Oh boy, where do I even begin to unpack this mess?

First off, the premise was great. Due to China's censorship about supernatural themes, the writing crew smartly decided to go down the science-fiction path: a spaceship with aliens, a different planet with three main race/species, war between the three - all in all makings of a great science-fiction show, while keeping to the original novel's intentions and message.

And yet.

Right off the bat, what could have been a great entertaining show felt more like a B-grade science fiction movie. The writing was all over the place and it was like the writers couldn't decide what to focus on with so many plotlines and cases running ahead of them. The characters, including Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, felt more like empty puppets with a headless chicken controlling them - mechanical and soulless (if not for the two actors' brilliant acting) which is starkly different to the characters in the original novel.

The cast though were so good! Bai Yu especially was able to deliver the inner loneliness of Zhao Yunlan: the way his eyes dimmed every time Zhao meets his father, the way he stares (lovingly) at Shen Wei and the fear pursing his lips in the last two episodes. Zhu Yilong was commendable too for the way he handled two drastically different roles, though sometimes it did seem that there was no difference between the two (I blame that on the writing, to be honest.) Can I just say that the chemistry between Bai and Zhu was just beautiful? It took a few episodes to get the chemistry going and that's a good thing because it's great to watch the blossoming chemistry take center-stage.

It's such a shame that such a good cast was wasted on this cringe-worthy show though.