“3 Body Problem” entered 2024 as one of the year’s most anticipated new TV shows. Four days before it begins streaming on Netflix, it’s already one of the most polarizing.
The first new series produced by former “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as part of their overall deal with Netflix, the adaptation of Cixin Liu’s trilogy of sci-fi novels takes place across five continents as scientists work together to understand the way decisions made in the 1960s now pose existential threats to the planet.
The show premiered with a buzzy opening night screening at SXSW, but the first episodes elicited a divisive response from audiences. Despite praising the series for its ambitious scale, many critics felt that it was too esoteric to elicit real emotion.
“Adapting a book named after a physics problem into a TV show meant to entertain the masses is both an admirable challenge and an invitation for disaster. Cixin Liu’s ‘Remembrance of Earth’s Past’ trilogy (including its first entry, ‘The Three-Body Problem’) has sold millions of copies around the world. Clearly, readers are connecting with something inside the former engineer’s weighty tomes about Earth’s first encounter with extraterrestrial life — and it likely isn’t the orbital mechanics,” IndieWire’s Ben Travers wrote in his review.
“The colossal scale, galaxy-spanning stakes, and relatable characters all serve as emotional anchors that can hook people, and they all serve as key, replicable facets for a TV adaptation, too. What’s a bit harder to picture are casual fans scooting to the front of their seats for detailed explanations of interstellar travel and multi-dimensional theory. But hey, that’s the gig. You can’t say David Benioff and D.B. Weiss went into ‘3 Body Problem’ unaware.”
It remains to be seen how streaming audiences will respond to the series, but Benioff, Weiss, and co-showrunner Alexander Woo are already working on Season 2. In a new interview with Collider, the trio explained their plans to bring the other two books in Liu’s trilogy to life.
“For Season 2, we’ve got better than a rough idea. We’re much farther along with that plan than rough-idea stages,” Benioff said. “From there on out it becomes, you know, the farther away things get the hazier your view of them is. But there, in the third book, there’s so many amazing landmarks, in terms of scenes and situations and events that we can see pretty clearly, that we know, we’re not completely sure how our characters are gonna get to that place, but we know they gotta get to that place. Because that place and that place and that place are the reason we pick these books up and wanted to adapt them in the first place.”
Benioff explained that the first season adapts Liu’s first book, “The Three-Body Problem” and a hypothetical Season 2 would tackle the second book “The Dark Forest.” But the conclusion to the trilogy, “Death’s End,” is so long that the showrunners believe it might require multiple TV seasons.
“The third book is massive. It’s twice as long, I think, as the other two books,” he said. “So maybe that’s one season, maybe it’s two. But, you know, I think we’d need at least three, maybe four seasons to tell the whole story.”
“3 Body Problem” premieres March 21 on Netflix.
Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
