3 Body Problem
NETFLIX
IN A POSTSCRIPT to the 2014 English translation of his novel The Three-body Problem, the Chinese sci-fi writer Liu Cixin waxes lyrical about his love of science:
I’ve always felt that the greatest and most beautiful stories in the history of humanity were not sung by wandering bards or written by playwrights and novelists, but told by science. The stories of science are far more magnificent, grand, involved, profound, thrilling, strange, terrifying, mysterious and even emotional compared to the stories told by literature. Only, these wonderful stories are locked in cold equations that many do not know how to read.
In The Three-body Problem – the first book in Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy – the author conveys expansive, scientifically grounded narratives about the potential ramifications of contact with alien life forms. Perhaps fittingly, given Liu’s apparent lack of sentimentality for the novel as a storytelling form, his book has been adapted into 3 Body Problem,
an eight-part Netflix series co-created, executive produced and written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (Game of Thrones) and Alexander Woo (True Blood).
The series takes place across three distinct settings and timelines where science is under siege. In Cultural Revolution–era China, a young woman’s family is torn apart when her academic father’s staunch commitment to science clashes with the antiintellectual ideals of the day. In present-day England, a group of brilliant, Oxford University–educated scientists are reunited under tragic circumstances to confront a mysterious, malevolent force threatening their research. And in a virtual-reality game that spans many eras – from Shang dynasty China to Tudor period England – players are punished for providing scientific speculation as to why the game’s civilisation appears destined to perish.
Liu’s The Three-body Problem is classified as “hard sci-fi”, a genre that prioritises scientific accuracy and detail within its world building. Lengthy passages are spent dutifully explaining physics theories and technological functionality, which is likely to deter readers who haven’t thought about science since they dissected a rat in high-school biology. By presenting these complex ideas visually, 3 Body Problem offers a welcome workaround. And yet, it will be difficult for fans of the book to avoid disappointment at some of the show’s notably underwhelming visual effects, especially considering its presumably ample Netflix budget. An early scene in which the characters observe “the universe winking at them” is set up as an epic juncture, but delivers little more than a lacklustre GIF plastered across the night sky, paling in comparison to a reader’s imagination.
Liu’s characters are sparsely written, with somewhat mysterious personalities and motivations. The creators of 3 Body Problem have taken significant artistic licence, Westernising and embellishing many of the book’s pared back Chinese protagonists. They have, for example, transformed a married, male, middle-aged nanoscientist into a sharp-tongued, single and unreasonably attractive millennial woman, and have added romantic entanglements. And while the addition of zippy dialogue and tropey characters – a beautiful, brooding science genius; a jaded, chain-smoking detective – take the edge off some of the show’s loftier concepts, they’re also irksome in their predictability.
3 Body Problem is an intellectually dulled interpretation of Liu’s creation; purists may find more joy in the Chinese television adaptation Three-body, which spans 30 episodes and is reportedly faithful to the book. But for those who aren’t above seeing Liu’s ideas distilled and illuminated in an easily digestible form, and can get past the questionable writing and American sentimentality, 3 Body Problem is still an entertaining watch, thanks to the creativity of its source material. And if it takes an accessible Netflix show to get you contemplating the boundless scale of the universe and the tenuous future of the human race within it, then by all means tune in.