Friday, May 10, 2024

A Dismal Threesome

3 Body Problem, based on the Hugo award winning novel The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, is an eight-episode series with a provocative premise about (highlight to read) an alien invasion of Earth that won't happen for centuries. It is extremely coy about that, however, so if you don't look at my hidden text you'll be wondering what it's about for several episodes or stop watching. The novel was probably literary SF.

The creators of Game of Thrones tackled this version, currently being run on Netflix, and did a reasonably decent job with it. Basically it begins with an impossible result from a super collider experiment, along with important scientists all over the world committing suicide. Several characters who were friends in college, each with problems of their own, get caught up in both and a video game in which they're tasked to solve an impossible scenario that illustrates the motive for (highlight to read) the invasion.

The CGI/video game parts were the most interesting to me; the rest seemed cold and contrived. I also didn't care for the unkind depiction of people of faith (which the producers did as well with GoT) as well as the fate of one particular character. Most of it probably came from the source material (I have not read the novel, nor do I plan to.) Ultimately it's depressing and hopeless, so if there are more seasons I will probably skip them.

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