important thing, not the issue first. Otherwise, what is the difference between this and an educational promotional video?

According to the routine, these students will overcome one difficulty after another. In the process, Lei Ming also gained self-salvation, and the students were admitted to Qingbei. If this is the case, everyone can just think of it as a dream for their adolescent selves. But if the ending is that the students may not necessarily be admitted to Qingbei, but they all become mentally strong people with clear goals in life, and Lei Ming also gives up his obsession with Qingbei, then it really deserves a high score.

Of course, Ding Hei is a good director, Zhang Ruoyun is also a good actor, and the other young actors are also very solid in their acting skills. From a technical point of view, there is nothing wrong with the series. Like "Police Honor", the shots are solid and the rhythm is steady. It is indeed a TV series that you can watch in the near future.

"Derailed"

First broadcast time: December 14, 2023

Broadcast platform: Youku

Stills from "Derailment"

The popularity of the series was very low when it first aired, which was surprising, but after watching 6 episodes, I really wanted to say loudly, go watch it! Cunzi is really cute, beautiful and good at acting! Regardless of the previous discussions about her personal character or her acting career, being selected by director Zhang Yimou and working on several films under him is no joke. It’s not that Liu Haocun is so good. Jiang Xiaoyuan in the play is not an easy and likable character to play. She has some ability to play Jiang Xiaoyuan vividly and naturally.

The content of the series is adapted from the novel of the same name, telling a story that coexists suspense and love. Although the overall concept is science fiction, the series is well executed. First of all, the entire series focuses on Jiang Xiaoyuan who has traveled back to 2018. There are almost no other subplots, so the audience will not be distracted. The rhythm is tight and tense, and they can follow the protagonist who has traveled back to 2018 to watch her. What should we do? The protagonist also stopped playing soy sauce all the way and concentrated on finding ways to support himself first. Even if he meets a handsome guy on the road, he won't be distracted and monologue some strange lines.

Secondly, the heroine’s personality is good, and she does not forcibly lose her intelligence because of the emotional line. After she traveled to 2018, she looked at the date of food in a convenience store to determine the year, and took 2 yuan to buy rice instead of snacks. It is interesting to see details such as , and also naturally integrates the thoughts and temperament concepts of modern young girls into the plot. For example, they will never accept sexual harassment, engage in infighting, nor accept the replacement of Bai Yueguang, let alone be miserable. It is conceivable that if the heroine was in an ordinary movie, she was in poverty on the streets, had no money to eat, and lived in an Internet cafe, wouldn't she have to give more miserable monologues? But in the play, Jiang Xiaoyuan always lives a normal life, even if she has an emotional breakdown. At that time, I also cried silently, and immediately began to think about what to do next. What's important is that Liu Haocun didn't give an exaggerated performance. He was neither witty nor pretentious. He didn't have the baggage of being a beauty. He had no innocent persona. After being stabbed in the back in a barber shop, he said to his colleagues expressionlessly, "We are the two of you." "When I'm not a fellow traveler", I'm just a working man myself, earning thousands of yuan and not even being able to eat. Who has time to be sad about this trivial matter?

This drama reminded me of the feeling I had when I watched "The Beginning". It was tense and exciting, and I could enjoy some CP at the same time. Beautiful, love watching.

"thrush"

First broadcast time: December 12, 2023

Broadcast platform: Youku, Tencent Video

Stills of "Thrush"

Judging from the current audience feedback, viewers who like spy war dramas can still use it for dinner, but the discussion on the Internet is indeed not very popular. There are not many emotional lines between the protagonists, and most of them are catching enemy agents. However, there is also a lack of Topic, after all, the main line of the spy war is a bit tepid, there is nothing to complain about, but there is nothing particularly worthy of praise.

After watching a few more episodes, the author's feelings about this drama are very similar to an interactive spy game "Invisible Guardian" that I played a few years ago. It is very much like the audience and the male and female protagonists, especially the heroine, enter a world together. In the task of protecting important people, in the process, enemy agents are constantly discovered, dangerous situations are constantly discovered, and then they are constantly solved. The narrative line of the entire story is almost linear, except that at the beginning there is some God's perspective to know who the enemy elements are, but it soon enters an unknown state. In this process, the heroine and her important person have jokes and jokes, and they also rely on each other and trust each other, and pass the test together every day.

Because of this, this drama has relatively little discussion about individual actors or individual characters.

This is a very smart approach for the showrunners. Although this filming method may not be called advanced, for migrant workers with limited time, clear expressions and labels are important criteria when watching dramas to spend time. Solve the crisis step by step, suspect and verify the people around you one by one. During the honest filming process of "Thrush", it also released the promotion of "Let's make Sherlock Holmes together", which added to the sense of game. As long as you don't expect to see too much feelings about family and country in spy dramas, or things like masters competing against each other and playing with people's hearts, "Thrush" is a good choice to watch for dinner, or to watch one or two episodes before going to bed to help you sleep. .

"The Hidden God"

First broadcast time: December 11, 2023

Broadcasting platform: Mango TV, Tencent Video

Frankly speaking, "The Hidden God" is not ugly, but it is not particularly charming. With the opening scene of a pair of weak characters, coupled with Zhao Lusi's little titty voice, the male and female protagonists look like a pair of elementary school students having a fight. The overall aesthetic and shots of the series are also very similar to the animated live-action TV series specially made for elementary school students that I watched when I was a child.

Stills of "The Hidden God"

Ancient puppets and fairy tale dramas have a basic audience, so they often dominate the rankings, but it is difficult to write new routines and new plots. Couples in the world of Xianxia are nothing more than several relationships, such as master and apprentice, colleagues, mortal enemies, childhood sweethearts... It's normal for them not to be romantically involved.

It can only be said that the unpleasant thing about "The Hidden God" is that the male and female protagonists are weak in the early stage. The plot setting is too much like playing a game and following the main mission, and the characters and plot lack charm. Although the male protagonist is a good-for-nothing second-generation ancestor who has grown up, his growth rate is a bit slow, and the heroine has a small-tongued voice in the early stage, which attracts a limited audience.

The current data of the series is pretty good. After all, as a 95 traffic star, Zhao Lusi has a certain ratings base in the ancient puppets. The little girl who is out of the circle will also make people curious, and they can't help but click in and take a look. At present, the popularity and playback volume have tended to go sideways. How to attract new viewers in the future depends on how the plot unfolds and how cruel it is.