Depressive Screenwriter

In early February, the fourth episode of "To the Moon" premiered.

This episode followed a similar rhythm to the previous three.

It continued with Cheng Li and Shen Yi exploring Xu Han's memories.

In this episode, viewers followed Xu Han's memories and witnessed his wedding with Xiaoxi.

They saw Xu Han's mother getting emotional during the wedding, calling him "Xu Qiao" (Joey) with tears in her eyes.

They saw how Xu Han mustered the courage to ask Xiaoxi to the movies in middle school.

They saw how Xiaoxi, as an autistic patient, was both a top student and a social interaction idiot.

She agreed to Xu Han's request to watch a movie together, but she was nowhere to be seen during the entire movie.

When Xu Han angrily asked her why she wasn't there, Xiaoxi replied, "I've been in the cinema all along, and I've always known where you were sitting. I just found the most convenient seat. I was in the same theater, at the same showing, and watched the whole movie!".

For Xiaoxi, who had autism, she believed this fulfilled her promise to watch a movie with Xu Han.

And throughout the movie, she carried that platypus with her.

From middle school until she was on the verge of death in her old age, she never let go of this platypus.

At the end of the fourth episode, when a classmate asked him why he would pursue Xiaoxi, a girl who was completely clueless in social interactions and only offended people,

Xu Han's answer was, "I think she's cool!".

Strictly speaking, the sensory experience of the fourth episode was much better than the previous three.

It also solved many foreshadowing elements for the fans of "To the Moon."

"So that's why in the third episode, when young Xiaoxi asked Xu Han why he pursued her when he was young, that was Xu Han's answer?"

"No wonder Xiaoxi looked so sad at that time. That's clearly not the answer she wanted!".

"Thinking a girl is cool and then approaching her, isn't that normal?"

"But it's not normal for Xiaoxi! Although I don't know the reason, that's definitely not the answer she wanted to hear."

"Then why doesn't she say it?"

"Because she can't say it! The disease in the show isn't made up randomly. The incidence rate of this disease is a few percent, and people with this disease are often very intelligent, but they are terrible at interpersonal communication. Normal people directly say what's bothering them. But people with this disease... don't say it. Their way of thinking and their brain circuits are different from ordinary people."

"To be honest, we think Xiaoxi is weird when we watch the show. But for a patient like Xiaoxi, she has already shown the paper rabbit and the platypus, but John doesn't know what they mean. She is actually the saddest. Because she feels that she has said everything she wanted to say, but... Xu Han doesn't understand what she is saying!".

"Xiaoxi must have been very uncomfortable before she died... She asked Xu Han again and again what the paper rabbit was. But Xu Han couldn't answer at all... I have a feeling that the four elements of the paper rabbit, platypus sandbag, lighthouse, and going to the moon will eventually be completely connected."

"Now it depends on how the screenwriter reveals the mystery."

"This is the first time I've seen a memory-traveling drama like this. It's clearly a romance drama, but it incorporates puzzle-solving elements. Screenwriter Su Yan is really innovative."

"The novelty is quite novel. But with so many episodes of riddle-like plots, if the final answer isn't that interesting, then there will be a big problem."

In fact, after watching the fourth episode of "To the Moon," the vast majority of viewers have developed a sense of immersion in the love story of Xu Han and Xiaoxi.

Everyone knows the ending of these two people: Xiaoxi dies, and Xu Han is on the verge of death.

Many people would find it boring to explore the past of the two under the premise of knowing the result.

But in reality, it doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Because the audience really wants to know what attitude Xiaoxi had when she died.

What do the rabbit and platypus represent to her?

After this episode aired, the viewership rating was 3.46%, and "To the Moon's" viewership rating once again squeezed into the top eight of this week's viewership rankings.

However, the viewership rating of this week's number one work, "Blood-Colored Magician," has reached 4.25%, and the number two, "The Door," has also reached 4.19%. "Imperfect Divorce," which was originally ranked third in viewership, also saw its viewership increase to 4.01% for the first time.

Although "To the Moon's" viewership ranking has not decreased, the gap with the previous dramas is actually widening.

The media and colleagues have not stopped belittling "To the Moon."

But in fact, while they are belittling it, the score of "To the Moon" has risen to 8.7 points.

Moreover, Sakura TV's internal staff is still quite satisfied with the current performance of "To the Moon."

A B-level drama with an investment of more than 20 million and a viewership rating of 3.4%.

Compared to the TV station's previous dramas of the same scale of investment, the viewership rating can be considered above average.

No matter how much Akasaka Yoshitoki hates Su Yan, he can't do anything at this time.

On the contrary, he reluctantly signed off on Ogata Aya's proposal to add an additional two million investment because "To the Moon's" viewership performance was slightly better than expected.

This was different from what Akasaka Yoshitoki had imagined.

He imagined that the early plot of "To the Moon" would be too slow and the viewership rating would plummet, and then he would be able to attack Su Yan and Shinozaki Ikumi in the production department.

However, until now, a month has passed in the winter season.

Although the viewership rating of "To the Moon" has hardly increased, it has not decreased either.

It's just so firm.

"Are the fans of Rurouni Kenshin and Gu Xiang Si Qu so sticky?" Akasaka Yoshitoki couldn't understand.

However, by the fifth week of "To the Moon's" broadcast, the situation that Akasaka Yoshitoki hoped to see finally appeared.

No matter how patient the fans were, the plot of the fifth episode of "To the Moon" was indeed too obscure, which affected the viewership rating.

Because the two doctors' exploration of Xu Han's memory had a gap, no matter how they started the instrument, they could not enter Xu Han's childhood memory.

The two wanted to directly implant the desire seed of "To the Moon" into Xu Han in middle school, so that Xu Han's memory world would be reconstructed from middle school with the help of the machine. He would generate a new life memory of himself aiming to be an astronaut since he was a child, studying hard, entering university, entering the space agency, and finally becoming an astronaut to land on the moon.

Go to the moon in his own dream, and then die happily, fulfilling his dream.

But no matter what the two did, Xu Han's life memory did not change at all.

He still grew up like this, met Xiaoxi, got married, and then had the idea of going to the moon after Xiaoxi's death.

Did he really want to go to the moon?

Is going to the moon really his biggest wish and desire motivation?

It was clear that they had already done this, so why didn't his life change?

At the end of the fifth episode, the two doctors, realizing that it was meaningless to only influence Xu Han in middle school, had to study Xu Han's real medical records and found that he had been taking a lot of β-blockers in his childhood.

But he took these drugs without cardiovascular disease, which led to confusion in his childhood memories and forgetting the past. This prevented the two doctors from knowing his childhood.

After searching for a lot of information and methods, the two doctors finally restarted the instrument by using the smell of the rotten squirrel corpse that the two had crashed into as a guide, and came to Xu Han's childhood memory world again.

This episode's plot temporarily deviated from the love story of Xu Han and Xiaoxi, giving the audience a sense of being well-watched, inexplicably running off to find Xu Han's childhood medical records, and doing some stinky squirrel smell? A bit of a digression.

But this episode is quite important, and Su Yan can't ignore it when writing the script.

This led to a viewership rating of only 3.21% for the fifth episode of "To the Moon." Compared to the fourth episode of "To the Moon," the viewership rating dropped a lot, and the viewership ranking fell to tenth in the quarter.

Akasaka Yoshitoki finally saw the opportunity.

Once a drama's viewership rating starts to decline like this, it is often the beginning of a collapse in word-of-mouth.

If the viewership rating of the sixth episode of "To the Moon" falls again, this work is likely to fall into the bottom of the valley from now on.

When the word-of-mouth also becomes worse, and the viewership rating drops below 3%, then he can deal with Su Yan at the TV station with legitimate reasons.

Many news media drama critics will naturally not miss this opportunity to belittle the "genius screenwriter" Su Yan.

["After five episodes, the plot of "To the Moon" is inexplicable, and I still don't know the real meaning of this drama's name!"]

["Please screenwriter Su Yan respect the time of TV viewers, and don't disgust the audience with boring plots."]

["East a hammer and west a stick, the structure of "To the Moon" is chaotic, and I still don't know how it will end this plot."]

["Science fiction romance genre? Many times, innovation is not necessarily a good thing."]

["A love story that knows the ending will inevitably be abandoned by the audience. The viewership rating of "To the Moon" has dropped by 0.2%, and it may completely fall out of the top ten in viewership."]

["Genius screenwriter Su Yan has run out of talent in just less than two months. Perhaps young people now should precipitate themselves more. Three dramas in three quarters, how can they create good scripts if they are so anxious and eager for quick success?"]

In the office of the "To the Moon" crew.

"It's not good!" Shinozaki Ikumi looked at the many fans' complaints and dissatisfaction with the fifth episode of "To the Moon" online.

"The fans have run out of patience. What they want to see is the complete story experience of Xiaoxi and Xu Han, and they are not interested in the memory exploration of Shen Yi and Cheng Li."

"That's normal," Su Yan said.

"In fact, when I was creating the script, I could probably guess that the fans would not be patient enough when the plot aired until now."

The previous episodes of "To the Moon" relied on the two actors Qiu Junlin and Zhizawa Kayono to support the viewership rating.

The young love story of Xu Han and Xiaoxi in the fourth episode, the dance in the lighthouse, and the vows at the wedding itself were highlights, so the viewership rating did not decline.

But the fifth episode is testing the audience's patience.

And it is obvious that the audience's patience is not enough, and they are on the verge of the critical point with just one episode of long plot.

"Okay, let's see the sixth episode," Su Yan smiled slightly.

At this point, the slow-heating but touching story of "To the Moon" has come to an end.

The subsequent plot is to take back the foreshadowing and explain to the audience why this drama is called [To the Moon!]"