Daughter coming back： a microcosm of narrative defects of domestic suspense online drama

As a new season drama series of "Fog Theater", the opening of "Daughter Coming Back" has aroused the attention and heated discussion of the audience, and it has been highly praised because of its "brain burning" of the plot and the online performance of the actors, and even praised "the return of Fog Theater". However, in the middle of the series, the looseness of the follow-up plot and the rationality of the narrative were questioned by the audience, which led to the continuous decline of word of mouth, and the Douban score dropped to the passing line at the end. It can be said that "Daughter Coming Back" can’t escape the fate that the original suspense online drama of "Misty Theater" has a high reputation and the audience’s expectation has failed, and its narrative defect has also become a microcosm of the deep-seated problems of domestic suspense online drama.

If we count from the crime of undocumented in 2017, the domestic suspense online drama represented by "Fog Theater" has become a very subdivided type of online drama. Thanks to the development of genre models of suspense film and television works in Europe, America and Japan, as well as the literary foundation of Zi Jinchen’s original novels, and the participation of a group of directors with European and American film and television professional backgrounds, the domestic suspense online drama has set off a creative upsurge: after the crime without a license and chasing after the murder in the daytime aroused the audience’s expectation, the popularity and high reputation of Hidden Corner and Silent Truth in 2020 further established the status of "fog theater" as an industry drama, which gave birth to suspense. However, since then, the original script of Fog Theater has not been explored smoothly due to the defects of suspense narration, although the series such as Goodbye that Day, Fog in the Eight Diagrams Pavilion, Who is the murderer, Deadly Wish and Gold Rush have gathered a cast and production team that can not be underestimated, presenting an overall industry dilemma of the original domestic suspense online drama.

Generally speaking, domestic suspense online dramas, including "Misty Theater", follow a narrative mode of "social school" reasoning that combines suspense with reality. This choice is not only related to the policy advocacy of realistic themes of local film and television dramas, but also the communication strategy of online drama producers trying to break the genre boundaries and break the circle of audiences with realistic topics. At a deeper level, it is also the consistent cultural practice of local film and television dramas to highlight the theme of family humanity and social issues. Therefore, under the label of "crime" and "suspense", most of the dramas of "Fog Theater" highlight the human evil brought by family of origin and social power. For example, The Hidden Corner, The Fog in the Octagon Pavilion, Very Witness and Ten-Day Game all involve family relations issues that Chinese is particularly concerned about. Different from the hard reasoning that pays attention to the detective’s puzzle solving process, the social reasoning suspense drama pays more attention to the deep integration of social factors and human problems, and its puzzle solving process lies in showing the deep-seated human evil step by step, and pays more attention to the deep-seated social problems of all people doing evil in the context of a specific era. For example, the society and power system revealed in Silent Truth. This means that there is a close combination between this social problem consciousness and narrative suspense puzzles: in the narrative process of "throwing puzzles-solving puzzles-uncovering puzzles",Construct the rationality and logic of solid details, plots and characters’ behaviors, so that genre narration and social problems can be deeply integrated. By this measure, The Daughter Who Came Back has representatively exposed the narrative defects faced by local suspense online dramas.

Daughter Back is still a social reasoning network drama with the theme of family suspense. The drama is set in Tanling County, which was developed in the southwest of China in 1997 due to the third-line construction. It tells the story of Chen Youxi, a young girl adopted by Jieshan Welfare Institute. Xiaoxiu, a good friend who works as a home nanny in Li Chengdong, director of the county fertilizer factory office, mysteriously disappeared after discovering the Li family’s secret. In order to find the mystery of Xiaoxiu’s disappearance, she fled the welfare home and came to Tanling, pretending that Li Wenwen, the daughter of the Li family who had been missing for many years, sneaked into the Li family to find clues. From the perspective of Chen Youxi as an intruder, with the help of Xiao Xiu’s prospective boyfriend Cheng Wei, the drama gradually discovers the secrets and sins of the Li family through multiple struggles with his mother Liao Suifang, his father Li Chengdong and Liao Suifang’s lover Wang Zhongjiang. As a family suspense drama, The Daughter Who Came Back focuses on the complex game between the family members involved in the murder case, and how the characters form the "hunter" and "prey" and the relationship between the strong and the weak in various human motives and actions: Chen Youxi, as an intruder, seems to have the initiative, but in fact his identity and actions are in Liao Suifang’s hands; However, Li Chengdong, a weak husband in the marriage relationship, was very humble and obedient to keep Liao Suifang.In fact, it is precisely the perpetrators with the deepest intentions; And mentally retarded Li Wenzhuo seems to be kind and powerless. Is he a real murderer … … The series brings questions about who killed Xiaoxiu, the mystery of Li Wenwen’s death and whether Li Wenzhuo is really stupid or fake. The calmness and lust behind Liao Suifang, played by Mei Ting, and the complex character of Li Chengdong, played by Yanhui Wang, which is honest and humble on the surface, make the reverse relationship between these characters and the hidden level of human nature behind the murder case better presented.

However, similar to other social mystery dramas in Misty Theater, Daughter Coming Back has three obvious narrative defects, which make the narrative tension constructed by the contrast between the actor’s superb performance and the characters still unable to save its reputation:

First of all, as a suspense drama of social reasoning, its realistic problem consciousness does not go deep into the internal texture of narration, and stays at the superficial atmosphere of the times and the superficial psychological consciousness level, which fails to become a part of the deep-seated characters’ behavioral motives, thus showing a typical "sense of decoration of the times" drawback.Although director Lv Xing himself emphasized the typology and problem consciousness of creation, and published a document stressing that his narrative should focus on showing the relationship between the background of fund-raising tide, third-line construction and laid-off tide, detention and repatriation system, Qigong fever and other backgrounds existing in China society in the late 1990s and the mentality and fate of the characters at that time, from the perspective of drama narrative, these did not really form the deep-seated logic of his narrative, nor did they become a part of clues. The most important background in the play can be said to be the decline of the chemical fertilizer plant and the laid-off workers, which constitutes the background of Li Chengdong’s psychological loss and his fragile "pride" (used to show off in front of Liao Suifang as a red man of the factory director), but the real problem between him and Liao Suifang lies in his desire and Liao Suifang’s lack of love for him. Similarly, Wang Zhongjiang, who is his rival in love, is involved in the social context of wealth, and its complex relationship (how to get out of the chemical fertilizer factory, what it has experienced, why people are attached to raising funds, and how to have an accident) how to form an image of the relationship between the three people, which is vague in the play, not given an explanation and presentation, and not even entered the narrative context. Wang Zhongjiang’s plot line and the weakening consciousness of social problems behind it are difficult to support the narrative significance that the director’s intention and narrative background may bring, and eventually become a simple background decoration.

Secondly, as a typed narrative, both social reasoning and case reasoning need to follow the principle of "Puzzle Throwing — — The emergence of evidence — — The revelation of the mystery runs through the basic logic, which makes the progress of the plot and the audience’s participation form an intellectual wrestling with each other. However, there is an obvious problem of "puzzle loss" in Daughter Back, which leads to the separation between narrative progress and audience’s participation.In the first half of the plot, The Daughter Who Comes Back throws at least four puzzles: (1) The mystery of the identity of the monkey masked man; (2) Xiaoxiu leaves or the mystery of death (whether to leave or not? What is Xiaoxiu’s real personality? Who killed Xiao Xiu? How did Xiao Xiu die? What about Xiao Xiu’s body? (3) The mystery of whether Li Wenzhuo really burned his brain and whether he killed people; (4) The mystery of Li Wenwen’s disappearance and death, etc. These problems all lead to a direction of "all people are evil", and also make the criticism of the universal evil of human nature behind an era context a possible construction of the theme that the audience expects. However, after the series throws out questions, the plot is constantly turning over, and the focus of the questions is constantly changing. For the original puzzles, the answers are revealed in an effortless and narrative way: for example, the monkey mask man is just a rogue, and coincidentally reveals the mystery that Li Wenwen died in a washing machine. And why is Li Wenzhuo there every time the Monkey Mask Man appears? For another example, what kind of person is Xiaoxiu, and is there a relationship between her death and her real personality? … … None of these questions give clear answers in the play. Although the series gives many fragmentary clues, Wang Zhongjiang’s positive personality and light death lead to a lot of redundant details and plots being invalid. In the end, taking Li Chengdong as the subject of doing evil and accepting the crime runs counter to the audience’s guess that all the people are doing evil, which greatly weakens the intelligence of the narrative and the depth of the theme.

Thirdly, from the level of suspense narrative, narrative rationality is the most critical factor for the success of suspense drama, and the rationality of details, plots and characters constitutes three key elements of suspense narrative rationality, but The Daughter Who Came Back has obvious rationality defects in these three aspects.For example, the fact that Liao Suifang went to grandma Cheng Wei’s house to look for Chen Youxi’s things and glanced at the photos of Cheng Wei’s parents on the wall was not necessarily related to the narrative; As a patient in a mental hospital, it is also questionable how MengMeng got the key to a mental hospital and got in and out freely. In a suspense drama supported by solid realistic details, it is also abrupt to take the "flying butterfly" as the confirmation details of the relationship between Li Wenzhuo and Li Wenwen. On the rationality of the plot, what is criticized is why Wang Zhongjiang’s family can let anyone in and out freely, so that Cheng Wei can sneak in twice to steal blood tests and steal videos; And why was Liao Suifang so calm when she saw the obviously false report on the DNA report? Furthermore, from the character, Liao Suifang, who is so smart and careful, drank Li Chengdong’s poisonous soup defenseless before going to the Public Security Bureau in the last episode? And Chen Youxi can see that Li Chengdong lied and admitted to killing Xiaoxiu, but he was so out of control after Li Wenzhuo said he choked Xiaoxiu? And so on, all confuse the audience. This separation of details, plots and characters is a serious damage to narrative rationality.

The above-mentioned problems of "The Daughter Coming Back" are the common problems existing in the original suspense online drama of "Misty Theater". Without the adaptation of Zi Jinchen’s original novel, the creation of the original suspense narrative script of social school reasoning, the deep-seated narrative integration of social problem consciousness, the construction of typed puzzle narrative and the solid construction of logical rationality are all key issues to test the creation of local suspense online drama. How to get rid of the "sense of decoration of the times" and make people get a deep social representation of sexual sin, how to avoid the "puzzle loss" and how to form the narrative tension of audience participation in suspense narrative, and how to get solid details support through the multi-level rationality of logic, fundamentally determine how far the local original suspense online drama can go. (Author: Zheng Huanzhao, Associate Professor, School of Literature, Jinan University)