3 Body Problem

3 Body Problem soars in every aspect. Visually? It's beautiful. Story-wise? Completely gripping? Cast-wise? Pitch perfect. Pacing? Flawless. It's an absolute masterclass from Benioff, Weiss and Woo in the type of sci-fi we need right now – bold, unflinching, creative, imaginative and completely unique.

“3 Body Problem” belongs to an all too rare breed: mainstream entertainment that leads its viewers down bracingly original speculative corridors. .... Intellectual stimulants are balanced with the old-fashioned kind—namely, dramatic set pieces and alarmingly inventive forms of body horror. .... But the series also has genuine heart.

With 3 Body Problem, showrunners Benioff, Weiss, and Alexander Woo have crafted a piece of speculative fiction that moves through Earth-shattering revelations at a rapid clip, full of evocative and sometimes horrifying imagery that’s difficult to look away from.

After a few episodes, you get so swept up in this world, in this story, that it exists all on its own, without the burden of past associations. It doesn’t matter what came before; you just want to know what’s coming next.

You would be forgiven for feeling that it's going to be more trouble than it's worth to attempt to become emotionally invested in it. But that feeling quickly wears off — in short order, it's off to the races. Part of this is down to the ramping up of the dramatic tension, as the mysterious science fiction elements of the story become more clear.

Sometimes the universe winks at us and we can’t figure out if that’s a provocation, a flirtation, or the side effects of some strong smoke. This adaptation makes finding out engrossing, if not altogether simple.

Ultimately, “3 Body Problem” works on a few levels. It’s a detective story, it’s a mystery box, it’s a grand visual spectacle, it’s a friendship drama, and, most of all, it’s an imagination-prodding piece of sci-fi. I’m not sure where it will go, if it is renewed, but the first season stands as a challenging and rewarding set of episodes. I’m on board for the next phase of this provocative intergalactic trip.

The culmination of a long journey from page to screen, what the future holds for such a complex and demanding construct remains to be seen; still, after rabidly consuming season one, most of the show’s problems look strictly to be of the high-class variety.

There’s little new under the sci-fi sun, or suns. But the parts have been originally arranged, with fresh trimmings, good characters and some clever use of theoretical physics; “3 Body Problem” doesn’t feel like a retread.

“3 Body Problem” is the rare series that consistently surprises, making me (mostly) forget my worries during initial episodes that this could be another “Lost,” a show with great ideas but no concrete story path.

The pacing is great. The story is good. Here’s hoping the show can sustain that balance, and that future seasons will deliver on its considerable present-day potential.

Don’t be put off by the fact it’s made by the Game of Thrones writers, or that it’s heavy (very heavy) on theoretical physics. If you give yourself over to the thrill ride of 3 Body Problem and embrace its high concept ideas, you’ll find yourself enraptured by one of the best sci-fi series Netflix has ever had.

Viewers new to the story should find it exciting on its own. (You do not need to have read the books first; you should never need to read the books to watch a TV series.) But the book trilogy does go to some weird, grim — and presumably challenging to film — places, and it will be interesting to see if and how future seasons follow. For now, there’s flair, ambition and galaxy-brain twists aplenty.

If certain bits of characterization are painted with a broad brush or the final few episodes drag on beyond the season's obvious endpoint, it's a small price to pay for the sheer boldness and creativity on display. Luckily, none of this prevents these eight episodes from becoming one of the most interesting, well-written, and brilliantly adapted debut seasons in quite some time.

Netflix’s 3 Body Problem sometimes tries too hard to be cool, sprinkling in Lana Del Rey needle drops and recreational drug use. But ultimately, the creators succeed in extracting the story’s urgency without lobotomizing the source material.

What works best about “3 Body Problem” is that you don’t really have to consider all of these deeper themes to enjoy it. It works on a superficial sci-fi level too with crazy character twists and solid performances throughout. Adepo, Sharp, Wong and Cunningham are particularly strong, and the craft is undeniable.

One suspects that Liu’s world is so abstract that even the best adaptation possible will be difficult for some viewers to fully wrap their heads around, a hurdle that will only grow higher as the series continues. Nevertheless, “3 Body Problem” feels impressively close to that ideal — and not all of its accomplishments are due to structural choices or feats of filmmaking.

Some sequences work better than others – like the video game side story delivering a soupçon of cringe – but many of the performances and one shocking sequence make for a more-than-worthy adaption of the beloved franchise.

3 Body Problem actually benefits from being binge-watched. There is so much going on that a week-to-week release is likely to leave viewers scratching their heads if they aren't fully giving the show their complete attention. The multiple storylines that intersect with each other at different points in time also make the series incredibly rewatchable.

A hugely ambitious adaptation of a hugely ambitious book. As an opening season it feels like set-up for something bigger — but what’s here is thoroughly impressive, giant-scale television.

The only thing we need to care about is 3 Body Problem's entertainment value, which is readily apparent from the first few scenes. Logistical qualms aside, every episode leaves us with a compelling reason to watch the next — which is more than I can say for the lazily paced majority of Netflix originals.

The first five episodes are best, with their show-within-a-show structure, specifically those San-Ti virtual reality headsets that Mark Zuckerberg would give half his kingdom for. They're a portal into a whole other world, with its own set of narrative rules, and even the occasional flash of humor. Mostly they're just fun. “3 Body” noticeably sags when the San-Ti no longer deploy them (although one does reappear in a closing scene of this first season).

The most eagerly anticipated TV series event of the year is here, courtesy of the brains behind Game of Thrones and their mesmerizing mind games bring a Chinese literary classic about alien invasion to life in a way that makes you work hard to untangle its mysteries. Do it.

Despite its flaws, "Body" is just plain exciting. It feels new and different; unlike any other series on TV. And if you know anything about the plot of the books, things can only get stranger if the show returns for additional seasons.

With too many characters involved, the story flattens most of them into archetypes: Jack is the comic relief. Will is the martyr. Saul is—well, he’s a blank slate. .... To be clear, there is much about the adaptation I enjoy. I get a kick out of realizing which portions of the trilogy the show’s creators have chopped up and rearranged, delighted to be shown parallels among characters I had not previously noticed, and still find Benioff and Weiss to be great at writing memorable, economical dialogue. The visuals are also cool, the aliens appropriately enigmatic, and the performances excellent.

Although the plot follows smoothly toward a coherent end, the performances, dialogue, and intensity of spectacle is a collection of elements that do not always come together neatly. The series aims at highbrow concepts about humanity, but its aesthetic and narrative approach is aimed squarely at comfortable approachability.

3 Body Problem may fail to inspire true awe, but there’s enough fun, shock, and horror to keep sci-fi fans engaged. It is a completely competent season of television.

The season’s final episodes indicate that the show’s terrestrial scope will undoubtedly expand as the series continues (if it continues), spanning eons and galaxies just like the books. One wonders how they’ll achieve the crazy ideas Liu’s books introduce, even with the sky-high Netflix budget the show sports. But if they do, one hopes the showrunners will learn how to make those unfathomable ideas seem relatably human.

In general, 3 Body Problem is at its best when it leaves the human drama behind and digs into brainy notions like quantum entanglement.

Six episodes in, sometimes 3 Body Problem seems immense, other times a tad too similar to other Netflix time/dimension-bending fare (1899, Bodies, et al).

This one doesn’t disappoint in the visual grandeur department. The VR scenes are particularly spectacular. .... But this show is a project of ideas, and I could never quite shake the aura of abstraction at its core.

A collection of mysteries that, while rarely boring, is too untidy to consistently grip the imagination.

It looks great, it soon has Jonathan Pryce joining proceedings as Mike Evans, an eco activist turned reclusive oil tycoon billionaire, and the answers to the mystery of who (and what) the extraordinary forces are, what they want and who summoned them are doled out at a fair pace. But it can’t quite get rid of the cold abstraction that was at the heart of the books and which is revered by its fans.

A glorious, gaudy galactic mess. Problems? Loads of them. But marvel at the ambition.

The problem is that these new characters are never integrated with Liu’s story in a way that makes sense. Instead of making the globe-spanning plot empathetic on a human level, these friends’ various interpersonal entanglements just end up feeling irrelevant in the face of the show’s big ideas.

They [David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo] tackle the project with admirable seriousness and a focus on world-building — skills sharpened in their previous work — and yet the deliberate pacing and overall results are strangely underwhelming.

The expansive spectacle of the “3 Body Problem” and the awe it occasionally produces is often hindered by its inherently middling human melodramas and tortuous plotting.

The series isn’t devoid of good stuff. It’s just flat, with decorative touches, which extends to the characterizations and acting. Nobody in the ensemble is bad, but very few performances are memorable.

Benioff, Weiss and Woo made radical and transformative changes to the source material, but lost something integral in the process. We’re left with a series that’s full of bluster but no vibrancy – a body devoid of life.

Benioff, Weiss, and Woo (a longtime writer on True Blood and the creator of Season Two of AMC’s horror anthology The Terror) have done everything they can to blend the big ideas from the books with people who have clear personalities and inner lives, rather than ones who exist entirely as plot functionaries. But even with these various smart deviations from the source material, the show’s first season is middling drama at best.