In 2025, domestic dramas are in a period of transformation and adjustment, and the long tail effect and irreplaceability of high-quality content are becoming increasingly prominent. Multiple works have achieved a balance between word-of-mouth and commercial success, becoming benchmarks for their respective genres: 'Silent Glory' portrays the martyrs' faith choices with a restrained stroke like a historical pen, topping the annual word-of-mouth list and achieving an artistic breakthrough in the creation of the main theme; The Endless End has gained recognition in the professional field through its solid case presentation and profound portrayal of human nature; The TV series' Life of All Things' deeply cultivates local narratives, focuses on individual destinies in the changing times, and has over 1.2 billion views online... However, in addition to these highlights, we need to be aware that the domestic drama market in 2025 urgently needs a profound review and reflection. From the scarcity of popular products, the continuous diversion of audience attention, to the homogenization dilemma of genre creation, the industry has reached a critical point where it needs to re prove the narrative value of long dramas and explore new development paths. At present, with increasingly diverse entertainment options, fierce market competition, and fragmented audience time, how domestic dramas can maintain their core position and revitalize themselves has become an important issue facing all practitioners. In the past year, the domestic drama market has shown a characteristic of "strong supply, but difficult to find explosive products" due to the scarcity of popular products. Major platforms have invested huge amounts of money, with large-scale productions and strong lineups of TV series being launched intensively. Although the competition is still fierce on the surface, there is a lack of a phenomenon level work that can penetrate age, circle, and regional barriers and truly become a topic of public discussion. Such works often define the viewing memory and cultural climate of a whole year, such as "Crazy Racing" and "The Long Season" in 2023, "Flowers" and "Celebrating the Year 2" in 2024. The scarcity of popular products among the public not only means that the market lacks benchmark works that lead the trend, but also reflects that there is still room for improvement in current creation in connecting the general public's emotions and responding to the deep concerns of the times. This is intuitively reflected in various market data. According to Yunhe data statistics, the only domestic dramas with an average effective broadcast volume of over 50 million during the popular season in 2025 are "Xu I Dazzling" and "Bleach". If we include "Hunter's Guide 2" aired in December 2024, there are only three; There are only three domestic dramas with average effective views ranging from 40 million to 50 million, namely "Da Feng Da Geng Ren", "Zanghai Zhuan", and "National Beauty". This transcript is the lowest point in recent years, reflecting the contraction of the overseas drama market and the shift in audience attention. The number of ratings on Douban, which reflects the depth of audience engagement and emotional investment, also confirms the loss of viewers. Taking 2023 as an example, the ratings of dramas such as "The Long Season" and "Crazy Racing" have exceeded one million, demonstrating the high enthusiasm of the audience for discussion and the powerful breaking ability of the works. The highest rated drama in 2025, 'Endless End' (8.5 points), has a rating of about 100000, which is an order of magnitude lower than the rating of annual popular domestic dramas in previous years. At the same time, there is a lack of top rated domestic dramas with a score of 9 or above on Douban in 2025, indicating that there will be no "masterpiece" that can conquer the most discerning audience in terms of sharpness of thought, completeness of art, and depth of exploration of human nature in 2025. Against the backdrop of a continuous decline in views, the presentation of data on some platforms has also exacerbated the industry's cognitive confusion. Since the cancellation of the display of online views in 2018, various platforms have successively launched an internal "popularity value" system as a new measurement standard. This indicator, which should have been more scientific, will also fall into an "involution" in 2025, and even become a new "water injection" battlefield. There are frequent reports of "over ten thousand" and "over thirty thousand" popularity in the market, but there is often a gap between their actual reputation and public perception. When the data itself cannot truly reflect the influence of a work, the industry evaluation system faces challenges and may even fall into an awkward situation of self verification. The scarcity of popular products is not accidental, but the result of several mainstream types facing development bottlenecks together. For a long time, the main melody works, suspense dramas, and historical dramas that have served as market engines have encountered development bottlenecks in 2025. In the field of main melody creation in 2025, although there have been acclaimed works such as "Silent Glory", "Endless End", and "Life of All Things", even these top works still have a subtle gap between "approval" and "popularity", thus losing touch with phenomenal works of the whole nation. For example, in the later stages of "The Birth of All Things", some plot elements were criticized for deviating from the serious rural narrative and turning towards more dramatic and even somewhat melodramatic contradictions, which to some extent diluted the overall realism and emotional cohesion of the work. On the other hand, there are still some mainstream works in the market that have not completely shaken off the creative inertia of conceptualization and standardization, relying on grand narrative and slogan style value communication. The character images in those works often tend to be symbolized, and the plot progression relies on established routines, lacking the real texture and emotional warmth that come from life, resulting in limited influence and mediocre market response. The suspense genre has repeatedly become popular, with works such as "The Hidden Corner," "The Silent Truth," and "The Long Season" sparking discussions among audiences and establishing its market position. In 2025, domestic suspense dramas have fallen into the dilemma of "high expectations, strong lineup, and weak response" as a whole. Taking iQiyi's "Mist Theater" as an example, in 2025, several works were released, including "Bleach" starring Guo Jingfei and Wang Qianyuan, "Above the Dark Clouds" starring Sun Li, "Born by Fate" starring Qin Hao, "Just Defense" starring Gao Ye and Zhang Luyi, "Dark Tide Hunting" starring Chen Jianbin, and "Within Sight" starring Luo Jin. Despite the dazzling lineup, the ratings on Douban after the broadcast were mostly concentrated in the 5-7 point range, and the online popularity and discussion were lukewarm. Homogenization in creation is a major issue. The domestic suspense dramas of 2025 are highly homogenized in their creative concepts, almost all of which adopt the "social reasoning" genre model, committed to wrapping social issues in the shell of crimes and revealing the complexity of human nature. This was originally an effective path to enhance the depth of types, but in practice it has deviated and become a label based topic collage. Multiple suspense dramas coincidentally use elements such as women's plight, trauma in their original families, and procedural justice as labels, and simply overlay and collage them, turning social criticism into a straightforward emotional output. Under the shell of suspense, there is a familiar pain and anger, lacking fresh and unique specific character fates to carry these grand themes, making the audience not only aesthetically fatigued but also emotionally fatigued. In order to create a so-called sense of sophistication and suspense atmosphere, domestic suspense dramas in 2025 are highly inclined towards complex non-linear narrative structures, with multiple timelines crossing and jumping, fragmented information puzzles, and repeated perspective transitions becoming standard configurations. Appropriate techniques can enhance suspense, but when the technique itself becomes the goal, it becomes an obstacle to watching the drama, and frequent flashbacks and interjections slow down the actual narrative progress, giving the audience a sense of "water infusion" to some extent. This year, the ancient costume drama market also experienced a downturn. For example, the summer season was supposed to be the golden period for costume dramas to ignite popularity, but after a series of highly anticipated works such as "The Immortal of Linjiang", "Beautiful Beauty", "Dream of Books", "Song of the Golden Moon", "Offering Fish", "With Chang'an in Jin", and "Midnight Return" were broadcasted, the market response was mediocre. Data shows that the total number of online TV series played during the summer season of 2025 has decreased by more than 11% year-on-year, and the previous "traffic password" seems to be malfunctioning. The crux of the matter lies in the narrowing of the kernel. Taking Xianxia dramas as an example, the early classics represented by the "Xianjian Qixia Zhuan" series have a narrative core of "xia" and "dao". Under the grand worldview, it contains Eastern philosophy and martial arts spirit, and the emotional line serves the character arc and theme sublimation. In recent years, many immortal dramas have shifted their narrative focus to the romantic entanglements between high-level immortals spanning several lifetimes, forming a set of assembly line standards of "initial love, misunderstandings, memory awakening, and eventual marriage". However, there is a relative lack of exploration on universal human nature, the cost of growth, and ethical responsibility. In the narrow "fairy love" track, the plot can only be arranged and combined with repeated misunderstandings, amnesia, stunt doubles, identity conflicts, and other scenes, making it difficult to provide a fresh narrative. The best performing historical dramas in the market in 2025 are male oriented dramas represented by "Da Feng Da Geng Ren" and "Cang Hai Zhuan". Although they can attract specific circles and obtain good commercial data with dense "golden finger" plots, fast narrative rhythms, or subversive character designs, compared with "breaking circles" works such as "Nirvana in Fire" and "Celebrating More Years" that deeply blend personal fate with grand narratives, shape classic character groups, and trigger widespread cultural discussions, there is still a gap in the depth of thought, complexity of character shaping, and social resonance of the works, which is not enough to lead the comprehensive revival of ancient costume genres. The collective contraction of several mainstream types of domestic dramas essentially reflects the lack of creative vitality and the stagnation of genre innovation. When a genre cannot continuously provide new ideas, emotional experiences, or aesthetic enjoyment, and relies solely on visual spectacles, celebrity traffic, and narrative routines, the decline in audience appeal is reasonable. The challenge faced by domestic dramas in 2025- the scarcity of popular products and audience diversion - lies in the fact that the content itself fails to meet the needs of the times. The way to solve the problem ultimately lies in returning to the creative process itself. Especially under the impact of short dramas that quickly attract users with "fast pace, strong stimulation, and strong emotions", long dramas need to re-examine and consolidate their irreplaceable core values: they should not compete with short dramas for speed and density, but should build higher barriers in the breadth of themes, depth of ideas, and intensity of emotions, providing viewing experiences and deep resonance that short dramas cannot bear. Firstly, long dramas need to broaden their thematic horizons and deepen their consideration of reality. Short dramas are limited by their length and often focus on extreme sensations, reversals, or emotional relationships, while long dramas have a natural space to construct complex worlds and explore serious issues. The outstanding works of 2025 have already proven this. Endless End "closely combines serious issues of judicial protection for minors with suspenseful case investigations; The film 'Life of All Things' delves into the vast land and deeply explores the changes of the times and the fate of individuals through the relationship between farmers and the land; Silent Glory "breaks away from the excessive portrayal of intelligence and danger in some spy dramas of the past, and shifts the narrative focus to the depths of historical archives, focusing on the faith choices and human light of martyrs such as Wu Shi and Zhu Feng in extreme environments. Its power lies not in the" pleasure ", but in the weight of faith based on historical facts and silence... These works provide a broader social landscape and the spirit of the times that go beyond personal emotional twists and turns, meeting the audience's deep needs for cognitive expansion and practical care. In the future, long dramas should have the courage to break through their comfort zone and focus on complex stories that require length and patience to unfold slowly, reflecting the context of the times and social texture. This is the foundation of their foundation. Secondly, long dramas should pay attention to the depth of content and explore human nature. Short dramas are good at creating clear and immediate emotional outbursts, such as the thrill of revenge and the pleasure of slapping faces, but the motivations and transformations of characters are often functional and simplified. Long dramas are different, they have enough time and space to depict how the ripples in the characters' hearts evolve into waves of fate, and to lay out the multiple struggles experienced behind a transformation. Long dramas should strive to build credible characters in the depths of time