Was a rollercoaster of good and bad for me. I started off liking the opening of the show. Amazing depiction of the cultural revolution and realistic acting fro

Was a rollercoaster of good and bad for me. I started off liking the opening of the show. Amazing depiction of the cultural revolution and realistic acting from lesser known Chinese actors. Then came the blatantly imported cast from Game of Thrones, who resemble their GoT characters too closely to be standalone characters. We had.. degenerate Samwell Tarly, Davos if he was cast as Stannis, the Faith of the Seven priest from GoT (character completely unchanged), and on the other hand some LA girls trying to do their best Good Will Hunting impression. I feel like few of the actors truly understood their character and the stakes behind their decisions. Furthermore, the latter half of episode one, and episode two had all the fingerprints of Benioff and Weiss and their run-of-the-mill Hollywood archetype: that cheap game of thrones final season feel, highlighted by snappy, unrealistic conversations that end in punchlines. My taste for the show quickly soured at that point. Episodes 3 and onwards got progressively better. The writers kept the most thought provoking scifi aspects of the book and those premises really carry the show the rest of the way. Towards the end there are some really good drama and emotional stakes involved too, so pleasantly surprised there.