absurd

At the end of the day I don't care much that he gets the girl, the romance is mostly background here. The way they are setting it up is annoying though, mostly because of the very spoilery synopsis. While I might have been disappointed later on, when all that build up between JN and GY leads to nothing, it would have been much better than watching all of this and thinking: "ok, but why?"

Well , they need some suspense there, even if we all know that they won't get kicked out LOL

I don't want to debate semantics about politics, I am not well versed in those :) But I do live in country that used to have the same regime as China and saw a lot of movies made by that regime: it's all about hard working nobodies, simple people who have nothing being the heroes and rich being the evil. It's a load of BS, but also not limited to socialist countries. I mean Harry Potter, anyone? All the rich aristocrats are evil and the Weasleys are the good guys.

Hmm, I didn't really get much of "propaganda" vibe from it, I mean it's no more patriotic than say, You are my glory, and that one has nothing to do with military. Modern c-dramas are all like that and considering the theme, this one is actually pretty mild on the propaganda, more of the Arsenal military academy type of military drama, rather that something like Faith makes great, so far.
CCTV thing might be about scheduling, actually, I mean it only got licensed like a week ago. And JSTV is not that high in the pecking order to refuse a guarantied hit.

I know right, it's pretty obvious that GY is superior not just because of his brains, he won in a fight, did better in the shooting exercise and much better in the long distance exercise. How does coming from the rich family help with that? Shouldn't GL be stronger and have more endurance if he worked in the mine?

Idk, maybe it's the whole communist thing, where it's all about taking away from the rich and giving power to the "people", why GL is praised so much (like they wrote it that way for censorship). But it was kind of annoying that it was all "GL is so amazing, army needs people like him", when there are literally at last two other people that did better in the long distance exercise. Not just GY, there was another guy with him on the finish line, that GL didn't even reach. If by the end of this GL is going to be GY's commanding officer I am going to be so mad. Like I don't care that he gets the girl, if GY stepped away it means he didn't really love her, but career wise... no way.
The synopsis might not be accurate, but there are "family pictures" of GY with a kid and wife, and that lady is not JN

Hahaha, the eye lecture was the worst by far LOL like that was so random and unexpected. I was like why Gu-ge, why??)))

I find it funny, that usually in this kind of set up Gu Yiye would be the ML and GL would be the SML, who steals his girl by using some underhanded tricks. But as we know, she would end up with GL, so the situation right now is a bit weird. I do agree that persisting after being told no straight to your face seems like a douchebag behavior. And him knowing that Gu Yiye likes her, just makes it worse. Haven't he heard of a bro code or something? LOL

So, the spoilery parts.
I am really annoyed with the spoiler-summary now. There is really nothing as of ep 9, that would lead me to believe that JNZ will end up with GL. She literally told him, she doesn't like him and writes letters to Gu Yiye, asking him to spend her birthday with her! And it doesn't even have that usual "sml making ml look bad" vibe, it's actually the other way around where GL tries to push GYY out of the way, while JNZ looks at Gu Yiye with starry eyes. And knowing that they have no future, just makes the whole situation annoying and takes all the cute romantic vibes out of their interactions.
I'm also not a big fan of "dumb but determined hero" trope. Smart people also work hard, just because some things are easier for them, doesn't mean they don't face challenges. The way some characters dismiss Gu Yiye's achievements just because he's smart and has a good background just sucks. And that part in ep 8 (I think) where commander said to GL that he'll choose him to stay because he has no other opportunities, had me facepalming. First, because if he thinks that was a compliment, he should think again, but also... what? You're training an army (not building a homeless shelter), shouldn't you choose the best? That is not to say GL is a bad solder, but the way he phrased it was kinda... bad.
The logic and psychology behind some of the interactions is sometimes difficult to understand, but that might be a cultural difference and also the fact that I'm a girl, who's never been in the army. Funny how the spoiler part ended up being things that annoy me.

Ok, so I finally got enough episodes in to have an opinion. So far, the drama is actually very good. I'm bit lost on the names of the commanding officers and most of the other recruits, but that might be a me thing (I am very bad at names). Other than that, the story is dynamic, a bit too "patriotic", but not unbearably so and I actually like that the "romance" part is done more in interludes, rather than being the focus. Gu Yiye is The Nerd, he really is the male Hermione, if he wasn't so likable, I probably would have found him annoying. His long winded lectures give me so much second hand embarrassment, like you wouldn't believe. Gao Liang on the other hand is dumb as a rock. I mean he's adorable, but why did they make him sooo dumb? Shouldn't he at last have some street smarts?
I'll put specific comments under spoiler (up to ep 9)

That's what I was thinking. At first it didn't really bother me, but with the way the romance part of the plot is developing, GL and JNZ ending up together would have been a total surprise, if it was not in the summary and some spoiler pictures out there. Would have been nice to have a twist.

I'm only finishing episode 4, but so far... yes romance is there, but this is more about the army and friendship. I'd say it has Arsenal Military Academy vibe, will probably start as adventure, with some romance and end up with political plots and investigations.

Well, someone earlier commented that Jiang Nan Zheng is. Since Gu Yi Ye is definitely Hermione and Gao Liang makes a pretty good Ron LOL

Why did you put it under the spoiler?

I honestly don't care. I mean we already know they end up together, but I find the whole "harry potter trio in the army" vibe much more interesting, than romance. Maybe because they took the surprise out of it

Omg, you're reading my mind. My first thought also was that he's the Hermione of their trio. Tbh it doesn't even feel like love triangle, even though though there is one supposedly, since they actually said beforehand how it ends, it only seems to be there for the comedy.

Omg, Gu YiYe the nerd. He's horrible, I love him.

There are 4 eps on iqiyi, if you have a vip subscription, 2 if you don't

Exactly! :) a miracle, even lol

That's because there wasn't any. It was announced on drama's weibo like 4 hours before airing today