Conspiracy theories are annoying no matter where I encounter them

[cashew]

Context: I've been sick, so I binged 《民国大侦探》, which is a Chinese adaptation of Poirot mysteries. Over all, the quality of the show is OK. They adapted some pretty classic novels and even managed to make a fairly meh Cat Among the Pidgeons more interesting by injecting the feminist clash of the '20s into the girls' school setting. (I honestly found Cat Among the Pidgeons kind of a missed opportunity for Agatha Christie to really explore the sexism towards women in British society at the time, so was glad to see the Chinese adaptation use the arc to explore how the clash between Western and traditional philosophies of women's role in society was playing out during a very messy time in Chinese history.)

On the other hand, the ending of the series involved a nemesis and a mystery challenge, which are always a death knell for detective mysteries. I'm of the opinion that detective mysteries really should do away with nemesis trope, because the mysteries associated with the nemesis are always kind of bleh to read. For me, the biggest draw of detective mysteries is not the cat-and-mouse game between the detective and murderer, but rather the more human exploration of the various elements that drive perfectly normal people to commit murder (or other crimes). This is why I find mysteries that overly focuses on the "puzzle" aspect to be extra boring and the "nemesis arc" is almost always focused on the deductive battle rather than on the victim and the very human emotions that results in a murder tragedy.

Anyway, that's the context.

《民国大侦探》 is the second detective series released by iQiyu and the two leads from the first detective series came back to do the second series together. This...is causing some interpretation problems.

You see, the first detective series not only has the same two lead actors, but the setting is also the 1920's but in a different city. And you have to understand that the 1920's in Chinese history is a transition era, where Western influence was popularized, the imperial government got replaced with a republic, and the nationalist movement was on the rise. (I'm not going to go into the history here, just understand that the country was immensely disparate and the nationalist movement was a desperate attempt to keep the country from falling apart and become colonized by the European and Japanese governments. There was a real threat of the political entity known as China becoming extinct if the natives couldn't resist the invading forces.)

So the political setting and subject matter is fairly similar between the two shows despite being set in two different cities. Because the entire country is wrapped up with the same concerns at the time. However, the tone of the two shows are completely different. The first detective series takes place in Shanghai and is a straight up rom-com. Meanwhile, the second show is set in Haerbin and is...well, a Poirot adaptation. Despite being both mysteries, the tone and genre conventions couldn't be more different. Consequently, the co-leads relationship and dynamics and personalities are also completely different.

The point here is that the two shows have nothing to do with one another despite one being called 《民国大侦探》 and the other is called 《民国奇探》. The only thing they have in common is that there's two male leads and it's a detective mystery set in 1920's China. That's it.

This does not stop fans of 《民国奇探》 from bringing all their bias and preconceived notions into 《民国大侦探》, however, and leads to some genuinely batshit non-logic.

Because in the case of 《民国奇探》, due to the rom-com nature of the show, the two male leads have very many BL-baity moments. I call it baity because the detective has a canonical cis-het love interest and therefore all the "BL" moments are purely aesthetic and explained away as "brotherly" or even "fatherly" feelings. Meanwhile, because 《民国大侦探》 is a Poirot adaptation, the two male leads have basically zero BL-baity moments. The friendship is depicted in a very clear case of mainstream male friendship, with no romantic subtext whatsoever.

But fans of the first show absolutely cannot accept this and demand to know why there isn't more BL bait thrown in there for the fangirls. And that's when the conspiracy theories about "not being able to sneak it past the censors" started.

I...there is no facepalm emoji big enough for me to express how frustrated I am at the multi-page screeds about why censors are the reason a Poirot adaptation lacks BL. It's so brain meltingly stupid. I can't.