The series was the costliest ever produced in Hong Kong television history, totalling more than 100 million HKD (12.8 Million USD), thus creating a record that no other television series has ever been able to break until The Gem of Life in 2008. However, this still does not provide an explanation to the gap between two series. The opponents also allude to the fact that even during the lowest point of the entire crisis, TVB still retained a competitive edge in ratings, and would have been able to defeat ATV right after Princess Pearl concluded. Opponents of the speculation assert that ATV only had a one-off hit with Princess Pearl, and there were no other series afterward that could have retained the audience that eventually returned to TVB. Supporters of this theory point to the splitting of the series into two parts, with a gap in between the broadcast to allow for production time.
It is speculated, but never confirmed, that the managements of TVB drafted its top actors and actresses to perform in the series, and rushed the production into broadcast as a weapon against the resurgent ATV. During the summer of 1999, Taiwanese drama Princess Pearl, aired by rival broadcaster ATV, took away a significant portion of TVB's audience, and came out on top in the ratings battle during certain hours. In Hong Kong, TVB is the predominant TV station in terms of ratings, often receiving 90% viewing shares. It was speculated that the show was not originally meant to become a cross-millennium event, and was rushed into development and broadcast by TVB because of a slump in ratings. The stories covered a span of 20 years, from 1990 to 2010, and featured many technologies that came to age during this time, including the nascent internet, and a bulkier tamaguchi virtual pet device (shown as a device similar to Game Boy in the series), which was developed by one of the entrepreneurs before his entry into construction. Vendetta and love serves as strong subplots throughout the series, with the vendetta between two families being the most prominent. The drama documents the rise and fall of three entrepreneurs, who founded Lik Tien Century Construction (力天世紀) together to achieve the ultimate goal of developing a pollution-free city in Hong Kong.
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