I did not read the SF novel(s) on which this series is based, which however shouldn't be a requisite, therefore my review is only about the show.
The first episodes have the annoying non-linear structure so fashionable nowadays and used for every new show. The audience is thrown in the middle of a story and a series of flashbacks tells how it started. Chronologically, the plot begins in China in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution and the main character is a young female scientist, Ye Wenji sent to a remote part of the country to pay for her cultural sins. Good start and good acting.
Given her experience, the Ye character develops an understandable hatred for the human race at large, and thanks to her contact with billionaire Mike Evans, the two develop an "assistance plan" for an alien invasion. The clever twist of the plot is that it will take the aliens some 400 years to reach Planet Earth. Will the humans discover the plan and be able to do something to prevent it? So far, so brilliant and not a spoiler, since the alien part is revealed fairly soon in the series. What was worth 10 stars drops miserably with the development in present-day England (is that England?) where mostly non-English people and girl bosses take over.
Two mysterious investigators (Wade and Clarence) contact a group of "5 brilliant young scientists" to work with them. While Benedict Wong is quite good as the sour and unintentionally funny "investigator" Clarence and probably my favorite character, the "Scientists 5" are miscast, the elephant in the room being Eiza Gonzáles as a "nanoscientist" ... or whatever.
One would think she is too busy putting on makeup, going to the hairdresser, and pouting to be able to do any nanoscience, and her "crime" is compounded by the other young females (Tatiana, the Sophon, and Jin Cheng). These girl bosses take over the show with their arrogant, snotty attitudes, while the male characters are mostly disposable wimps. The plot dilutes into love stories, power struggles, and attitude displays while the aliens sail along in their spaceship.
The first episodes have the annoying non-linear structure so fashionable nowadays and used for every new show. The audience is thrown in the middle of a story and a series of flashbacks tells how it started. Chronologically, the plot begins in China in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution and the main character is a young female scientist, Ye Wenji sent to a remote part of the country to pay for her cultural sins. Good start and good acting.
Given her experience, the Ye character develops an understandable hatred for the human race at large, and thanks to her contact with billionaire Mike Evans, the two develop an "assistance plan" for an alien invasion. The clever twist of the plot is that it will take the aliens some 400 years to reach Planet Earth. Will the humans discover the plan and be able to do something to prevent it? So far, so brilliant and not a spoiler, since the alien part is revealed fairly soon in the series. What was worth 10 stars drops miserably with the development in present-day England (is that England?) where mostly non-English people and girl bosses take over.
Two mysterious investigators (Wade and Clarence) contact a group of "5 brilliant young scientists" to work with them. While Benedict Wong is quite good as the sour and unintentionally funny "investigator" Clarence and probably my favorite character, the "Scientists 5" are miscast, the elephant in the room being Eiza Gonzáles as a "nanoscientist" ... or whatever.
One would think she is too busy putting on makeup, going to the hairdresser, and pouting to be able to do any nanoscience, and her "crime" is compounded by the other young females (Tatiana, the Sophon, and Jin Cheng). These girl bosses take over the show with their arrogant, snotty attitudes, while the male characters are mostly disposable wimps. The plot dilutes into love stories, power struggles, and attitude displays while the aliens sail along in their spaceship.