Chinese television series

Chinese television dramas (simplified Chinese: 中国电视连续剧) are similar to television dramas in North America, but are often longer. China is the country that produces more television dramas. It made more than 15,000 episodes in 2014.

Popular Chinese television dramas, such as Nirvana in Fire, The Princess Weiyoung, Just One Smile Is Very Alluring, The Legend of Mi Yue, Scarlet Heart and more often garner billions of views among China's most popular video websites, iQiyi, Youku and QQ Video. Some dramas have been so popular and widely acclaimed that they were remade into different languages, as well as spinning off with a sequel.

A large number of series end all episodes in cliffhangers. CCTV-8 is a channel that airs TV series around the clock. Series are divided into several rough categories: historical (subdivided into historical fiction, nationalist-rallying, historical re-enactment and wuxia), police and politics, comedy, and a more modern family conflicts drama. The beginning of each episode is by prologued an opening theme music with credits and at the end there is some ending theme music, with more credits than the opening music.

The series of episodes runs on together to depict a series of events that happen one after another in relevance to the main plot of the drama. Like a novel, the drama contains characters, conflict, plot, climax, and resolution that intrigue the audience’s interest. The large number of episodes allows the plot to be carried in much more detail than in a short movie. A particular aspect of life such as high school, college, or work life of a person, or a specific job is shown with much greater details that allows the audience to acknowledge that particular area in detail. This gives the audience a better understanding of the characters and their perspectives as well as the entirety of the storyline.

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