Skibbies

Polygamy isn't portrayed positively because it's feudal and misogynistic, I don't think it ever was portrayed positively honestly. I guess there's no story if it's happy :P On crackdown, it's always been frown upon in society to have mistresses but it's regrettably too common in reality, it's odd to extrapolate that to mean banning polygamy. Celebrities get scruitinised and criticised for it because they have an image, and these scandals ruin their image, and it's seen as setting a bad example too, also cos yknow it's not actually legal in modern China.

As for why it's mostly monogamous in dramas, because dramas, especially historical dramas are for relaxation, there's little market for a drama aimed at women with harem, regardless if they are male or female centric. Male centric novels like SSS have more men viewers but it's still only half, sometimes 30%, and they are silent watchers half the time.

I'm not sure if SSS will keep the multiple wives thing, but JoL's was changed because he's a modern guy that transmigrate and promoted equality amongst everyone and it'd be hypocritical if he had multiple partners, MHH changed it because he started up due to his wife's wealth/business, so it'd just seem in bad taste if you give him multiple wives, MHH specifically added whole bunch of gags to make it more female friendly. It's also more interesting for ML to have different relationship that's not romance with these characters, since there's more room to explore the dynamic and develop the characters more.

One last note, most male centric harem novels adapted now were written circa early 2010s, harems generally speaking are less popular now, so are reverse harems (because you get slammed for being mary sue). These days you can get away with no romance partners, so some writers just straight up do without them. The harem novels still exist but their audience don't talk online so they are seemingly invisible.

You could try remembrance of things past too, similar to this with girls living in big city. That one is more slice of life and regular problems they encounter rather than about their love lives, the first two episodes is also depressingly real, but the drama itself is pretty heartwarming and uplifting generally speaking.

Bit more flawed but I also enjoyed Rational Life (on netflix I think?), since it had an FL who was good at her job but doesn't fit into power woman archetype, she handled the annoying characters with grace (her mum is very offputting at the beginning, it's toned down later but I know people that drop the drama cos of it). If you are interested in c-ent, I loved We Are All Alone, FL here is the power woman and deal with things snappily. Other than that, I really liked the Day of Becoming You too, largely for the hysterical scenes, btu there's some cute and touching romance too, heads up, the first episode isn't very funny. but 2 and 3 should be.

I haven't seen the wife, so maybe there's no wife in the drama? I'm not aware of love triangle, so his otp is the lady in the poster, who works for his competitor

yeah, it's airing on two channels + three platforms domestically, 2 ep/day except saturday i think.

tencent stole their best director (bad kid's) and production team too lol. youku stole bad kids + long night + burning ice's author, his story are much more suitable for adaptations than other scripts, but you need a strong production team to do so, good luck to youku.

rumour has it that it already has been (went through I think 3 or 4 times?), and it suddenly got delayed indefinitely, the word on the street is it has to go through the burner again, so i'm not optimistic....

Pretty different story and much lower budget, but you could try young blood

JoL and Young Blood s2 are both scheduled to film in Q1, at the very least JoL s2 has a script, he's been writing it for almost two years.

scriptwriter said there was four endings, light on was on a pause for a while, cos both this and gold planning had trouble getting license.

there's a novel version that have more details of the story too on iqiyi i believe, but i don't love the story enough to read it lol.

the initial plan was 3 seasons, it's unclear how many they might do now. Filming license was 50 episodes, never 60, they sent in 40 ep for broadcasting license and they cut 2.

Chiming in, for historical adventure drama, try Young Blood, not fantasy though, original script from scriptwriter of SSS and JoL.

If you like tomb raiding, candle in the tomb should definitely be right up your alley, the author basically invented the genre. I specifically rec 2015 movie (semi original story), 2016 series (book 1) and lost caverns (book 2). This year's worm valley follows it but I found it lacking tbh, still watachable though. Wrath of time is book 7 but it's a prequel set in 1930s or so, I haven't seen it, it has decent reviews but there's some minor issues to my knowledge. You can safely skip the rest.

Eagles & Youngster is by the same author and had decent reviews too. Tientsin Mystic which is more mystery with psychic twist is by the same author and have very interesting feel to it, I had issues with s1's plot veering off towards the end though, I liked s2 lot more.

The action is largely newbie director + newbie action director issue IMO, I think latter episodes action scenes are lot better though. The drama is probably one of the biggest of the year for tencent, definitely the most hype, so I have a lot of questions about its choices (like all the newbie staff, fl casting choice, initial two episodes pacing) but hey what's done is done.

The schedule was determined at the start, the current schedule is actually better for SSS, since cctv 8 isn't quite loving the drama judging by the initial few days' ratings. The drama in the prime time slow is actually doing surprisingly well which helps tv ratings for this drama.

tRoP also have pacing issue IMO, and lot of people just couldn't get into the show (director + writer issue). Chen Kun's casting choice is largely due to his face and aura (morally grey) while ZRY is just not. Bluntly speaking, these book fans are upset that ZRY is playing another super handsome character when they think he's not handsome. I personally have little issue with him playing the role and think he's doing fine. Fandom will use all kinds of things to put down dramas/actors they don't like, the only way to win is to do well on all fronts, which is pretty hard.

People expected another JoL hit, it's riding off JoL's success as well, and it's not quite meeting the expectations. It's doing fine viewcount wise, but people just expected more, the tv ratings have been so so too, I hope it'll do better later.

it's not one viewer, it's ALL the book fans lmao. people made mvs from tRoP scenes to fit this story LOL.

The action scene criticism is actually pretty vital, since they've been promoting the drama as wuxia and people expect old school Jin Yong (I honestly feel like it's more a scheming drama with xuanhuan elements), so action scenes are central. I think the most damning thing is initial pacing.

they haven't filmed s2, i think it's dependent on how s1 does (it's ok so far), JOL took a while cos there was no script, then i think it's gathering the huge veteran cast + busy director + getting investment, it's rumoured to start filming in Q1. Anyways, it's like this mostly cos they hired the same guy to do scripts for three high profile IPs that should all take about 2 or 3 seasons lol + he had his original script that had a second half.

the initial filming license was 50, it was never 60, it's unclear if they even filmed that many episodes.

they didn't film multiple seasons, there's plans for more seasons but it's probably dependent on how well received it is. my heroic husband says season 1 too and got season 2 announced several months later cos it was popular

omg idk what the director is doing, why does vengo look like that?! he looks pretty good in his currently filming drama