We’ve been really frustrated lately with shows that think the idea of presenting a mystery is to withhold obvious information from viewers so they can give it a “twist” in later episodes. For us, that is not a mystery; only information is missing. In the long-awaited Netflix series 3 Body problem, the mystery at the center of the series is truly a mystery. As we know? Because the characters themselves don’t even know what’s going on.
3 BODY PROBLEM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Initial shot: “BEIJING, TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY, 1966.” A massive demonstration is taking place.
The essence: The demonstration aims to set an example for a physics professor named Ye Zhetai (Perry Yung); his teachings on the Big Bang theory and Einstein’s theory of leaving relatively room for the existence of God, something that was severely frowned upon in communist China during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. His wife denounces him to the crowd, and his daughter, Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng), watches as the soldiers on stage, many of whom used to be his students, kick and punch him until he dies. .
In the London of 2024, Clarence Da Shi (Benedict Wong), a police detective, is called to the scene where a scientist has apparently committed suicide; On his walls, he writes in blood the numbers of a countdown clock and the words “I STILL SEE IT.” They tore out his eyes. This is not the first such death Shi has investigated lately; In his office there are several bulletin boards filled with photographs of the dead and the people associated with them.
At the Oxford University particle accelerator, scientists are faced with the fact that the experiment has been interrupted due to results that make no sense. It is something that is happening in particle accelerators around the world. The director of the experiment, Vera Ye (Vedette Lim), talks to Saul Durand (Jovan Adepo), one of the lead scientists, and assures him that she will find out why this is happening. She then asks him if he believes in God. She then jumps to his death in the facility’s Cherenkov tank.
Two former research assistants at the accelerator meet in a bar when they receive the news about Vera. Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) has been studying the results of accelerators around the world and they all report these strange results. Augustina “Auggie” Salazar (Eiza González), who started a company that makes synthetic polymeric nanofibers, begins to have a vision of lines, which then turns into a clock that she counts down.
At Vera’s funeral, we are introduced to two more former research assistants: Will Downing (Alex Sharp), who used to be in a relationship with Jin, and Jack Rooney (John Bradley), a cheeky guy who left the field to start a business. of snacks. In a pub after the funeral, as they try to figure out why Vera committed suicide, the only thing Auggie can focus on is the countdown clock that appears in her vision. He goes out to smoke and a mysterious woman (Marlo Kelly), who knows the clock, tells him not to let it reach zero and to stop working with nanofibers. To get Auggie to believe what she says, she tells him to look outside at midnight the next day. “Has the universe ever winked at you?” she asks Auggie.
In 1960s China, Ye Wenjie is working in a logging camp when he meets Bai Mulin (Yang Hewen), who denounces the environmental destruction they are perpetrating and has tried to see what the military has been doing at the base of the the top of the hill. He gives her a copy of the book. silent spring and tells him to keep it hidden. The two fall in love, but Wenjie is eventually arrested when the book is discovered and she refuses to tell the military authorities who gave it to her. In prison, she refuses to sign documents that would lead to the arrest of her father’s associates. But the military is looking for Wenjie’s skills as a physicist, and they took her to that facility at the top of the hill, to work there indefinitely.
The next day, Jin tries to get more information about Vera’s last days from Vera’s mother (Rosalind Chao). She gives Jin a shiny chrome virtual reality visor that Vera was wearing; It’s the same visor we see on the heads of some of the suicide victims Da Shi is studying. We then see a photo on the wall of Vera’s mother and see that Vera’s mother is Ye Wenjie.
What shows will it remind you of? Created by Alexander Woo (The horror: Infamy), David Benioff and DB Weiss (game of Thrones), 3 Body problem It is based on the novel by Liu Cixin The three body problem. The novel was adapted into the Chinese series. three bodies in 2023. It has the same vibe as other sci-fi mystery series like The peripheral.
Our opinion: There’s a lot going on in the first episode of 3 Body problem, but Woo, Benioff, and Weiss do a good job of tying everything together and not deliberately withholding information to deepen the mystery. Considering how many shows we’ve watched recently that have infuriated us by deliberately withholding information, that’s saying something.
The biggest example of this is that Chao’s character is Wenjie, almost sixty years after she participated in that Chinese experiment. We know that she is linked to this anomaly that has become an existential threat in the present day, but we are not even sure that Wenjie knows the extent of what her actions in the 1960s mean in today’s world. If the characters themselves don’t know it, we don’t know it either. is when they know and us Don’t let things get frustrating.
The countdown that’s driving all these scientists to suicide (we think), as well as the chrome visor that seems to give its wearers terrifying visions remain mysteries, but they’re the kind of mysteries we’re curious to see which way up. The show’s characters take a while to figure out what they are. Will Auggie fall victim to the countdown like the rest of the scientists have, or will she somehow defeat it? What will Jin discover while he wears the visor Vera gave him?
What we liked is that the group that will try to solve this will be the scientists (not all of them are in the field anymore), as well as the detective Da Shi. They all have their backstories and we suspect that some of them will be explored more than others, but there is enough information about all of them that their actions and motivations make sense in context.
But because this mystery involves both an existential threat to the human race and the reason why all of these people are apparently committing brutal suicide, there’s a chance for multiple levels of mythology to develop. Yes, developing a mythology can be dangerous; Ask anyone. X Files fan who started rolling his eyes every time a mythology episode appeared during the show’s later seasons or its revival. But the first episode shows that the story can go in multiple directions, depending on how closely the creators follow the original novel.
Sex and skin: None.
Parting Shot: As the universe “winks” at midnight, Da Shi’s boss, Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham), tells him that the entity “winking” is his enemy. Auggie and Saul try to figure out the code he blinks in; Saul realizes that it’s the same countdown Auggie is seeing in his mind.
Sleeping star: John Bradley’s character, Jack Rooney, provides the sarcastic and rude comic relief this show needs. We have yet to see Jonathan Pryce, who plays Mike Evans.
Most pilot line: Wade tells Da Shi, who has “failed upwards” at every UK intelligence agency, that this case is his “last chance.”
Our call: TRANSMIT IT. 3 Body problem It works because the characters are set up well in the first episode, and the mystery at its center is truly a mystery, not just missing pieces of information that the writers withhold from frustrated viewers.
Joel Keller@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and technology, but make no mistake: he’s a couch potato. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.comFast Company and other places.
