We just finished the season. The first episodes were compelling, especially the China scenes. But the cast was so WRONG it was distracting, and it really got stuck around episode 6 or 7 for us. Too little interesting science, too little of the weird cult stuff, too much of the unlikely relationships between the scientists. Unfortunately it also went from being accurate about the Cultural Revolution to having a feeling of “woke” later. But maybe that’s just my paranoia there! It was worth a few hours, and I’m interested to see what they do with Season 2.
I watched episode one last night. I got bored after 30-40mins. Maybe I should give it another try. (I hated The Wire the first time I watched it.) I was thrilled by the opening scene because of current events—educating people on “woke” revolutions provides a context for debate. Another good film for providing this context is “First They Killed My Father.” So many people don’t know about The Great Leap Forward or the Khmer Rouge. How can you explain anything about the problems with DEI if they don’t know their history?
"Perhaps finding forgiveness through spirituality would have been a better path." Very interesting point.
Years ago, I read two books by survivors of the Bataan Death March and the even more harrowing trip to Japan in the hold of a ship later in the war. Both men were Christians, overcame their anger, and forgave their tormentors because they were not exposed to Christ's teachings and the respect for the dignity of each and every human being that arises from it. There is a very interesting Chinese movie about the Rape of Nanking that touches on this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx_ervF7h7w
Louis Zamperini is a famous example of someone healing himself by turning to Faith.
I was wondering about this while watching the movie, but not enough to bother looking it up. The diversity of the scientists seemed too contrived to be true to the book. It was engaging enough to watch the whole series with my teenager, but the personalities and social dynamics of the scientists were pretty obnoxious. I suppose that’s a testament to the novels that the series was still engaging despite obnoxious Netflix panderstoning.
I don't know specifics, but I've had the sense there has been a dramatic increase in science fiction writers in the mainland since Liu Cixin. Some of the writing is translated into English and available in the Clarkesworld e-zine and podcasts. https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/
If you pay attention to the writing, you notice it is . . . constrained. No need for active censorship. The boundaries are understood. But the writing is informative the same as if one were to describe a room only by stating what is not in the room.
It's good enough. My cousin asked if he should read the books first or just go watch the series. I told him, and everyone else wondering the same thing, to go read the series first (if you can...it's dense. I didn't have the books but listened to the audiobooks which was enthralling).
The main difference between the two is that the novels are presented as a puzzle that the reader slowly has to piece together to understand what is going on. The Netflix series just lays it all out for you as simply as possible so as to appeal to a broad audience.
Lastly, you think by changing Asians to black and brown people they would at least set it at Harvard and not Oxford.
One of the most interesting things about the characters in the series was how many of them either refused, lacked the courage, or simply couldn’t be bothered to engage in the effort to save humanity due to complete self absorption, despite an existential threat. Some of them even said who cares what happens to mankind in 400 years, that doesn’t effect me. That attitude seemed very relevant to our current predicament.
I liked it very much. Action scenes are amazing. Can easily skip thru the emo scientists talking about their feelings. Need to hit those different themes to increase odds of more seasons being commissioned of course. 4.5 rating is spot on.
I read the first book in this Epic trilogy and really enjoyed it. I definitely saw the correlation you pointed out about struggle sessions. Very creepy and terrifying. I was disappointed that Hollywood put there usual blatant feminist spin on it. Women are all smart, hard (macho) & men are treated like their children, weak & adolescent. The primary character in the book is a strong woman & that's cool. But Hollywood carried that thru-out all of the characters. So tired of this cancer on our society. Our young people are so indoctrinated they don't even see it. They think it's normal. If it wasn't based on such excellent novels I would have just moved on.
I had a difficult time following the characters. At first I couldn't figure out why, but it dawned on me that it was because the names were Chinese. One of the many challenges was the fact I couldn't tell their gender. I realized that was just one of the attributes used to relate and identify a character. Thanks for the great article.
I’ve read the first two books of the series and all I can say is please read them! As an aside I do prefer the audible versions as I like to “read” as I do mundane tasks like driving, chores, easy tasks at work etc. so it gives me more time to read and I spend less time doing “nothing” while I read—although I will never consider reading a book as “doing nothing “ it can sometimes feel that way. It removes this feeling of doing nothing and allows you to accomplish things while enjoying the time spent doing it. Much better than watching TV — or almost worse—getting lost in UTUBE (or tic tok which I’ve never done)or xwitter short vids. That is definitely time lost doing nothing—not even stimulating the smart part of your brain—just inducing more mush. It really is a fascinating look into Chinese culture and how they view humanity and the future. A great series so far.
Evans and Ye’s unholy marriage of Eastern shame and Western guilt. What a great sentence; it encapsulates so much. In the East, you have the influence of Confucius, and in the West Christianity. Both have profound moral implications that steadied societies. But as so much, sociopaths take the philosophies, strip them of their moral teachings, and use them as tools to justify power grabs.
While these things reportedly happened in a far off land at a time in the near past where those in attendance still live and testify to them, it is becoming clear to me that this, too, is propaganda with purpose in a candy shell.
Unity is the antidote to tyranny, but use extreme caution when determining what unites because division of ideas and people into rank is not unity.
There will never be total unity, either, so unify on a shortlist of core values that truly matter to one's cultural survival leaving the rest loose to flavor that humanity and spur ingenuity and growth.
I am a sci-fi fanatic and loved it and I want more. Liam Cunningham is a beast. Also thought of another great movie with struggle sessions but not sci-fi. The Last Emperor. I really enjoy this movie but it leaves me with such profound sadness for China and the Chinese people under the CCP. John Lone and Joan Chen. 👍
The first few episodes were so good - Ye's growing hatred of humanity from the cruelty and stupidity around her, the creepy attacks on the scientists, the propaganda video game that was perfectly designed to draw them in. Jin was a good character who rose to the occasion, while the rest of the scientists were whiny sad sacks (this was a bit more forgivable for Augie, since she did seem traumatized by what she had done to the followers). But after that the plot totally fell apart. The San-ti have omnipotent power over computing, electronics, and human perception and they use it to... troll Wade and try to assassinate a whiny stoner. The first priority plan for humanity is to... waste 300 nuclear warheads launching the brain of a British sad sack into space, hope it ends up near the San-ti, hope they decide to pick it up, hope they can reconstitute the body of a totally different species, hope they allow him to learn something useful, and hope he figures out a way to communicate it back to Earth. So stupid.
We just finished the season. The first episodes were compelling, especially the China scenes. But the cast was so WRONG it was distracting, and it really got stuck around episode 6 or 7 for us. Too little interesting science, too little of the weird cult stuff, too much of the unlikely relationships between the scientists. Unfortunately it also went from being accurate about the Cultural Revolution to having a feeling of “woke” later. But maybe that’s just my paranoia there! It was worth a few hours, and I’m interested to see what they do with Season 2.
I watched episode one last night. I got bored after 30-40mins. Maybe I should give it another try. (I hated The Wire the first time I watched it.) I was thrilled by the opening scene because of current events—educating people on “woke” revolutions provides a context for debate. Another good film for providing this context is “First They Killed My Father.” So many people don’t know about The Great Leap Forward or the Khmer Rouge. How can you explain anything about the problems with DEI if they don’t know their history?
"Perhaps finding forgiveness through spirituality would have been a better path." Very interesting point.
Years ago, I read two books by survivors of the Bataan Death March and the even more harrowing trip to Japan in the hold of a ship later in the war. Both men were Christians, overcame their anger, and forgave their tormentors because they were not exposed to Christ's teachings and the respect for the dignity of each and every human being that arises from it. There is a very interesting Chinese movie about the Rape of Nanking that touches on this point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx_ervF7h7w
Louis Zamperini is a famous example of someone healing himself by turning to Faith.
“In the book, they are all Chinese men.”
I was wondering about this while watching the movie, but not enough to bother looking it up. The diversity of the scientists seemed too contrived to be true to the book. It was engaging enough to watch the whole series with my teenager, but the personalities and social dynamics of the scientists were pretty obnoxious. I suppose that’s a testament to the novels that the series was still engaging despite obnoxious Netflix panderstoning.
I don't know specifics, but I've had the sense there has been a dramatic increase in science fiction writers in the mainland since Liu Cixin. Some of the writing is translated into English and available in the Clarkesworld e-zine and podcasts. https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/
If you pay attention to the writing, you notice it is . . . constrained. No need for active censorship. The boundaries are understood. But the writing is informative the same as if one were to describe a room only by stating what is not in the room.
It's good enough. My cousin asked if he should read the books first or just go watch the series. I told him, and everyone else wondering the same thing, to go read the series first (if you can...it's dense. I didn't have the books but listened to the audiobooks which was enthralling).
The main difference between the two is that the novels are presented as a puzzle that the reader slowly has to piece together to understand what is going on. The Netflix series just lays it all out for you as simply as possible so as to appeal to a broad audience.
Lastly, you think by changing Asians to black and brown people they would at least set it at Harvard and not Oxford.
Great review. But I quit Netflix when they brought in the Obamas and Susan Rice.
One of the most interesting things about the characters in the series was how many of them either refused, lacked the courage, or simply couldn’t be bothered to engage in the effort to save humanity due to complete self absorption, despite an existential threat. Some of them even said who cares what happens to mankind in 400 years, that doesn’t effect me. That attitude seemed very relevant to our current predicament.
I liked it very much. Action scenes are amazing. Can easily skip thru the emo scientists talking about their feelings. Need to hit those different themes to increase odds of more seasons being commissioned of course. 4.5 rating is spot on.
I read the first book in this Epic trilogy and really enjoyed it. I definitely saw the correlation you pointed out about struggle sessions. Very creepy and terrifying. I was disappointed that Hollywood put there usual blatant feminist spin on it. Women are all smart, hard (macho) & men are treated like their children, weak & adolescent. The primary character in the book is a strong woman & that's cool. But Hollywood carried that thru-out all of the characters. So tired of this cancer on our society. Our young people are so indoctrinated they don't even see it. They think it's normal. If it wasn't based on such excellent novels I would have just moved on.
I had a difficult time following the characters. At first I couldn't figure out why, but it dawned on me that it was because the names were Chinese. One of the many challenges was the fact I couldn't tell their gender. I realized that was just one of the attributes used to relate and identify a character. Thanks for the great article.
I agree with your assessment. Feral Historian does a review of the whole series: https://youtu.be/6oDMXn-ViQg?si=eWjep-0Zlm3aff8r
I’ve read the first two books of the series and all I can say is please read them! As an aside I do prefer the audible versions as I like to “read” as I do mundane tasks like driving, chores, easy tasks at work etc. so it gives me more time to read and I spend less time doing “nothing” while I read—although I will never consider reading a book as “doing nothing “ it can sometimes feel that way. It removes this feeling of doing nothing and allows you to accomplish things while enjoying the time spent doing it. Much better than watching TV — or almost worse—getting lost in UTUBE (or tic tok which I’ve never done)or xwitter short vids. That is definitely time lost doing nothing—not even stimulating the smart part of your brain—just inducing more mush. It really is a fascinating look into Chinese culture and how they view humanity and the future. A great series so far.
Evans and Ye’s unholy marriage of Eastern shame and Western guilt. What a great sentence; it encapsulates so much. In the East, you have the influence of Confucius, and in the West Christianity. Both have profound moral implications that steadied societies. But as so much, sociopaths take the philosophies, strip them of their moral teachings, and use them as tools to justify power grabs.
While these things reportedly happened in a far off land at a time in the near past where those in attendance still live and testify to them, it is becoming clear to me that this, too, is propaganda with purpose in a candy shell.
Unity is the antidote to tyranny, but use extreme caution when determining what unites because division of ideas and people into rank is not unity.
There will never be total unity, either, so unify on a shortlist of core values that truly matter to one's cultural survival leaving the rest loose to flavor that humanity and spur ingenuity and growth.
I am a sci-fi fanatic and loved it and I want more. Liam Cunningham is a beast. Also thought of another great movie with struggle sessions but not sci-fi. The Last Emperor. I really enjoy this movie but it leaves me with such profound sadness for China and the Chinese people under the CCP. John Lone and Joan Chen. 👍
The first few episodes were so good - Ye's growing hatred of humanity from the cruelty and stupidity around her, the creepy attacks on the scientists, the propaganda video game that was perfectly designed to draw them in. Jin was a good character who rose to the occasion, while the rest of the scientists were whiny sad sacks (this was a bit more forgivable for Augie, since she did seem traumatized by what she had done to the followers). But after that the plot totally fell apart. The San-ti have omnipotent power over computing, electronics, and human perception and they use it to... troll Wade and try to assassinate a whiny stoner. The first priority plan for humanity is to... waste 300 nuclear warheads launching the brain of a British sad sack into space, hope it ends up near the San-ti, hope they decide to pick it up, hope they can reconstitute the body of a totally different species, hope they allow him to learn something useful, and hope he figures out a way to communicate it back to Earth. So stupid.