Bai Yutong (Gao Han Yu) is the lead detective of the S.C.I., a special police unit dedicated to the most complex cases. Genius psychologist Zhang Yao (Ji Xiao Bing), joins the team to lend them his expertise. Can those two polar opposites work together to bring about justice?
Alright, listen. If you’re afraid of ghosts, I’ll hunt them for you, okay?
S.C.I. Mystery
I’ll say it right away, S.C.I. Mystery is yet another show that twitter recommended to me. Adapted from the BL novel of the same name, the show has its good points, but sadly fails to offer a solid and consistent whole.
Power Couple
It comes as no surprise to me that my favorite parts of S.C.I. Mystery ended up being the main leads and their relationship. Once again, this is a show where the nature of their feelings for each other is made very clear without any overt signs of it being romantic.
Actually, with the way the production team had a blast playing up the contrasts between those two (black and white, extrovert and introvert, mischievous and serious,…), it’s no wonder they ended up reminding me a lot of Guardian‘s Shen Wei and Zhao YunLan.
Rivals, best friends, equals, lovers,… there are many fitting adjectives for Bai Yutong and Zhan Yao. Truth is, they make a fantastic team, and I loved seeing them interact and evolve on my screen.
Thanks, But No Thanks
What I really, really disliked, on the other hand, was Bai Xin Tang (Wang Mei Ren), Bai Yutong’s sister. While the script tries to pass off her… strong personality as mental illness, her behavior was so very typical of the usual domineering, macho characters you so often find in BL that it ended up making so much sense when I learned that her character was male in the original work.
Basically, she gets jealous at the drop of a hat, stalks the unfortunate recipient of her affections, barges into his dates acting as if he’s cheating on her even though he repeatedly expressed his lack of interest, and drinks herself into unconsciousness whenever the poor guy tries to get some breathing space.
No, nope, really, no way I could be on board with this “romance”.
Magical Magician
The one I actually liked, on the other hand, was the budding relationship between Bai Yutong’s timid cousin Bai Chi (Jiang Long) and magician Zhao Zhen (Hu Xiao Ling). Although I had a few issues with their history—some events uncomfortably border on bullying—Zhao Zhen’s mischievous eyes and teasing smile, as well as his absolute willingness to do anything to protect adorable Bai Chi, ended up winning me over.
Why Not
The plot focuses on psychological crimes, hypnosis being the main culprit pretty much every time. Maybe this would have worked better for someone who believes in those things, but I’m pretty skeptical when it comes to those, so I didn’t really get into it that much.
And on top of that, I didn’t particularly care about the cases either, which led to me dropping the show 5 episodes before the end. I might have made it to the end had the show been 1) easier to find and 2) less dramatic. As it was, however, it was often overacted, and I just had enough after a while.
Title: S.C.I. Mystery
Country: China
Starring: Gao Han Yu, Ji Xiao Bing, Jiang Long, Hu Xiao Ling
Aired: 06/26/2018 to 07/19/2018
Number of episodes: 24
Genres: Police, Mystery, Psychological
My Grade:★★☆☆☆
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