3 Body Problem Review - IGN (2024)

3 Body Problem premieres on Netflix March 21.

Netflix’s latest stab at a science-fiction epic, 3 Body Problem, arrives pre-anointed as something special. Its Hugo Award-winning source material – a trilogy of novels by author Cixin Liu – has already inspired a 30-episode TV series in Liu’s native China, as well as a shelved movie adaptation. American editions of The Three Body Problem and its sequels, The Dark Forest and Death’s End, feature cover blurbs by no less a luminary/giant nerd than former U.S. President Barack Obama. But the Netflix version of these hard sci-fi mind-scramblers, which moves much of the action from Beijing to London and stars an international cast, is the one geared to the widest audience. It comes to us from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss – their first substantial project since the end of Game of Thrones. The pair are joined by Alexander Woo (The Terror, True Blood) as co-showrunner, and the scroll of other producers include notables like Rian Johnson, Brad Pitt, Rosamund Pike and several more. So strap in, right? This is going to be the next must-watch television series?

Maybe. What works about 3 Body Problem – and what made a fella like Obama call the books “impressive” – is its peculiarity. The story jumps around in time from Maoist struggle sessions to today, abandoning key settings as it plows through its plot, engaging in a healthy amount of misdirection. Importantly, it puts a premium on viewers at least half-understanding concepts like higher dimensional geometry, a mentally linked society that can not conceive of the concept of lying, and the confounding physics conundrum that gives the show its title. In short, there’s a lot going on here, but the creators did not wimp out. I can’t even tell you who the main character is – this show is too big for a main character.

For the sake of ease, though, let’s say it’s Benedict Wong’s “I’ve got the weight of the world, nay, the solar system on my shoulders” detective, Shi. (His first name isn’t really spoken – I think it’s Clarence? – but in the books, he’s nicknamed Da, meaning “Big Man.”) A Londoner of Chinese descent, he’s the most relatable character – an exhausted, confused, and determined man who meets each perplexing new story point with a chuckle and roll of his eyes. He’s on the case after several high level scientists go mad and kill themselves. At first glance, he’s just a cop, but it’s soon revealed that he reports to a more powerful, secret authority.

The suicide of a notable physics genius at a partice accelerator brings together several of her former students, all of whom become intimately connected with the source of the mass brainiac death. This is where Benioff, Weiss, and Woo show off their first stroke of genius. The series yanks, expands, and contracts characters from the first and third books (and, in one late-season “aha!” moment for readers, the second) and mixes them together, crossing genders and nationalities. The plot similarly weaves around the full trilogy, which firmly establishes 3 Body Problem as its own thing.

The gang includes Eiza Gonzáles as Auggie, an inventor of a nano-fiber thinner than a human hair but strong enough to prompt a “Holy crap!” later in the season; Jess Hong as Jin, a theoretical physicist who comes up with a creative use for old nuclear weapons; and John Bradley as Jack, a nice bloke in the Nick Frost mold whose junk food fortune comes in handy. They’re joined by familiar faces like Jonathan Pryce and Liam Cunningham (both GoT alums, like Bradley), Jovan Adepo, Alex Sharp, and Rosalind Chao in a role on the opposite end of the galaxy from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s warm Keiko O’Brien.

Troubles commence when Auggie starts seeing a countdown in her eyes. Imagine numbers flashing everywhere you look, no matter how much Visine you use. It’d stress you out! Things get weirder when, at an appointed time, all the stars in the sky start to blink in unison. Despite the fact that millions of people saw it, many don’t believe it actually happened. (This is exactly what would happen in the real world.) Then, Jin and Jack start playing a highly advanced virtual reality game. They become addicted and soon realize that, like in last year’s Gran Turismo movie (and The Last Starfighter before it), the game is a recruiting tool.

Scenes within the game – and, unfortunately, there are many – are the only bonafide duds in this production. In the books, Liu uses them as a crutch to dig into enormous theories – like how a human computer would work – and also what it would be like if an inhabited planet were to orbit three suns. It would be quite bad due to the instability of its path (see: the three-body problem), and a big turn in the story comes when the VR sleuths (and those observing them) realize they aren’t trying to solve an equation – they’re being sniffed out as potential allies for an extraterrestrial invasion. The technologically advanced beings within the game are real, they are tired of their species cycling through extinction catastrophes, they are coming to town, and they aren’t looking for roommates.

Alas, some of the gravity (ha!) is lacking simply because it would take the budget of several nations to make this (and a few other instances of hard sci-fi) look good on television. It’s not laughable or anything – just manage your expectations. Also, there’s an NPC little girl whose dramatic importance I recognize, but that doesn’t make her scenes any less annoying. What I do love about the series as a whole, though, is how it just goes for it. Some resistant viewers may want to take things a little slower, to which I say, hey, when there is concrete proof that aliens are halfway to the Oort Cloud with the intention of stomping us like bugs, society might accelerate a bit.

The second half of this first season centers on Cunningham’s character, Thomas Wade, who leads an organization with a limitless budget and zero scruples with the sole purpose of somehow preserving humanity. I think most would agree that Benioff and Weiss are no strangers to controversial scenarios following Game of Thrones and their aborted alternative-history series, Confederate. There’s little to relitigate in much of 3 Body Problem – no sensitive sexual or racial topics to get social media users all worked up – with the very big exception of Thomas Wade’s, um, radical methods of achieving his aims. That plus his deployment of “the R-slur” during a key moment, which is guaranteed to be a GIF from now until our society finally crumbles.

For a series that moves in such broad strokes, however, there are several grace notes. I was quite taken with Sea Shimooka in several scenes as a representative of the alien creatures. Her calm demeanor is the eeriest such vocal performance this side of Douglas Rain’s HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are also a few direct references to events depicted in Oppenheimer, which was a prescient touch, as well as a shout-out to one of my favorite unexplained phenomena, the Wow! signal.