Review of the series «3 Body Problem»

On March 21, on the Netflix platform took place the premiere of the sci-fi series «3 Body Problem», based on Liu Qixin’s trilogy «Remembrance of Earth’s Past». The project was created by «Game of Thrones» showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, who were assisted by screenwriter Alexander Woo. In the review below, we tell you what fans of the original work and the science fiction genre in general can expect from this show.

«3 Body Problem» / 3 Body Problem

Genre science fiction
Creators David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo
Starring Benedict Wong, Eiza Gonzalez, Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Jonathan Price, Liam Cunningham
Premiere Netflix
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb

Beijing painted blood red, 1966. Waving small books, The Red Guards, inspired by Maoist ideology, hold a trial of scientists and teachers near Tsinghua University. One of the physicists falls under the radical youth’s disfavor, and in front of a frenzied crowd he is beaten to death like cattle. The father of the young girl, Ye Wenjie, who witnessed the brutal massacre, was unfortunate. Later, this personal tragedy would play a decisive role in one fateful decision for the planet.

It’s gloomy London, as usual, these days. As Detective Da Shi investigates the mysterious deaths of prominent scientists, one of these tragic cases brings five good friends together. With the exception of businessman and pop culture aficionado Jack Rooney, who owns a copy of the shield Captain America as well as toy xenomorph and a gremlin, each of those present is directly related to science or some kind of research.

For example, the beautiful Auggie Salazar develops synthetic polymer nanofibers, and her friend Jin Chen analyzes the results of particle acceleration research. But later, each of the characters has to play their own role in a story that is rooted in the tragic events in China and risks having catastrophic consequences for all of humanity.Chinese science fiction author Liu Qixin first made a splash in his homeland with his outstanding science fiction novel «The Three-Body Problem», and later, after entering the English-language market, gained worldwide fame and universal recognition. Subsequently, the author’s next novels «The Dark Forest» and «Death’s End» were translated, which together formed the trilogy «Remembrance of Earth’s Past». You can read her review in the traditional Friday material by Pavlo Chuikin.

As for film adaptations, Netflix’s show was the first English-language project to be moved from China to England. Before that, only Chinese filmmakers had approached «Remembrance of Earth’s Past». In 2022, an anime series was released that based on the second volume of the trilogy, and last year the show «Three Bodies» premiered, which relied on the original text and had as many as 30 episodes.

This raises a logical question: did David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo manage to tell a coherent, engaging story in the allotted time, and also make the viewer who is not familiar with the original source also become interested in it? And this is not to mention the fact that the peculiarities of the hard SF genre pose extremely difficult tasks for authors, as it is very easy to lose the thread of the story due to numerous references to scientific concepts, processes, etc.

Benioff and company have done a great job of scattering local riddles and answers to them, as well as cause-and-effect relationships throughout the runtime, so interest in what’s happening on the screen hardly ever fades. Despite the fact that the global mystery here is not such a mystery (for those who have read it accurately, and everyone else will quickly guess the parties to the conflict), and the plot is far from spectacular predecessors with the obligatory military confrontations, the series looks exciting and quite epic.

Among the many representatives of relatively high-budget fiction on the theme of such antagonism, the local story stands out because it does not involve large-scale clashes, at least not yet. No conventional battles for Los Angeles or battleships. However, this does not mean that there are no scenes in the frame that cannot surprise. Just look at the episode with the ship «Judgement Day», which instantly brings to mind the opening bloody scene from the mystical horror «Ghost Ship».

First of all, the series is an interesting exploration of humanity’s behavior in the face of a probably inevitable, but still quite distant existential catastrophe. Alongside it is the idea that the miserable insects of homo sapiens could use a good shake-up from some majestic and more intelligent force capable of putting fools bent on destroying each other in their place. But the conclusion is obvious: we definitely did not deserve to die. And this is where the characters and their actions come to the fore.It is known that characters in Liu Qixin’s — are clearly not the strongest point of his multilayered fictions. In the series, they have a superficial but sufficient volume to make the interaction between them have some intrigue. The motives for their fateful actions are well-founded and do not raise questions, especially in the case of Ye Wenjie, who is hard to condemn for what she did.

Some of the functions necessary to advance the plot, assigned to the hero of the novel Wang Miao, were taken over by other characters. For example, the eerie countdown is now reflected in the infinitely beautiful eyes of Eiza Gonzalez, and the characters of Jess Hong and John Bradley had to go through a luxurious VR game.