Discussion keeps the world's turning.
This is Roundtable. We're listening to Roundtable with myself, how young I'm joined by Yushan in the studio and Steve Hatherley on the line coming up.
Well for all the TV buffs out there, this one is for you.
Joy of life, season two, or Qingyunyan are, is back after a five year hiatus and it is going big.
But as always, there's a bit of drama off screen too.
Some fans are not too happy about the new season's content.
Can't win with them all, right?
Why is it that sequels and second seasons often struggle to hit the same high notes?
It's like trying to top a chart-topping debut album.
We'll discuss the tricky business.
Our podcast listeners can fight as that Roundtable China, an Apple podcast.
Now let's move on to the next topic of discussion today.
Joy of life, season two, or Qingyunyan art has finally premiered and it's making a big splash both at home and abroad.
This season, produced by CCTV, Tencent Video, Uyuhuan Films, and New Classics Media has teamed up with Disney Plus for global distribution, boosting its international popularity.
Despite its success, the series has not been without its critics.
Some viewers have voiced concerns about the excessive advertising and a few diehard fans are disappointed with the content quality of season two.
Yet, season three is already in the works.
This raises an intriguing question.
Why is it so challenging to replicate the success of a massively popular first season or debut album or the first try?
So I guess Joy of life, season two, has its hits and misses.
What did the show nail and where did it drop the ball?
Well, as someone who actually watched the first series five years ago, like from the beginning to the end, I gotta say the second season had something that has actually got right.
The first of all, it continued on the exploration of the compelling themes such as power struggles, political intrigues, you know, and also how the leading character, Fun Shins, Growth and Transformation is growing and evolving step by step.
Because I remember in the first season, Fun Shins was like, he was just a kid in a way that he was just doing this and doing that impressing people everywhere he goes.
He's like, oh, I am so cool.
I'm developing who I am.
But in this new season, it's more about the way I see it because I didn't really follow through the entire season two.
But the way I see it is that now, Fun Shins is sitting at this place.
He kind of know who he is, but he's still exploring.
He starts to consider what kind of a difference can I make.
And just what shall I fight for and what is the ultimate righteousness that I'm searching for?
I think that's like a new inspiration out of, I'm not sure if that's also in the original fiction, like in the book.
But yeah, that's one thing that kind of impressed me from my few views of watching it.
And also the season two had made like a successful international distribution through partnership with Disney Plus, making it a hit overseas.
And by partnering with Disney Plus for global distribution, Joy of Life season two became, well, the most popular Chinese drama on the international platform, expanding its reach and appeal to a wider audience.
I think, yeah, that sounds pretty awesome.
I'm kind of proud that it made this far, to be honest.
Yeah. Yeah, Steve, I know you have tried your best to check out some of this content just from your observation and research.
What are the hits and misses, I suppose?
I just watched, well, I can't comment on the hits and misses of the shows, of the show itself, because I only watched about half of the first episode, but I did find it here in Korea on an app here, but it was in Chinese, of course.
And then the subtitles were in Korean, which was my only option.
So I did my best to try to follow along and understand it.
But I think probably the reason why the second season, and it sounds like there were people who loved it, and then people perhaps who criticized it a little bit, I think part of the reason for that when you have a long break between season one or season two or album one and album two, or the first installment of a film series and then the second film.
If people liked the first season or the first series of whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is.
The anticipation level is so high for the next thing that comes out.
It's really hard to live up to that standard that's been set because people are waiting for it, they're talking about it.
So I think that's part of the reason why oftentimes album number two, movie number two, or in this case, season number two of the TV show, doesn't quite meet the standard of season one.
Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of people, my mom included, as she actually followed the entire season two episodes, the overall 36 episodes.
And I know. 36. Yeah, there are 36 episodes in season two of Joy of Life, but that's like a minus 10 for season one because season one has 46 episodes.
So one thing that my mom complain about as for season two is that there are too many advertisements added inside the plot, inside the story, they even had the entire crew dress up and act in the scene just for advertisement purposes.
Like you can see the roles in the show interacting and promoting some modern day products or modern day brand to the viewers.
That's kind of distracting and many people just complain that the excessive number of advertisements disrupted the viewing experience, which leads us to think that potentially there is like a over reliance on the popularity of this show that it's too many brands just want to crowd up in one episode and just borrow this platform, borrow this show as a mean or a platform to showcase their products to the viewers.
I think that's like, nah, maybe like a, you know, no.
Yeah, apparently there are 26 brand placements in this period show.
So yeah, can you imagine watching one of these, let's say, young maiden who lived like 300 years ago or whatnot and using a hair dryer and that's just, see, maybe they'll get a crack out of some people, but it takes you out of the plot.
And also what you were referring to, you shen, there are six short skits that were inserted into the main show and then they're all performed by actors and still product placement.
Yeah, people are kind of turned off by that kind of puts you off a little bit, right?
Because your suspension of disbelief is suddenly broken.
Like you suddenly just realized you're watching a show instead of getting lost in that storyline happens in Korean, Korean dramas all the time.
The actors will suddenly stop and then just pick up a can of coffee where the company name is pointed directly at the camera and they like, this is delicious.
They're like, okay, can we move past this quickly now, please?
Yeah, sure, it's annoying, but I guess that's how broadcast stations need to make their money to pay their actors and cover their bills.
Yeah, I kind of understand this too, because well, for the case of Joy of Life season two, the plot or the storyline kind of has the sci-fi elements in it where the fungishan travels from modern time to ancient time or rather like a futuristic time where everything gets back to ancient Chinese style and stuff.
So yeah, it has this time traveling sense in the storyline.
So maybe that's the idea, the whole idea behind it.
But I also read that the average of nine advertisements running 136 seconds per episode, that's like more than two minutes per episode.
And there are only like 45 minutes in one episode and you just wasted two or more on something that people don't want to see and you just made like 36 episodes in one sequel and expect people to wait on the season three instead of you know, wrapping things up in one season.
Right. I think that's a bit waste of time.
And also, and this is a common criticism that some of the streaming platform users are complaining about that is even after you've purchased the membership, you still need to sit through some of these advertisements or commercials.
And that's just super annoying because supposedly when you paid, then you're supposed to skip.
Add free. It's supposed to be add free, but it's not.
But now it's like, exactly.
It's like a tiered payment system and they just, you're expected to pay even more in what is this all.
And there's no, it doesn't.
Oh no, just put me to rest, please.
The age old question, why is it so tricky to strike gold twice is what I want to ask you guys and whether it's a TV show second season and album, a band's follow up album or a movie sequel capturing the lightning in a bottle again seems to be a universal struggle.
So what's the secret sauce they're missing?
I think Steve touched upon this earlier that you know, people's expectations on the sequels kind of gets way too higher than maybe the creative team can handle sometimes.
Because for example, some students like once hit like a really high score and everybody around him, the teachers, the parents, they kind of expect him or her to do the same once again afterwards.
And that's the same challenge faced by a lot of the creative teams nowadays.
Like how can they manage the heightened expectations?
Like at the end of the day, are they going to come up with something that's completely new?
But for cases like the joy of life season two, like it's like something that's already written online, it's adapted from an existing fiction.
So the novelty and freshness of the original work is already there.
How can you like overly make something up out of it or really how do you meet people's expectations, especially after they've finished season one and some even go to dig back the fictions and read it all through.
So yeah, that's like something to be considered by the creative team.
Yeah, and maintaining that creative momentum is difficult.
And you've probably heard of the expression you have your life to write the first album and a month to write the second.
But exactly. And I think that rings true for a lot of the musicians and also maybe directors too.
But for this particular example though, it's got five years to straighten out the plots and also waited for all of the original cast members to come back.
And I think there's a lot of effort that's been put in there.
But Secret Sauce, the Jenna Sae Kwa that you want to replicate, it's not so easy.
And what do you think, Steve?
I mean, it's hard because everybody knows I was looking at opinions from professional writers on the internet on this topic.
And the consensus opinion seemed to be that it's really hard to replicate the success for many reasons.
But one of the reasons is people already know the characters.
There's already been a lot of plot development by the time the end of season one comes.
So everything that was fresh and new and exciting with the audience, you need to find a way to bring that fresh new excitement back.
And there's some things that shows do.
For example, I think Ozark, if you know that show, it was a really, really, really popular drama.
They had a location change for season two.
And sometimes that can really help out the success of a show.
You know, they went from being in the city to being like season two was located around a lake.
So even something as simple as a change of location in the plot or focusing more on secondary characters as opposed to the main characters, those can help the success of season two as well.
But it's a challenge and professional writers know it's really, really, really tough to replicate the success of season one.
Yeah. And also, I don't know why I keep on coming back to the creative themes because I remember when I was much younger, I used to watch an American TV show called Supernatural.
And I remember loving the first maybe two or three seasons and when it gets to season four, the whole storyline was like, it's like obviously changed.
It's still the two main characters, the two main actors doing the show, but the entire trend or the entire theme and style got changed and later I figured that out that, you know, the creative team, the script writer and everything all got changed after season three, I think.
So a lot of the viewers, me included, just gave up on the show afterwards because, you know, you just can't get the same taste back and you can't really retain the passion of, you know, trying to follow throughout the entire sequel.
And that happens kind of with Joy of Life 2 in season two because I heard my mom mentioning that, you know, several characters has been replaced.
I mean, the different actresses and actors were invited to play roles that were already existing in season one, which kind of brought, you know, a disappointment in a lot of the hardcore fans saying, you know, we've already had this impression on this role by changing faces.
That's like a violation of my belief in this role or this character.
So, yeah, I guess when you make a sequel, you still need to consider it from the viewers perspective on, you know, how to make it more appeal to the people that actually watch it.
Yeah. We're talking about as though it's always the case, right, where season two or album two or whatever is going to be a failure, but it's not always the case.
Season two of Breaking Bad was great.
And the after the seasons after that too, all amazing.
Really, Godfather 2 was fantastic.
The film series Radiohead's second album, Pablo Honey was their first, but Radiohead's second album, the Bens was better than that.
And some people argued their third record was even better than their second album.
Can I say what it is? So, there's lots of, yeah.
Okay, computer, dog. Yeah, it's like defining that era.
So my point is there's lots of great examples where the next thing that comes is even better than the first or just as good as the first, but that being said, I think there are plenty of examples where success isn't even necessarily possible for the next thing.
Do you remember, do you know the Korean singer, Si, and he had that big, Gangnam style?
Yeah. It's like a billion streams on YouTube or something and everybody was waiting.
What's he going to do next?
What's he going to do next?
It was impossible for him to have that success again.
So I think that case is of that too, where the thing that came before was so successful that it's actually impossible to replicate the success, no matter what you do.
Right. Can I please give you all the ultimate, sophomore attempt being so fantastically amazing?
That would be the Michael Jackson solo debut album off the wall was a massive commercial success selling over 20 million copies worldwide.
And people kind of forget that because his 1982 follow up thriller album shattered all expectations, becoming the best selling album of all time with an estimated sales of 66 to 100 million copies globally.
And thriller was a stratospheric blockbuster that eclipse even Michael Jackson's debut album.
But if you look at his career later on, I mean, it's just really amazing what he managed to do after that, you know, each album arguably up to maybe the 2000s have always been amazing.
But yeah, thriller was the second solo album.
Can you believe that? Okay.
I should probably not indulge too much on this.
Okay. Sorry. But huge fans though.
I mean, if our previous round table host Tony is sitting here right now, he would have been, yes, I am so proud of you.
Yes. And actually Tony and I, we dedicated a special edition of pop muse to the King of Pop, Rock and Soul Michael Jackson.
So do look that up, it's living on Apple podcast.
If you would like to get some fun and reminiscence in all things MJ related.
You have to make sure you watch his final documentary then called This Is It.
Just before he passed away.
If you're a big MJ fan, you'll absolutely love that.
That was after he passed away.
And I watched it in the theater and I was ugly crying with other people.
Yeah. I have to think I've watched that maybe 20 times now.
Okay. Well, yes. So despite some of these success stories, but are there things that creators, producers are best to keep in mind to sidestep that second season curse and keep the momentum going strong?
Is it all about staying true to the core essence while injecting fresh ideas?
What do you think? Well, again, what the writers say.
I don't know, I'm not an expert, but I just know as a viewer what the writers say is focusing on the same characters can be a death knell for the series.
So what they'll do is they'll try to go deeper into the storyline of the side characters.
And the example, one of the examples they used was the crown.
I'm not sure if you've seen that.
Yes. Drama before or not.
But yeah, they go into kind of the side characters backstories in season two.
And that provides that freshness that I was referencing before where the audience is learning about new characters for the first time kind of even though it's the second season.
And no, it's not the main character of the show, but yet still related to the main character of the show.
So that's one of the ways the writers say is to have a successful second season.
So are you referring to the drama series on the British, the British, the British Shmana?
Yeah. Yeah. The British Royal family.
Yes. And also there's something else pretty radical about that show is the cast members are completely different every season.
So that must be immense pressure on the new actors who come onto the scene because people already love the previous season so much.
And I don't know what the ratings were for season two, but it seems to be okay according to this.
They had a lot of seasons.
I think they're second season and actually all the seasons were really successful.
Oh, no, no good for them.
Yeah. And apart from you know, adding new say characters were some novelty in the story itself.
I think it's also important for like, say TV show producers to consider how the audience tastes and you know, the trend nowadays are evolving and changing as time goes by because you know, audiences who resonate initially with the show may not really stay onto it after, you know, I mean, by the time when season two or season three or the following sequels comes out.
So I'm thinking of one show that I watched before called the American Horror Stories.
I'm not even sure how many seasons they've made, but I just felt in love with all of those maybe like six, seven or even eight seasons that I've already watched before because each time they choose like a very typical horror theme, but sometimes they also get in line with the current societal, if not political trends and get those elements into their show so that the audience really get the thrill and get the feelings at that moment.
Sometimes it's the presidential election.
Sometimes it's like live stream shows that turn is horribly wrong, you know, they add those, you know, trendy themes into their designing of the story and make shows out of it.
I think that's something really creative that you know, more TV show producers can actually take into consideration to avoid their sequels being like redundant in a way.
Yeah. Yeah, and that's an example of a storyline going in a completely totally different, like a totally different story for the second season.
Another example of that is true detective.
I'm not sure if you've heard true detective season one.
I think that is incredible.
It's the best show ever.
I'm just going to say it.
But they set the bar to high, right?
Because it's Woody, you know, the actors were phenomenal.
It was a dark slow burn and then season two just didn't live up to it, right?
But that's what I was saying before is sometimes the bar is set so high.
It's so perfect. There was nothing you could improve on in season one.
So season two was just bound to fail in my opinion.
Also, I think the critics also viewers and for the reasons that you just mentioned, Steve, also became just so incredibly harsh towards the second attempt maybe.
Now, like years later, because I'm such a big fan of the franchise and I still watch true detective season one whenever I've run out of stuff to watch.
And anyway, now when you look at season two, it's not as bad, but at the time.
Yeah. The anticipation was too high.
Yeah, it had no chance. It had no chance.
I heard good things about season four though, but I haven't seen it yet.
That's Jody Foster. Yes.
Anything she's in and also as she's aged so beautifully, it's phenomenal.
I've finished watching that.
This is a little bit of a sidebar, but it's so amazing for the lack of a better word to see when somebody grows older and is so in control knows her craft and everything about this industry so incredibly well and is willing to give screen time, space to other people, while still having this just breathtaking presence in the production.
So I thought this latest attempt is something worth watching and with an mostly female lead production crew as well as cast.
Really interesting. Recommend it.
If a property survives its sophomore challenges, a third installment is likely to be on the horizon as it is for to union or joy of life.
Franchises and sequels are so prevalent these days, not to the Marvel Universe, are we living in an era where creativity is running dry and franchises are milked for all their worth or is there still room for genuine creativity and originality?
Well, I believe that creativity can still thrive within franchises even though it's got way too popular and people are having all eyes onto it.
I mean, as long as you have not necessarily better but really fresher angles on hitting the stories and also like you manage to keep the logic line clear so that viewers don't get distracted or get overly fed up by the redundancy of the content you're presenting.
Then yeah, of course, it's definitely like a win-win for both the viewers and the producers to see how shows can helpfully and present it in an organic way like for the case of Chien-Yun-Yan or Joy of Life.
I think I read some comments saying that you know the first episode of season two is kind of like, it has a bit of everything.
It was trying to wrap up on the previous season.
It was trying to introduce new roles, new characters in the same 45 minutes and that's a bit too much for some viewers and critics saying that it's, there's no logic at all for people to really dive into a brand new season just like that.
So on the creativity level, it's important for people to really balance like how your viewers are going to take things or are you just trying to throw it all at them regardless of the game?
Yeah, sometimes it can work and sometimes it can feel like it's too much.
You know, if you look at the Avengers and all the side stories and movies from the Avengers, that worked really well.
But maybe if you use Disney as an example of buying Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars and the rights to make all these new TV shows and spin-offs and merchandise, they bought that for over $4 billion, I think, and they did that for a reason so that they could make all these new shows, all these new characters.
And they're doing exactly that for many people though that might just feel like overkill.
It might just feel like too much and it might take away that special, that kind of quote unquote special thing that Star Wars had in the past.
Well, with reference to the Marvel Universe, that did work well for maybe close to a decade.
But look at its recent offerings, pretty much everything has bombed in the box office.
So I think maybe people are kind of waking up to this reality and the producers, production companies, these mega media companies, they want to make big bucks all over the world.
And what is the safest option that is running with tested and tried and beloved franchise?
But in a way, maybe they've just been resting on their laurels, playing it safe for way too long and people are waking up to the fact that we've paid enough for that stuff.
And yeah, I think you're right, but I think it can still work though.
You know, if you look at the James Bond film series, there's so many James Bond movies and they're still incredibly successful even though that story's been around for decades and decades.
Mission Impossible. How many Mission Impossible movies are there now and they still work, right?
So I agree with you. I think you're right.
You know, it can get old.
But if they do it, it seems like if they do it right, they can keep it going for decades and decades and decades.
But also I would back to defer that with Sorry Tom Cruise and, you know, he's done.
Don't you know, don't you dare.
Oh, okay. Oh, dear, say anything bad about Mission Impossible.
All right, then. So I rest my case.
I'm teasing. Tell me what you're not a Tom Cruise fan.
No, it's just, I watched the latest one and I watched also reviews here in China.
People are kind of as much as they might like the character, but after seven or eight movies and also, you know, with the latest installment, it's split into two movies.
That's just way too much.
Yeah, yeah. It was like, oh, another one.
Well, I still think that, you know, original content and a chance for new intellectual property franchises.
I suppose there's still a lot of room for success there.
And I think we're always looking for the next interesting thing to push boundaries and explore new ideas.
And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable.
Thank you so much. Are you shan?
And Steve Hatherley for joining the discussion.
Thank you for tuning in.
