The original novel ‘Reset’ was published in May 2021, and within just a few months, the TV adaptation was completed, including script rewriting, filming, and post-production, all while maintaining such high quality. It is truly remarkable.

Below are the differences between the two versions:

  1. There is no incident of Li Shiqing losing her wallet or giving gloves to the driver; Li and the driver are just acquaintances.
  2. Li Shiqing’s character is stronger and more proactive, sometimes irritable, and has good psychological resilience.
  3. The first chest touch is Li Shiqing grabbing Xiao’s hand, and the second is Xiao Heyun panicking in the loop and pretending to be a hooligan to get off the bus.
  4. Xiao Heyun is as weak in terms of combat skills as in the TV series, with a more introverted personality. He is an ordinary programmer rather than a startup founder, only 24 years old, and there is no “violent video game” subplot.
  5. The side effects of the loop are more severe; the protagonists are sometimes paralyzed for several minutes.
  6. The explosion inflicts more damage on the protagonists, causing deeper pain, unlike in the TV series where they lose consciousness instantly.
  7. There are over a dozen people on the bus, and other passengers are sleeping, but none of them enter the loop.
  8. Ma Guoqiang is a local melon farmer, and the bag contains muskmelons; there is no criminal record or Ma Xiaolong subplot.
  9. Lu Di has no name and is referred to as the masked man; he only has a kitten subplot and lacks the otaku, asthma, and other subplots.
  10. Tao Yinghong wears a floral shirt.
  11. Wang Xingde has been staying in the dormitory, and his colleagues are unaware of Tao Yinghong’s existence.
  12. Lao Jiao’s luggage is a sports backpack in the novel, and it contains tissues instead of sanitary napkins.
  13. Li Shiqing has her ponytail grabbed and throat slit by Tao, so she ties her hair up before any further altercations.
  14. To enlist Lao Jiao’s help, Xiao gives him a 1,000-yuan bonus for his bravery on the bus.
  15. The fitness guy, the happy guy, the medicine aunt, Officer Yu, and Officer Ye do not exist in the novel; they are all original characters in the TV series.
  16. In the novel, there is a cowardly and troublesome uncle with keys who ruins plans repeatedly and talks a lot, resembling the happy guy.
  17. Officer Du is male and not a deputy director.
  18. Wang Xingde and his wife planned the crime for years, choosing that day because it was their daughter’s lunar death anniversary, which only occurs once every few years due to the leap month.
  19. In the novel, the cyberbullying Wang Xingde and his wife endure is much worse than in the TV series, which reasonably explains their mental breakdown. The crime was mutually agreed upon.
  20. Li Shiqing proposes getting a room first.
  21. In a later loop, the protagonists hold a knife to Tao’s neck to threaten the driver to stop, but it doesn’t work.
  22. Li Shiqing’s entry into the loop is not accidental; it is due to Wang Mengmeng’s spirit, which is hinted at several times in the novel.
  23. The bus’s surveillance and emergency switch have been sabotaged by Wang Xingde.
  24. The Canon ringtone is not linked to the pressure cooker bomb; it’s just set to the same time. The phone continues ringing even after the bomb is thrown into the river.
  25. The pressure cooker bomb will explode after severe impact.
  26. In the novel, there’s only a suggestion that Wang Mengmeng might have been harassed, but there is no clear evidence, and the harasser is not caught.
  27. In the final loop, the protagonists save everyone on the bus and become national heroes.
  28. The original novel has an extra chapter where a delivery guy who brings a package to Xiao Heyun also gets trapped in a loop. The author, Qi Daojun, makes a cameo in this extra chapter.
  29. In the extra chapter, the events of the loop day repeat just like in the main story. The delivery guy tries to buy 100 lottery tickets, but the winning numbers change, hinting at corruption in the lottery.

The original novel is only a few tens of thousands of words long, taking three to four hours to read, with a relatively simple plot. Characters like Lu Di, the happy guy, the melon seller, and the medicine aunt are either original or significantly enhanced in the TV series, enriching the passenger plotline and adding suspense. The adaptation is highly successful. The police storyline is also strengthened, with characters like Officer Zhang and Officer Jiang being more developed, though Director Du’s character feels unnecessary. The explosion storyline closely follows the original, with minimal changes. The Wang Mengmeng subplot adds a harasser-catching storyline. The emotional connection between Li and Xiao is also slightly richer than in the original, with more of Xiao’s backstory added.

One notable bug in the TV series is that Wang Xingde, after the compensation dispute over Wang Mengmeng’s incident, could still get a job with the bus company, which is simply unbelievable. The original author was also aware of this and spent some time explaining that Tao was the one fighting at the time, and several years had passed, so people didn’t really remember Wang Xingde.

Another bug is that in the Wang Mengmeng incident, the driver did not pull over, causing Wang Mengmeng to be hit by a truck as soon as she stepped off the bus. In the novel, Wang Mengmeng was already off the bus and was hit while crossing the road.

There’s also a bug in the novel where it describes Wang Xingde as “having both feet on the gas and brake,” which clearly shows the author didn’t have a driver’s license.

As for the many logical issues people pointed out, such as why Xiao fled after killing Tao or why they didn’t break the bus windows earlier, they aren’t that difficult to understand. Even though the protagonists went through more than twenty loops, each time was still a violent conflict with adrenaline surging, making it hard to think clearly. Fleeing or making a poor decision is quite normal.