It's like someone asked ChatGPT to turn the book into a dumb anglo sitcom.
-Every character is emotionally immature, spiteful, and sassy. None of the 'friends' act like friends. None of the characters talk like real people. They're constantly insulting or hitting each other. It's just embarrassing. The actors have nothing to work with.
-All the major twists/reveals are shown in the first two episodes. No suspense, no build-up, no pay-off. Rushed is an understatement.
-Single characters from the book have been unnecessarily split into multiple new characters adding nothing to the story.
-The story is a cosmic horror but comedy and romance have been forced in for no reason whatsoever except as filler, which is even more mind-boggling because they've essentially rushed all of the good stuff in the book to make room for unfunny jokes.
-Apparently they could barely afford any sets and extras, so scenes and locations that are supposed to be bristling with sights and people just feel oddly empty. Even the special effects feel muted. The budget is just weirdly limited, and the show looks much cheaper than the Tencent series.
-Almost all of the science (which is the interesting stuff) has been gutted from this science fiction.
I hate anglo slop. Where is the kino. Tencent pls adapt The Dark Forest.
I don't like the actress they have for Wang Miao and I don't like what they did to my boy Da Shi, but the show has the budget to actually pull off some of the crazy sci-fi fantasy bullshit depicted in the books. The Panama scene was cool. The sophon unfolding was cool. Eventually Netflix is gonna have to spend a squillion dollars trying to depict the dual-vector foil and that's gonna be sick.
I am enjoying the show while nitpicking about all the details. Like all your criticisms ring true to me, but also last night I got to see a much cooler version of that one scene from Ghost Ship and I know the weird sci-fi stuff only gets better.