HBO’s Game of Thrones creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, stepped away from Westeros (and they had very lucrative offers to produce more of George R.R. Martin’s work) to head into the sci-fi realm for Netflix. That’s probably a relief for both Benioff and Weiss and the dragon-loving audience (who wasn’t thrilled with the event series’ final season) at large, and now, the pair’s first collaboration with their new streaming service is almost upon us.
Here’s another tidbit that might come as a source of relief for those who have a sour taste in their mouths after Daenerys was reduced to a mad bear. Unlike with Game of Thrones, 3 Body Problem is based upon Liu Cixin’s already completed bestselling novel trilogy of the same name. In other words, there’s not as much danger of this show, if it should last multiple seasons, running out of source material and going off book. Not that it’s guaranteed to not go off the rails, but there’s not as strong of a chance of it doing so. Let’s be optimistic and discuss what we can expect from this new series.
Plot
Benioff and Weiss are accompanied by fellow producer Alexander Woo (True Blood, The Terror) and director Derek Tsang (Soul Mate, Better Days) in this thriller series that bends genres and explores humanity’s position in the grand scheme of the universe. The title refers to three stars orbiting each other, and the story follows Earth’s discovery of aliens within this system. Expect to be bathed in mysteries and catastrophic developments that put humanity into jeopardy, and the story stretches across time, including 1960s China and contemporary New York City and England. Of primary significance — and this is an incredibly simplistic description — would be the threat of an alien invasion and how humanity decides to counter/greet that threat. Complex scientific concepts swirl, and then there’s another concept to be had…
Spoiler alert…
Seriously, that’s your warning.
Maybe don’t contact those aliens! Bad idea.
To avoid any real spoilers, let’s move onto reassurances by Benioff, who promises that “tremendous love and respect for the books” carried the day. Further, “[I]t’s very important to us that the show stand on its own two legs and work for people who have read the books — and for people who haven’t read the books.” As for Woo, he further reveals that book readers should not expect a carbon copy for the TV series:
“The experience of watching a television series is different from watching a feature film, [which] is so different from the experience of reading a novel. What we are hoping to do is to convey the experience — if not necessarily the exact details — of the novel onto the screen. What stayed, we hope, is the sense of wonderment and the sense of scope, of scale, where the problems are no longer just the problems of an individual or even a nation, but of an entire species.”
Netflix, as well, keeps things brief in their synopsis:
A young woman’s fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time to a group of brilliant scientists in the present day. As the laws of nature unravel before their eyes five former colleagues reunite to confront the greatest threat in humanity’s history.
Cast
Familiar faces from Game of Thrones are definitely on the scene. Those include John Bradley, Sir Jonathan Pryce, and Liam Cunningham. Additionally, the cast includes Benedict Wong (Annihilation, the MCU), Eiza González (Ambulance, I Care A Lot), Jess Hong (The Brokenwood Mysteries), Jovan Adepo (When They See Us), Rosalind Chao (Sweet Tooth), and Marlo Kelly (Joe vs. Carole, Inventing Anna).
Release Date
The full first season of 3 Body Problem debuts on March 21.
Trailer(s)
Netflix has dropped a few of ’em. Even if you were turned off by the final Game of Thrones season, you gotta admit that this looks promising.
