[I try to write my reviews as spoiler-free as I can, but there still might be comments or ideas that could ruin your experience watching the show. If you’re curious about the show, it’s best to watch it on your own first, before watching/reading ANY review or “explained” analysis.]

It took us a while to chew through the eight episodes of Netflix’s adaptation of The Three Body Problem. I’ve read Liu Cixin’s ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ trilogy. I love ‘The Three Body Problem’. I really like ‘The Dark Forrest’. I was critically deflated by ‘Death’s End’.

I was ready to binge the whole series on launch day, but Marie had not read any of the books. The show proved a touch too dense for Marie, and we opted to spread out our viewing over several days. We finally wrapped it up last night, and I have a lot of thoughts. Mostly good thoughts, but I am a bit disappointed in a few of the structural decisions demonstrated.

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In the way that the three books are written, I originally categorized this trilogy as “un-filmable”. This is grand, idea dense, and deeply philosophical science fiction. I think they would have made for awful films if anyone had tried to boil them down into two-and-a-half-hour cinema experiences. Hearing of the competing TV series, episodic TV made a lot more sense. Each book could easily occupy even more video than we received in this first Netflix season.

With eight hours to move through this tale, the first book still feels “condensed”, and this first season is also used to set up concepts and characters found in book two and three.

At once, the first season of Three Body is bigger than the book which shares its name, but elements unique to that book are also “squished”.

The show-runners, Benioff and Weiss, were behind the adaptation Game of Thrones. An incredible success until the last season (maybe the last two seasons depending on which viewers you ask). I think they’ve learned some important lessons from that show. Maybe the most important lesson: adapt a book series which has already come to a conclusion.

Instead of stringing an audience along through the precise narrative order of the books, Benioff , Weiss, and Alexander Woo are telling this story a bit more chronologically. Each book MOVES through time in creative ways, ways that are satisfying for words on the page. I think this kind of time jumping would have been a drag on audiences watching a show.

• The first book moves between the Chinese Cultural Revolution and the modern day.
• The second book moves characters from the modern day to hundreds of years into our future.
• The third book bounces characters from the modern day to nearly the heat death of the universe.

Making a TV show in this order would have been maddening. Each season resetting the timeline, backtracking, and then sling-shotting viewers into the future. It works on the page. I don’t think it would work well for TV.

I think Benioff, Weiss, and Woo were correct to introduce elements from future books into the first season. It avoids the trap of recapping a season, explaining “while you were watching this in season one, this OTHER thing was also happening at the same time!”

 

In TV-Land, that might feel like a gimmick. It’s a brilliant solution to a problem I had in my brain, the feeling that this series could be “un-filmable”.

However, there are two structural issues with this series that sap some of my enthusiasm.

First, I’m not unique in my concerns for westernizing one of the most successful stories to come out of China. Completing the Netflix adaptation, I can’t say it completely succeeds IF you’ve read the books. Marie had not read the books, and this flavor of the story was more accessible to her.

I think a number of folks in my audience might also have some experience with Anime, or Hong Kong cinema, or more recently, South Korean TV and Film. When you start watching media from other countries, you build an appreciation for a different culture taking a stab at a genre you enjoy. Zombie movies got tired. South Korean zombie movies felt fresh. American action movies started to feel dull. Hong Kong action films exploded.

 

Similarly, this book trilogy is deeply philosophical, but from a uniquely Chinese perspective. The idea of a “First Contact” story not focusing on the United States is incredibly fresh. This book series completely changed my perspective on many of the previous alien interaction stories I’d consumed in the past.

[As a tangent, this idea is one of the things I love most about Doctor Who. British people making themselves the center of a story telling universe. When aliens fall from the sky, of course they’d land near Big Ben, not the Empire State Building. It’s a forgone conclusion in that story. It doesn’t need to be explained. We just roll with it and see the British flavor of that story.]

Westernizing the series waters down some of what makes Three Body unique and fresh, and confuses some of the insights we glean from the books.

An example (which isn’t TOO much of a spoiler), a sick character in the book meets with his sister to talk about inheritance. This scene is included in the show, using British characters. The sister confronts her sick brother, detailing how her life was placed second to his, and how the family’s resources were all spent on him, only for him to not ascend to the success that was expected of him. She believes their mother’s money should be left to her.

With Western characters, this reads as a single callous family, and it doesn’t contribute much to the rest of the TV show. I’m honestly not sure why it was included in the adaptation.

Return these characters to their Chinese roots, and there’s a broader idea of cultural pressures placed on families, especially when we recall how the Chinese government can “influence” the procreation of Chinese citizens. Not just one specific family, but how families in general might value each of their children based on gender.

There are other more important aspects that influence the broader story, but that example above was a small slice that stuck out to me. When you swap a character’s origin, more attention might need to be placed on adapting smaller character elements.

That contributes to the other aspect of the Westernizing changes.

We have a diverse collection of hot younger folks representing the main characters from the books. Brits, Americans, Indians, and even a Latina! Oh, and there are a couple Chinese folks too.

The “modern day” cast is introduced to us as an established friend group. They know each other. They’re important people in each of their unique fields. They love each other, and fight with each other. The audience needs to learn about these characters through some ham-fisted exposition. It’s a missed opportunity that the audience could have learned more about each character as the characters met each other and learned new things about each other.

Introducing the ensemble and the established relationships drags the first couple episodes of the series. These characters didn’t know each other as intimately in the books, and each book focuses on different pairings of characters unique to that book.

 

One of the greatest strengths of the adaptation is also its biggest weakness.

We’ve set the stage for books two and three in future seasons, and we won’t need to backtrack to reestablish new characters. Unfortunately, this also makes the series feel incredibly “small”.

The entire fate of human civilization was altered by one Chinese lady, and we see the impact of that through this one group of sexy young folks. This ONE Scooby gang is in the right place at the right time to field hundreds, and thousands, and MILLIONS of years of human civilization.

They are THE most important people in all of human history, and they’re already one tidy little clique for the audience.

We focus on this crew to a degree that I feel it also minimizes the contribution of characters like Ye Wenjie (the Chinese matriarch of this story played by Rosalind Chao and Zine Tseng) and Da Shi (now a British detective played by Benedict Wong). These two characters are bold and dynamic and incredible forces of personality in the books. They now play second fiddle to the Scooby Gang’s interpersonal drama in the Western adaptation.

At once, eight hours feels like a lot to sit through, but it also doesn’t feel like it’s quite enough to express how big this story will be.

 

I’m that nerd that will always want more story to chew on, and I enjoy some of the more abstract math and science aspects of the book. There’s a delicious blend of hard science fiction and fantasy in these novels. The book gives you enough of a foundation to understand the world, and then sprinkles in Arthur C Clarke elements of completely magical “technology” to impress the reader. I think this show could have added a whole extra episode to play with these concepts and pace them out more evenly.

Elements like the VR game are built up more in this TV show, made to look even more impressively magical than in the novel, but that magic is quickly shoved aside to chew through that part of the book as “efficiently” as possible. It’s like the movie version of Ender’s Game, turning the amazing Battle Room of the book, into a couple short clips, not even worthy of a proper montage.

 

Or, when one of the Scooby gang is billed as one of the most important scientists needed to solve a political dilemma, but her contributions to “doing science” amount to her sitting in front of a workstation and turning a machine on and off to “do the science”. The rest of her character exists solely to be “affected” by things happening around her, and to be offended by choices other characters make.

It’s the danger of building a big ensemble to kick off a story. These characters weren’t written to occupy all parts of this tale. Each character had a specific role at a specific time. The one character who’s actions were most important in the first book, Ye Wenjie, is minimized in this adaptation. Her contribution to the second book is included in this first season, and again, unfortunately minimized.

 

Deliciously Ambitious

Wrapping this up, I’m encouraged by how impressive this production is. It does manage to feel broadly international when even the cast feels a little too chummy. The Eastern focus of the novels references the international politics at play, but viewed through a distinct lens. The TV show succeeds in helping the audience see the global impact of an incredible event.

The design of science-y elements is incredible. The budget, production design, the cast, and visual effects are all top notch. It genuinely is a good piece of media.

My general recommendation, if you have NO experience with the books, watch the show first as training wheels before picking up the books. Reading the books first, like I did, I’m not sure I’m able to separate my experience of the novels to enjoy the show as much for what it is. An adaptation should bring something new to a story we’re familiar with. There should be a reason for it to exist.

I’m just an insufferable nerd who is attached to the “big concept” sci-fi.

 

Because it is a darn fine show.

I’m anxious now to try the original Chinese TV adaptation to see if it fixes some of the issues I have with the Netflix series, but keeping an eye on the next two novels (if Netflix even greenlights a season two and three) this might be the only way to tell the whole story.

Benioff, Weiss, and Woo might have it right, but if we’re stuck with only season one, it’s ultimately an ambitious failure.

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Have you watched The Three Body Problem? Read the books? Did you like this story or the adaptation? Share some thoughts in the comments, but please add a BIG SCARY SPOILER ALERT warning to the front of any comment that might detail plot points.