Ep 5-10 are on the slow side. Picks up after 11. It's aping the book (original Chinese version) very closely, hardly anything has been left/cut so far, which is unusual in modern movie/show adaptations.

I'm listening to the audio book now (I know the story though thanks to YouTube videos about the series) and all I can think is how terrible this would be to adapt for television, especially for a western audience. I haven't read a lot of stuff from Chinese authors, but I get the sense that the style is just so different there. Like, the conversations in the book are all very technical. Unlike modern prestige TV where hyper-realistic dialogue and character-driven stories are the norm.

I haven't watched the series yet, but from reviews I've seen, it seems adapting it into a watchable series is presenting a challenge.

It's been very slow so far.

ngl the books were pretty slow too, even when things started to pick up it was like the author just abandoned a bunch of cool ideas to introduce other cool ideas and nothing ever paid off much. some of it was foreshadowing, but alot of it seemed like he wrote himself into a corner. it plays into some of the themes of the books in certain cases but it also just seemed lazy at times.

Didn’t even know there was this. I know there’s a nextflix one coming out.

Anyways. The book is really really slow. It’s also very Chinese, and China of like the 60s-80s so it’s pretty awkward.

The book seems really unadaptable into anything that isn’t boring and to make it more presentable to western audiences is gonna be hard as hell. It’s set in China and very culturally Chinese

Plus like 90% of the story is a group of people in a room talking about technical stuff. Then they move to a different room and do the same, then a third room, then back to the first room. Like literally, that’s the story.

Or to put it in comparison. It’s like if Fellowship of the Ring was 90% set in Rivendell just like talking about what they might do.

I really enjoyed the books.

I stopped at episode 3 for the same reason you mentioned, but people who are watching it are saying it gets better after episode 5

It gets interesting after 1 ep or 2, the theme/goal of the series becomes clear,if u are not hook until then no point continue watching , it gets slow again after that.

I'm wondering if people who haven't read the books can even enjoy it. I'm enjoying the slow pace and how they are going into everything in the books. I also thought it was crazy ep 3 was entirely about the numbers. But there are going to be 30 episodes, so if you break the book up to 30 eps then it actually spent as much time as the book does.

But i am not sure I'd be into it if I hadn't already read the series and had a lot of things I was looking forward to seeing in live action

So does it get better? The books and story are amazing. Is it going to stay slow and drag things out? Yup. 30 eps is a lot.

Also have to say it's kind of funny watching two scientists lose their mind over satellite readings. I get why it's a big deal, but they went all out piling stuff on a table just so the lead can dramatically sweep it all off. One scientist looks for a pen by throwing all the binders on their desk down on the floor. They're printing out the results and holding onto the paper like "come on....print faster...come on!!!" Haha

I'm thinking Netflix is going to really alter a lot of things to make this into a bingeable series. The cast is obviously international. They've got Benedict Wong playing the lead, probably because he's one of the most well known actors of Chinese descent due to Marvel, but I feel he's seriously miscast as the lead as opposed to Detective Shi (who I think he'd be perfect as).

I'm curious to see how it will come out, and how it will compare to this, which is definitely a "by the book" adaptation, for better or worse.

Its cause the character writing is bad, they exist to just move the plot along

Which is why any good adaption would require extensive new writing

Yes. The numbers one is slow but it gets better, ep. 7 they start playing the game and it's well made.

I read the book and I'm enjoying the slow pace of the Tencent TV series.

I'm actually quite jealous really. Because they're doing a fairly small book over 30 episodes, each 30-50 minutes long, they really do get to include almost everything. Poor Wheel of Time with a larger book only got 8 episodes, and a drastically changed and shortened story as a result.

Apparently its going to be 30 episodes long for the first book, so it might be better to wait for the Netflix series if that's going too slow.

I enjoyed the countdown photos episode, it helped demonstrate Miao's methodical approach to studying an absolutely bizarre and seemingly inexplicable thing. Only thing that was odd is that his wife went along with it a little too readily.

Regarding the ads, on Youtube I just get a 15 second ad burst at the start and halfway through each episode.. Still more than Netflix, but way less than typical cable TV. I also don't speak Chinese, so all it does is make me curious what Santi(Santee?) is.

Holy crap. I thought he was playing the detective. He's literally who I pictured when reading the book.

It was written and produced as a 30 episode drama in the style of Chinese kung-fu soap operas. Don't get your hopes up for any substance.

I just started the first book. I didn't realize there was a series based on it.

I get far more ads than that - are you a paid subscriber? (I'm not.) And, yeah, not speaking Chinese, it does make them rather pointless!

I haven't read the books, but I've been mostly enjoying the Tencent series. It definitely suffers a bit from its slower pacing, and can even feel a tad repetitive at times, but I respect what they're trying to do here. It's an interesting story, and there have been some good moments and emotional scenes that help break up some of the monotony.

I suspect that when I reach the end I'll say it probably should have been 20 episodes instead of 30 or something, but I also plan to watch all 30 regardless. Butchering it with an 8-episode series would've been much worse than going all-in on a full-sized adaptation. I definitely prefer too many episodes to too few.

Yeah maybe that's it, I did sub when I ran out of free episodes

The book fans in China hated it too, so you're not alone