They got 99 problems, but the show ain’t one!
Seriously. Okay, so for a while now I’ve been thinking that I’m just not into sci-fi shows. Any one I’ve tried, I maybe got through one episode and left completely disinterested. I was looking forward to 3 Body Problem to change my mind and sure enough … Any show created by the team who brought to life (and ruined in the last season) the epic Game of Thrones was going to grab my attention. In fact, I don’t care for fantasy genre at all (not even in books), and GoT totally wowed me. 3 Body Problem did something similar, but not quite as successfully. Yeah, it was super fun and totally binge-worthy, but it just doesn’t hold up to intellectual scrutiny, particularly in retrospect. So, if you haven’t seen the show, do yourself a favor, go watch it. Then come back, read this review, and see if you agree. While I’m going to go ahead and address some of the 99 problems with the 3 Body Problem revealing crucial plot points along the way. Please note that I have not read the 3 Body Problem trilogy and that this review solely pertains to the US TV series adaption. Okay? Okay then. So, what sort of circumstances can push a person to turn her back on her fellow earthlings and invite the aliens from the distant reaches of the outer space to come over and take matters into their own …um … appendages? Well, Ye Wenjie pretty much gets that. With her family destroyed by the revolution and a brutal imprisonment that follows, she gets fed up. And being brilliant, does something rather intense about it. Her decision and actions from the 1970s set the entire story into motion. Now, in 2024, all sorts of brilliant scientists are beginning to drop dead in suspicious ways, including Ye’s own adult daughter. The daughter’s pupils and assistants notice the patterns and try to figure out what’s going on. This group are the central protagonists of the story and its focal point. Presumably originally predominantly Chinese and now as racially diverse as Netflix knows how (and that is kind of their specialty), these people are all very smart, but of varying degrees. Specifically, because the show creators are all too aware of the boxes to check in current popular entertainment, the women on this show are much, much smarter than men. The women are, in fact, geniuses, while the man are more like … support brains (sometimes, rather horrifyingly, literally.) Most of the main characters who drive the show are women. Even the aliens (more on this later) chose a woman avatar to speak through. Because this is the wonderful world we live in now--women are hailed in hip media productions while underpaid and deprived of basic rights (like to their own bodies) in real life by the powers that be. So, at first no one really knows what’s going on. It’s a delicious mystery, full of suspense and WTF*ckery of the best kind, and the show is never as good as in those early episodes. But finally they figure out that the aliens are involved. The aliens call themselves San-Ti and are on the way to Earth per Ye’s invitation. Only the trip is estimated to take 400 years. And because the San-Ti are convinced that in 400 years people of Earth will develop the technology to surpass theirs and potentially destroy them, they are killing off the scientists now to prevent that from happening. Moreover, San-Ti can speak to people of Earth without delays, change their sky, manipulate their digital footprint, etc. All from 400 years away. To sum up, an alien race advanced enough to travel through space and to meddle comprehensively with people on a very distant planet, are busy with long con small game based on a spurious belief in (wo)menkind’s potential for greatness. Um … okay. Why not just like disable the internet, beam an EMPT signal, and instantly send the oh-so-threatening species back into the Dark Ages? Why tinker? There is an actual San-Ti worship club/cult now. 400 people who live on a giant cruise ship, funded by a billionaire believer who routinely chats with “His Lord” through a small speaker. This cult obviously has to go decide the powers that be, chiefly a clandestine government-ish organization helmed by Wade, the delightful Liam Cunningham , recycled from GoT. (One of the only two actors, surprisingly.) The second one being John Bradley, who doesn’t last. Bradley’s character quits science to become insanely wealthy off making and selling jink food, and is brutally discharged in episode three by San-Ti’s starry-eyed human assassin. Why does she have superhuman strength as a small woman to violently kill a rather large man? None of her skills are explained. Presumably San-Ti help her out in some way beyond simply scrubbing the digital surveillance footage of her appearances. Anyway, Bradley has to die. And he isn’t the only one of the main group of friends who does. The show basically cuts the fat (i.e. white guys) to streamline the plot down to minorities and women and minority women. Super woke that way. Moving on. Augie Salazar, played by an actress way, way too hot (in the wrong way) to be that smart, seriously, they even make fun of her looks rather cleverly in the show, is responsible for some pretty intense nanotech that can destroy things and people very impressively. She is talked by Liam Cunningham (can you blame her? The man seems so convincing) to destroy the cult ship, which (INSANELY) she agrees to. Mind you, we’re talking about 400 civilians, many of whom are children, sliced and diced to death by nanos. Um, since when do we do that, exactly? Waco, Texas was bad enough, and that was after a lengthy standoff, and the death toll there was 82. And here, you have 400 people brutally slaughtered based on their beliefs. Mind you, they are on a ship, perfectly contained. They could have been surrounded, arrested, etc. Something. But presumably Wade just wanted to send a huge F U to the San-Ti. Here's the kicker, though. Before the ship was destroyed, their fearless leader communicated to San-Ti that sometimes people lie. This was after reading them a fairy tale. And San-Ti FREAKED at this, saying they are now afraid of people and cutting off all communication. So yes, you’re reading that right. The alien race that was perfectly fine with coming over here to invade another species, that has been liberally killing off people here and there using their mind-manipulative tech and a dedicate assassin, lost their collective alien sh*t over lying. What the flying duck is that? Also, if they are so smart, how have they not figured it out until now? Four decades of communication until they figured out people lie? Seriously? Moving on. The San-Ti get back with the vengeance. No more games. And yes, before in the mysterious early episodes they used very advanced video games to (presumably) figure out how people work in extreme circumstances. Now, they change the sky, take over screens all over the world hurling threatening insults, etc. So, there are now pissed off aliens on the way, and Wade needs a plan of attack. Recruiting the female geniuses, including Augie who’d been drinking her guilt away, and a rather dedicated Jin Cheng, they try to come up with wildly-out-there plans. One includes sending a brain into space. The other, preserving Wade for 400 years so he can be alive to greet the San-Ti when they arrive. The brain plan tragically fails, but it does create for a lot of drama. Augie bails once more to go be a do-gooder in Latin America to obviate some of her guilt. Ye doesn’t make it either, crushed by guilt, she tries to take her own life, only to be intercepted and assisted by the San-Ti’s assassin. Which frankly sucks, because Ye (past and present) is by far the most interesting and compelling character in the entire show. In fact, the first season only had 8 episodes and a rather high overall death toll. The future presumably brings more. And more plans to stop the San-Ti. But also, who cares. 400 years is very far away. The Earth is well on its way to destroying itself now. And if San-Ti is that powerful, fighting them almost seems like a folly no matter how many well-meant motivational speeches the show puts forth. But pandering and logistics aside, 3 Body Problem is wildly entertaining. A NYT review said it was short on humanity, a statement with which this reviewer vehemently disagrees. The show has plenty of drama, plenty of humanity. It’s the logistics that require extra work. Between the pretty people and the dazzling effects and the grand ideas and the well written dialogues, it’s easy to get distracted from the logistics, though. Or overlook them altogether. Taken at a face value alone, the show wows. The main problem it has is simple: for all its faults, it is still much too smart for its platform. The acquisition-happy Netflix wanted a grand sci-fi spectacle and got it, but this belongs on Max. It is way, way too smart for Netflix. The fact that it debuts behind another stupid true crime documentary series is rather telling. People simply don’t tune into Netflix to be intellectually challenged. They do so to stream a large variety of garbage, with a few occasional standouts like Stranger Things. And even that banks heavily on the nostalgia factor and cute kids and monsters. So, I’ve no idea what the future holds for this show that’s all about the future. With three books, the creators certainly have enough material to do at least two more seasons. (And then they really should stop, because when they go off book things like Game of Thrones season 7 occur.) Point is, I had lots of fun watching it AND taking it apart. This may be my longest review ever. Whew.
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