美人余 28 2025 10月9日 腾讯视频(首播)，10月10日 东方卫视(上星) 王佳佳、李一桐、常华森、曾梦雪 都市
The Vanishing Beauty
Up first is the 28 episode drama 美人余 or The Vanishing Beauty. This 28 episode modern day drama began airing on Oct 9 on Tencent and then on Oct 10 on Dong Fang TV. This drama stars Wang Jia Jia, Li YI Tong, Chang Hua Sen, Qiao Zhen Yu amongst many others.
Here’s the plot summary: 余梦 Yu Meng, starring Li Yi Tong, lives the life that everyone wants. She has a great job, a hot husband, and is wealthy. Unbeknownst to her, she is the victim of a con in her seemingly wonderful marriage. 卢蕙 Lu Hui starring Wang Jia Jia a simple housekeeper is biding her time to achieve her goals. A noted divorce lawyer 焦旭 Jiao Xu starring Chang Hua Sen works together with Yu Meng to uncover these cons and in doing so, Yu Meng becomes a more independent and confidence woman.
So…when this drama aired, all the comments that I read were that this drama was “癫” or “crazy” because the plot went to unexpected places. I really like all the actors and actresses in this drama and it’s great to see Li Yi Tong in more modern day dramas. Wang Jia Jia, Li Yi Tong, and Qiao Zhen Yu all went to the Beijing Dance Academy for college so they did some dancing for the marketing. I think the drama performed fine for what it was but not great. The drama broke 27,000 on tencent’s popularity index and averaged around 0.3 on Dongfang TV and around 12M views per episode. It received a 6.7 on Douban. This was Li Yi Tong’s second drama to air in quick succession after A Prophet a few weeks earlier.
玉簟秋 40 2025 10月12日 湖南卫视金鹰独播剧场 丞磊、徐若晗 民初
The Lament of Autumn
This Republic of China era 40 episode drama stars actor Cheng Lei and Actress Xu Ruo Han and started airing on October 12 on Hunan Television.
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Ling Xi, the drama follows Ye Ping Jun 叶平君, a young student who takes a job at a social club to pay for her mother’s medical expenses. On her first day, she unexpectedly becomes entangled in an assassination attempt targeting Yu Chang Xuan 虞昶轩, the fifth son of the powerful Yu family.
The two make a ten-day agreement and later become bound together in a contractual marriage. After enduring numerous hardships and a bout of amnesia, they reunite years later and join forces in the fight to save their country.
This is Cheng Lei’s 3rd drama to air this year after 成何体统 or How Dare You and 莫离 with First Jasmine. This is Xu Ruo Han’s second drama to air this year after her turn in Our Dazzling Days or 岁月有情时.
Because this drama airs on Hunan television, and they don’t track or provide popularity index numbers, like Tencent, iQiYi and Youku, we track actual viewership numbers on Hunan TV and then the online share streaming share on Yunhe.
For TV viewership numbers measured by Ku Yun, The Lament of Autumn started off with average numbers but then by October 29, hit an average of 0.65% for daily views with a peak of 0.7529% which not only made it the highest viewed show on all regional channels for the same time slot, it is now on lock to be the highest viewed show for Hunan television this year.
What about online streaming marketshare? As of October 31, the drama currently is solidly in 3rd place with 10% market share amongst currently airing dramas. Daily views range in the 20million range? And average daily views right now are at about 10 million which puts it solidly in the good range, but not great. So it seems like this drama has done quite well for TV viewership but not as well online.
嫁金钗 30 2025 10月16日 央视八套(21:30) 田曦薇、闫桉 古装
Where the Mask Ends
This 30 episode historical costume drama started airing on Youku and CCTV8 on Oct 16. I posted a video with early thoughts of the drama with plot synopsis that you can check out on our channel as well as on our website for the written version.
What about the numbers? Where the Mask Ends continues Youku’s fantastic streak over the last few months of monster hits. This drama in particular shot immediately to the top of the charts for youku, breaching the coveted 10,000 mark on its popularity index, within 48 hours, the fastest of any drama on Youku’s platform this year.
This drama has reached a peak of 30% market share and is number one across all charts. Daily viewership numbers on peaked at 61 million viewers on Oct 24 and is right now settling in the 50-55 million views range. Average views per episode right now are about 34million views. From the trajectory of this drama, this will also end up in the top 10 for the year. Likely even in the top 5.
This is a fantastic showing for female lead Tian Xi Wei. She now breached 10,000 on three platforms – Tencent, iQiYi and Youku with Where the Mask Ends, Born With Luck and Pursuit of Jade.
TV viewership numbers on CCTV8 are comparatively more modest for the dramas airing at the same slot. But what we’ve found is that historical romance dramas aren’t super favored on CCTV platforms and so it’s doing fine for its time slot and other costume dramas on CCTV 8 but isn’t pulling in the monster numbers that we see for online platforms.
With Where the Mask Ends, this is the 3rd drama in three months for Youku to have a drama break 10,000 and there’s not that much dispute here for these numbers vs some other dramas earlier in the year that we’ve talked about in our mid-year recap. We’ll do a year end recap next month of which platform performed the best but judging by these numbers over the last few months, Youku will likely reign supreme.
醉梦 18 2025 10月16日 腾讯视频 刘诗诗、李乃文、胡先煦、黄小蕾 悬疑
Drunken Dream
Next up is Drunken Dream or 醉梦. This murder mystery drama stars Liu Shi Shi, Li Nai Wen, Hu Xian Xu, and Huang Xiao Lei. This 18 episode drama began airing on October 18.
Here’s the brief plot summary.
Years ago, journalist 沈乐水 starring Liu Shi Shi recorded the lives of the workers at the local brewery. Now, she has returned to the city to search for a hidden truth. Some of these workers were the main characters in her photos. Their stories have been locked in time and she needs to utilize her tools to uncover the truths of the past.
This drama boast Liu Shi Shi in her first return to the small screen since last year’s poorly received 淮水竹亭 Fox Spirit Matchmaker: Love in Pavilion. She is joined by very respected actor 李乃文 portraying her ex husband and up and coming actor Hu Xian Xu as a young investigator.
There was some buzz when this drama first began airing filming in early 2025 because of Liu Shi Shi’s involvement but alas, this drama aired without much fanfare only breaching 23,000 on Tencent’s popularity index and averaging around 8M views per episode. It does have a 7.5 on Douban.
小城良方 29 2025 10月21日 央视八套 肖战 都市
Small Town Remedy
This modern day drama features Xiao Zhan.
The drama follows Liu Zheng Liang featuring Xiao Zhan, a brilliant doctor whose career suffers a devastating setback, forcing him to return to his hometown and start over. He takes a temporary contract position at a local community health clinic, earning just 3,000 yuan a month.
Working alongside a group of seemingly unreliable colleagues, he resorts to unconventional solutions to overcome the clinic’s severe lack of medical resources, from using roasted sweet potatoes to keep vaccines warm to borrowing a funeral vehicle to transport patients.
This drama is really quite interesting from a numbers perspective. On CCTV8, the viewership stats are really only middling at around 1.36% for CVB. If we look at the dramas that aired this year on CCTV8 at the same time, that average would put it outside of the top 10 for 2026. It’s the same story for Ku Yun, another data source that would also put it outside the top 10.
But, interestingly, on iQiYi, this drama just broke 10,000 on its popularity index, making it the first drama in the second half of the year to do so on that platform. Online, this drama is currently second place in terms of market share behind Where the Mask Ends with 20% or so of the market. This is rather rare over the last few weeks because most of the time, it’s one dominant drama taking over all the eyeballs but right now, there are multiple shows people are watching. Daily views for the show are ranging between 35-40 million. It is still a gap from Where the Mask Ends.
Similar to Tian Xi Wei, Xiao Zhan now has broken the coveted 10,000 threshold across all three major platforms. On Tencent with The Youth Memories or 梦中那片海, Youku with 藏海传 or The Legend of Zang Hai and then with this drama on iQiYi.
尚公主 40 2025 10月23日 腾讯视频 李昀锐、孟子义 古装
Tigers Sniff the Rose
Lastly, we have the highly anticipated drama Tigers Sniff the Rose or 尚公主. This 40 episode period romance drama reunites Meng Zi YI and Li Yun Rui after their 2024 hit Blossom or 九重紫. The drama aired on October 23 on Tencent.
Here’s the plot summary: Dan Yang Princess Mu Wan Yao starring Meng Zi Yi returned to the realm after her harrowing marriage to a royal in a neighboring kingdom. Her husband died and she has traveled to Ling Nan to pray for her late mother, the Empress. She encounters the young student Yan Shang starring Li Yun Rui and demands to reside at his home for a few days. Yan Shang has his own vendetta and is not above utilizing everything available to him including the princess to achieve his goals.
I read the book two years ago and it was one of my favorite books that year. This was generally a very popular novel. The hype for this drama while filming w as quite high. I rather enjoyed Blossoms and thought this was going to be a surefire hit for Tencent, Meng Zi Yi, and Li Yun Rui. That’s what Tencent was banking on but since airing, critical reception has been very poor for the drama and the ratings have been very muted. The drama just clawed up to breach 26,000 on Tencent’s popularity index after a week of airing which is rather poor considering Meng Zi Yi’s earlier drama this year, Blossoms of Power reached 27000. Currently, it has around 7M views per episode and is only trending to end its run at less than 20M views. One main contributing factor people have posited on Chinese social media on the poor performance of the drama is actually the offscreen marketing of this drama. Chinese social media discourse showed that people were really turned off from the constant couple or CP marketing from Meng Zi Yi and Li Yun Rui that many essentially decided to not tune in. I’m currently chasing the drama and will share my thoughts in my review.