I watched Fall In Love With A Scientist (当爱情遇上科学家) with little expectation that it will be a masterpiece. My guess was it would be just another run-of-the-mill production given the low ratings it has garnered from viewers thus far. It is a pity because the 2 leads have had better works previously. But is this mainland drama really as bad as it appears? After watching all the 24 episodes, I have my own thoughts about this title and my Fall In Love With A Scientist review is as per below.
My rating: 6/10
Episodes: 24
Type: Workplace Romance
Aired: September 2021
Images Credit: Huace
The Cast Of Fall In Love With A Scientist
- Jasper Liu Yi Hao as Yang Lan Hang
- Zhou Yu Tong as Bai Ling Ling
- Dai Jing Yao as Ouyang Yin Fan / Ouyang Yi Fan
- Cao Xi Yue as Guan Xiao Yu / Xiao Xiao
- Wu Cheng Xu as Zheng Ming Hao
- Li Lin Fei as Cui Jing / Jing Jing
- Fu Yun Zhe as Zhai Qin Yi
- Wang Jun Hao as Geng Pan Pan
- Tang Qun as Wu Chun Hua
- Madina Mehmet as Li Fei Fei
Main Characters
Yang Lan Hang
Yang Lan Hang is a scientist in medical research. He is a good-looking but awkward guy with poor social skills. He is a smart and capable scientist who takes his work seriously. Yang Lan Hang is in love with Ling Ling. He comes from a wealthy family and his father is also a renowned scientist.
Bai Ling Ling
Ling Ling is a university student in materials science who is about to graduate. She is a brash and straightforward young woman. Ling Ling has a grandmother with a heart ailment which requires nursing care. Hence, she needs to work to pay for her medical fees. Her mother died when she was still a kid.
Supporting Characters
Ouyang Yin Fan
Ouyang is Yang Lan Hang’s cousin as well as colleague at the lab. He is also a scientist and has a very stern personality. He doesn’t talk much and people are generally fearful of him except for Jing Jing. Ouyang and Yi Fang are identical twins.
Ouyang Yi Fan
Yi Fan is Yang Han Lang’s cousin and flat mate. He likes to fool around and has a reputation of a playboy. He is also Yang Lan Hang’s relationship advisor. Yi Fan has interest in Xiao Yu.
Guan Xiao Yu / Xiao Xiao
Xiao Xiao is Ling Ling’s best friend and flat mate. She is a writer. Xiao Xiao can be hotheaded and impulsive. She also sees Yi Fan as an enemy.
Zheng Ming Hao
Ming Hao is Ling Ling’s friend and an app developer. He is in love with Ling Ling and is protective of her.
Cui Jing / Jing Jing
Jing Jing is Ouyang’s research assistant. She is the only one who understands what he is thinking at the lab.
Zhai Qin Yi
Qin Yi is a postgraduate student and research assistant at Yang Lan Hang’s lab. He admires Yang Lan Hang a lot and is always looking for a chance to be of use to him. He also regards him as his guru.
Geng Pan Pan
Pan Pan is a university student who met Xiao Xiao by chance at a pub and fell in love with her.
Wu Chun Hua
Chun Hua is Ling Ling’s maternal grandmother. She can be stubborn and mischievous. She has a defective heart and needs medical care.
Li Fei Fei
Fei Fei is an actress who has interest in Yang Lan Hang.
Synopsis
Ling Ling has had a tough life. After her parents divorced, her mother was unhappy and bitter. She died of heart failure due to all the stress and unhappiness when Ling Ling was still a kid. Hence, Ling Ling was brought up by her maternal grandmother who is now also suffering from a heart ailment. As a result, Ling Ling wants to quickly graduate and get a job to pay for her grandmother’s nursing care.
While growing up, Ling Ling has gotten a lot of emotional support from an online friend whom she has never met. Through his encouragement, she agreed to try to gain admission to Huai Huai university which he was attending. But when she succeeded, he had already gone abroad for his research project. Ling Ling then got mad and blacklisted him but she still holds deep feelings for him after a few years of communicating online. This guy is Yang Lan Hang who is a talented medical scientist. He is also in love with Ling Ling.
After a few years, Yang Lan Hang returns home and is involved in a research project with collaboration with Huai Huai University. He happens to hook up with Ling Ling again through a matchmaking app. While he knows who she is, she has no idea that he is Yang Lan Hang. Ling Ling only knows that he is her old online friend from his unique username. While she is happy to re-connect with him online, she also hates Yang Lan Hang in real life as he has caused her to fail her thesis presentation. Hence, Yang Lan Hang is afraid to reveal his identity to Ling Ling and keeps up the pretense.
Fall In Love With A Scientist Ending (Spoilers Alert!)
Fall In Love With A Scientist has a happy ending. All the 3 couples end up together. In the last episode, Yang Lan Hang didn’t formally propose to Ling Ling but he has shown her the gem that he is cultivating for an engagement ring. Ling Ling happily takes it as a proposal.
Ouyang summons up the courage to propose to Jing Jing at the airport when she wants to leave the country. She has confessed her feelings before that but was disappointed with his non-reaction. But Ouyang has quietly bought a ring and flight ticket to leave with her. Jing Jing accepts his proposal and is happy that he has expressed his feelings.
Yi Fan also planned to propose to Xiao Xiao but failed when he couldn’t get the ring that he wanted. Xiao Xiao got fed-up of waiting and asked him to marry her instead. Yi Fan makes up for it later as he knows Xiao Xiao prefers a public proposal. So, he arranges for friends to witness his proposal and the happy occasion online as the pandemic begins to take root in the country.
As the pandemic becomes more serious, Yang Lan Hang and the rest of the team begin their research on medical protective wear. This ends the drama.
When Did Ling Ling Find Out Yang Lan Hang’s Identity?
Ling Ling finds out that Yang Lan Hang is the boy whom she met at the hospital years ago in Episode 17. This was when he tried to give her hope when her mother fell sick. Yang Lan Hang himself was born with a defective heart. When he signs up for the clinical trial involving a revolutionary heart valve that they have been researching on, the words that he says to Ling Ling sounds familiar to the ones she heard years ago.
His identity is confirmed in Episode 18 before he goes for his surgery. After the surgery, Yang Lan Hang admits to Ling Ling that he is her online friend. He has been quietly keeping an eye on her since they met as kids. He felt bad for misleading her that there is hope for her mother who was also a heart patient. Therefore, he has known all along about Ling Ling while she was in the dark about his identity.
When Did Ling Ling And Yang Lan Hang Begin Dating?
Ling Ling and Yang Lan Hang got together in Episode 19. This is after he is discharged from hospital following his heart surgery a month later. She couldn’t stay angry with him nor forget him despite being deceived about his identity as her online friend. They then announce that they are dating to their colleagues in Episode 20.
Is There A Breakup?
It depends on how you see their relationship in the case of the main couple. Ling Ling and her online friend have struck up an online relationship around Episode 13 when they start calling each other. When Yang Lan Hang kissed her on impulse in Episode 16, she felt guilty that she is betraying her online boyfriend. So, she asked for a breakup not knowing that her online boyfriend and Yang Lan Hang are the same person.
But once everything is out in the open and they become a couple in the real world, there is no breakup all the way to the end.
Is There A Love Triangle?
Yes, Ming Hao is also in love with Ling Ling. He confesses to her in Episode 7 and again in Episode 18. She turns him down both times. While he didn’t give up easily, he is also not a toxic person. He finally accepts Ling Ling’s choice to be with Yang Lan Hang in Episode 23 and even helps them when they are faced with slander regarding their research.
Fei Fei also wants to be with Yang Lan Hang and cooperated with Wang Tao for this purpose. Wang Tao pursued Ling Ling before but got rejected. He uses slander and trolls to create mistrust towards Yang Lan Hang’s research and his reputation. Fei Fei doesn’t agree with his methods and recorded their conversation. She then passes the recording to Ling Ling in Episode 23 and Wang Tao is arrested.
Fall In Love With A Scientist Review – A Virtual Romance
It is a pity that a few things went wrong with this Chinese drama when you have 2 people who have proven acting skills being chosen as the leads. I see it as a waste of their talent and effort. But first of all, you must be open to the concept of online dating if you are thinking of watching this. The female character has known someone online for more than 6 years. She has been chatting with him but does not know his name and how he looks like. But she still falls for him and has no interest in any other guys.
Okay, if you are comfortable with that kind of romance, then you will be less likely to feel that the whole story is farfetched. After all, she doesn’t know the identity of her online boyfriend for a large part of the drama. She just knows that she loves him and considers him as her boyfriend as the drama progresses although she hasn’t even seen a picture of him before. Hence, it is hard to really relate to this story as it is too detached from reality.
Poor Plot Structure
Personally, I think this storyline has potential to be a hit but the screenwriter has failed to structure it properly to present a more emotional and believable romance. I don’t think it is necessary to elevate their online friendship into a romance because it is just not realistic when they have never met. If they have preserved the online buddy concept like in Moonlight, this might be more watchable.
Even if a virtual relationship is integral to the plot, it fails to hook viewers into rooting for the couple. This is because little time is spent to make viewers feel that the online relationship is worth pursuing. There is just no justification for that obsession that he is the one when she doesn’t even know his name. They are normally just chatting with each other like buddies that the romance, if any, just seems fuzzy.
As a result, when the relationship moves to the real world, you can’t feel that emotional depth. What begins online with little romantic vibes just can’t suddenly transform into a great real romance. This is especially so when the plot also fails to make the 2 characters be more loving towards each other before the girl finds out the guy’s identity. I guess they can’t because she already has an online boyfriend and this is where the kink is in terms of the plot execution.
Serious Lack Of Chemistry
This is probably the main reason why Fall In Love With A Scientist can’t really take off. The leads lack chemistry as a couple. The romance looks bland and uninspiring. Perhaps the poor plot execution contributed to it but the leads themselves fail to give us a convincing performance as lovers. There is simply no spark between them. It is such a far cry from Zhou Yu Tong’s partnership with Simon Gong in Begin Again and Jasper Liu also had better chemistry with Shen Yue in Use For My Talent.
I don’t really know where the fault lies because the leads’ acting isn’t exactly bad either. Zhou Yu Tong and Jasper Liu did bring out the essence of the character that they are playing. She gives Ling Ling a very ordinary personality with lackadaisical attitude while he displays the required awkwardness in Yang Lan Hang’s character. But once you put them together, they just don’t seem to match. It could well be the case that the way the characters are written just makes them an oddly paired couple.
Unalluring Characters
I see Ling Ling and Yang Lan Hang as opposites of each other. Ling Ling is expressive and direct. Yang Lan Hang is an introvert and not very sociable. She sees her job at the lab as a means to earn money while he is dead serious about his research work. It should be the case of opposites attract but somehow, the outcome just falls flat.
I don’t see Ling Ling as annoying but neither is she very likable. There is nothing to make her really stand out unlike the gutsy Xia Qian in My Bargain Queen or the principled Su Xiao in The Ideal City. Instead, Ling Ling is silly and immature at times. As for Yang Lan Hang, he is merely a brainy guy to me and there is nothing cute about his character unlike Zhou Sheng Chen in Forever And Ever. In short, both the main characters are just not alluring enough to draw viewers into their love story.
My Verdict – Little Reason To Watch
Unless you have watched all the recent romance dramas and there is nothing else on the table, there is really little reason to choose this title. I know rom-coms don’t normally have great plots but what usually makes them watchable is some level of chemistry between the leads. A mind-blowing chemistry can make a very average romance drama into something special. Think of My Little Happiness and You Are My Glory. But Fall In Love With A Scientist just don’t have the required romantic vibes to pull it out of mediocrity given the average plot.
It is also a relatively clean romance drama which is akin to Our Secret. There are kisses but nothing spectacular for you to drool over. So, the overall romantic feel for the drama is kind of muted from the plot to the skinship. I’m not saying steamy kisses are a necessity but you certainly can’t have missing sparks in a couple’s interactions for a romance drama.
The last few scenes for the ending may also feel weird for some. It is certainly different from the typical ending of a rom-com. But on the plus side, this drama does go into more detail on the protagonists’ work so that you can understand what they are researching on.
For this Fall In Love With A Scientist review, I can only rate it 6/10. Watch it only if you are a big fan of the leads and you think having an online boyfriend whom you have never met is sane. Otherwise, just pick another title to spend your time on.
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