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Three-Body Problem is a fantastic sci-fi series adaptation of the infamous Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and David Weiss (we still haven’t forgiven them for GOT season 8).
Kicking off in 1960s China, the series sees a young woman named Wenije Ye witness the worst of humanity during the Red Guard movement. Traumatized by her father’s public execution (and the multiple betrayals she suffers), Wenije loses faith in humanity and invites the alien race known as San-Ti to conquer the Earth. This fateful decision would later lead to severe consequences for humanity in the present day.
I’ll be honest, Three-Body Problem had a slow start. But when the show kicks into gear (for me, that was mid-episode two), things get very interesting quickly.
Though Wenije is the catalyst for the show’s major events, its real main characters are the Oxford Five. Five friends who all studied distinguished scientific disciplines but took very different paths.
We meet brilliant theoretical physicist Jin Cheng (Jess Hong), nanotechnology genius Auggie Salazar (Eiza González), Jack Rooney (John Bradley) a brilliant billionaire and Oxford dropout, Boy Genius Saul Duran (Jovan Adepo), and Will Downing (Alex Sharp), a great physics teacher and one of the show’s best characters.
These five characters find themselves at the center of the show’s events, and through them, the series unravels the various mysteries haunting the world.
The series has two sections, with the first half focusing on resolving the mysterious events taking place on present-day Earth.
Easily the most interesting mystery of all was the strange virtual reality game that captivates Jack and Jin. Using online gaming to showcase the terrible conditions haunting the San-Ti planet was very creative. I also loved how the show incorporates both the good and bad of online gaming. Seeing the science duo playing multiplayer Coop sessions with different player skins was awesome. But I died with laughter when they met rude players online.
Through Jack and Jin’s gameplay we see the various solutions the San -Ti race tried to resolve their “Three-Body Problem”. But despite their best efforts (and believe me they tried everything), the three suns orbiting the San-Ti Planet destroy nearly every emerging San-Ti civilization. Soon, Jin and Jack come to the same conclusion as the San-Ti:
“There is no solution to a Three-Body problem.”
In one of the show’s best episodes (episode 3-Destroyer of Worlds), the San-Ti’s AI Computer, Sophon (Sea Shimooka), shows both players the hopelessness of living on their home planet and why Wenije’s invitation to Earth was a Godsend to her people. However, episode 5 (judgment day) quickly trumps this revelation when Sophon unveils The San-Ti strategy to limiting human resistance.
By killing our Science and Scientists, the San-Ti plan to restrict humanity’s advancement and make the Earth too weak to respond to their invasion.
Obviously, humanity freaks out when it learns an advanced alien race is monitoring our every move, in preparation for their full-scale invasion. And in the show’s second half, the world governments begin planning for the San-Ti’s arrival.
Remember Ser Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones? Yeah, he is now the leader of the world government’s defence. And in response to the San-Ti threat, the man takes drastic steps to “Defend Humanity”.
Within a short period, Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham) commits some of the worst war crimes I’ve ever seen on TV. The covert ship assault in episode 5 was harrowing, and it highlighted the horrible things humanity will do for the sake of the greater good. But as devilish as Wade’s actions are, many will argue that he is a necessary evil to help humanity survive the bigger threat of the San-Ti invasion.
Under his supervision, Wade deploys several independent strategies to fight against the aliens, and he ropes in the Oxford Five.
He recruits Jin as the head of the ambitious Operation Staircase and gets her to Convince Will to become its only Passenger. He places Raj (Jin’s boyfriend) on the Lunar military base. And through his right-hand man, Da Shi, he drags Saul kicking and screaming into the Wallfacer program. Wade even goes as far as to make sure humanity perfects cryogenic freezing technology so that he can live long enough to see the San-Ti arrival four hundred years later and execute his plans. Talk about micromanaging.
But amid all this chaos, Three-Body Problem does a good Job of individual character development for its main cast.
Though we start the series seeing Jin as a great physicist obsessed with solving every problem, by the end, she’s stuck trying to balance her hunger for knowledge against her fear of losing her friends and loved ones. Auggie on the other hand, suffers a crisis of faith and dedicates herself to using her big brain to help humanity solve our real problems on Earth.
On the men’s side, John Bradley continues his streak of playing one of the best fictional friends. As Jack, he motivates Will to fight his cancer diagnosis and forces him to confess his feelings for Jin. Saul on the other hand, spends most of the series screwing up his relationship with Auggie and running from his responsibilities. But after decades of hiding and running from the obvious, Saul finally hits a wall of responsibilities he cannot hide from.
Verdict
Three-Body Problem
Name: Three-Body Problem
Review
The Three-Body Problem tells a captivating science fiction story that explores both the beauty and horrors of humanity finding extraterrestrial life. The show has an amazing cast of characters who are forced to face their flaws while helping humanity face the San-Ti invasion.
Though it’s not perfect, the series invested time into its story and stuck the landing on every big reveal (episodes 3 & 5 were insane). The Three-Body Problem is a good show and a necessary watch for all sci-fi lovers and nerds.
Overall
4User Review
( vote)Pros
- Great story
- Awesome storytelling
- Good Characters
- Great CGI
Cons
- Slow Start
While the sci-fi festish of an alien invasion makes up the main narrative of the series. The depth of context and creative innovations the series offers sets it apart from falling into all too very familiar trappings.
Definitely going down for me as one of the best series of 2024.