(UPDATE: I am leaving my original negative review for this series below, but adding this preface since I just watched the first two episodes of the original Chinese series, which is already much better. In the 2nd episode of the Chinese version they go into a detailed metaphor of "physics is broken" using a pool table. Now I get what's missing in the Netflix version: this show is supposed to be about the science. The way the new US series abbreviates those elements takes away the most important part of the show. That's why I gave is the bad review below.)
Since I watched the whole series I feel compelled to write a review. This is either a bad adaptation of a good book or an accurate adaptation of a bad book. I don't know since I never read it. But after an intriguing first 3 episodes the story becomes full of holes and strained attempts at emotional moments. The characters seemed plastic neo-generic caricatures. What should have been huge dramatic moments felt rushed. I mean, the night sky blinks on and off and somehow the world goes back to normal after a few days? I dunno. There was no scope to this story. It should have been longer and had a wider societal breadth. There must be something from the novel they didn't capture because there were a lot of unexplained cryptic exchanges... especially in the joke that Ye tells Saul. I was waiting for that to take on some relevance in the story but... nope. I have a feeling it was cryptic information on how to fight the aliens...? Maybe it's explained in season 2... if there is one? Otherwise, why all focus on that story? And the subplot about the man who was dying of cancer...? They kept trying to create these moving moments but failing, imo. I didn't care what happened to the guy. So they sent his brain into space so the aliens could clone him... maybe? It just doesn't make any sense. And whoever wrote that scene where they use the nanofibers to slice up the ship doesn't understand anything about the Panama Canal. The ships have to move into locks where the water level is changed. There are hundreds of way they could have secured that ship while it was in a lock. It just seemed like such an over the top way to get the disc. I continued watching mainly because I was genuinely curious to see where it would all wind up. But I must admit it was almost as big a let down as the end of season 1 of "From". In the end it's just another story about aliens coming to take our stuff. And that just seems so old school now. While it wasn't awful it was a little plastic to me.
Since I watched the whole series I feel compelled to write a review. This is either a bad adaptation of a good book or an accurate adaptation of a bad book. I don't know since I never read it. But after an intriguing first 3 episodes the story becomes full of holes and strained attempts at emotional moments. The characters seemed plastic neo-generic caricatures. What should have been huge dramatic moments felt rushed. I mean, the night sky blinks on and off and somehow the world goes back to normal after a few days? I dunno. There was no scope to this story. It should have been longer and had a wider societal breadth. There must be something from the novel they didn't capture because there were a lot of unexplained cryptic exchanges... especially in the joke that Ye tells Saul. I was waiting for that to take on some relevance in the story but... nope. I have a feeling it was cryptic information on how to fight the aliens...? Maybe it's explained in season 2... if there is one? Otherwise, why all focus on that story? And the subplot about the man who was dying of cancer...? They kept trying to create these moving moments but failing, imo. I didn't care what happened to the guy. So they sent his brain into space so the aliens could clone him... maybe? It just doesn't make any sense. And whoever wrote that scene where they use the nanofibers to slice up the ship doesn't understand anything about the Panama Canal. The ships have to move into locks where the water level is changed. There are hundreds of way they could have secured that ship while it was in a lock. It just seemed like such an over the top way to get the disc. I continued watching mainly because I was genuinely curious to see where it would all wind up. But I must admit it was almost as big a let down as the end of season 1 of "From". In the end it's just another story about aliens coming to take our stuff. And that just seems so old school now. While it wasn't awful it was a little plastic to me.