When I first started watching Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty I was ready to (and in fact did) recommend it to a lot of people. Most of my early recommendations said something along the lines of "Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty has the promise of early series Sherlock, but set in the Ming Dynasty."

Unfortunately, like Sherlock it also falls apart a bit. I generally think the performers (specifically Fu Mengbo & Liu Yaoyuan) are doing such a good job with the script, but I think the problem is mostly the script and with the late stage production. You can see the expense on screen in sets, martial arts, & costuming, but especially after about halfway through the series the editing gets really, really bad. At least one episode effectively ends mid sentence, like they hit their word count and had to shunt over the next episode.

The script starts off strong, but it feels like they stopped caring around episode 30 or so. The finale episode involves a climatic battle between two characters who did not exist in the series until maybe episode 40. They have a hard time handling the story beats, and at certain points the characters (some of whom are basically the smartest men in the Dynasty) have to suddenly become idiots for the plot to work .

It's such a pity overall because I really love the characters and the actors, but I can't, in good conscious recommend a series that it felt like I had to be pushed to finish just so I could reach a conclusion.