3 Body Problem
Created by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Alexander Woo
Based on The Three-Body Problem, Dark Forest, Death’s End by Liu Cixin
Music by Ramin Djawadi
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 8
Cast:
Main
Jovan Adepo as Dr. Saul Durand (based on the character of Luo Ji)[1]
John Bradley as Jack Rooney (based on the character of Hu Wen)[1] (season 1)
Rosalind Chao as older Dr. Ye Wenjie[1] (season 1)
Zine Tseng as young Ye Wenjie[1] (season 1)
Liam Cunningham as Thomas Wade[1]
Eiza González as Dr. Augustina “Auggie” Salazar (based on the characters of Cheng Xin and Wang Miao)[1]
Jess Hong as Dr. Jin Cheng (based on the characters of Wang Miao, AA, and Cheng Xin)[1]
Marlo Kelly as Tatiana Haas (based on the characters of Shen Yufei and AA)[1]
Alex Sharp as Dr. Will Downing (based on the character of Yun Tianming)[1] (season 1)
Sea Shimooka as Sophon[1]
Saamer Usmani as Prithviraj “Raj” Varma (based on the character of Zhang Beihai)[1]
Benedict Wong as Clarence Shi (based on the character of “Da” Shi Qiang)[2][1]
Jonathan Pryce as Mike Evans[1] (season 1)
Recurring
Vedette Lim as Vera Ye[1]
Eve Ridley as Follower[1]
Ben Schnetzer as young Mike Evans[1]
John Dagleish as Felix
Gerard Monaco as Collins
Adrian Edmondson as Denys Porlock
CCH Pounder as Secretary-General of the United Nations Lillian Joseph
Lan Xiya as Tang Hongjing (Red Guard)
Josh Brener as Sebastian Kent
Guest
Mark Gatiss as Isaac Newton
Reece Shearsmith as Alan Turing
Conleth Hill as Pope Gregory XIII
Phil Wang as Aristotle
Naoko Mori as Marie Curie
Kevin Eldon as Sir Thomas More
Jason Forbes as Omar Khayyam
Jim Howick as Harry
Nitin Ganatra as Ranjit Varma
Dustin Demri-Burns as Ted
Tom Wu as Count of The West
Guy Burnet as Rufus
Jake Tapper as himself
Bobak Ferdowsi as Mission Director
Stacy Abalogun as Thelma
Production
Executive producers Rosamund Pike, Robie Uniacke, Qi Lin, Jilong Zhao, Lauren Ma, Xiaosong Gao, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner, Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman, Nena Rodrigue, Bernadette Caulfield, Alexander Woo, David Benioff, D. B. Weiss
Producers Steve Kullback, Hameed Shaukat
Cinematography Jonathan Freeman, Richard Donnelly, PJ Dillon, Martin Ahlgren
Editors Katie Weiland, Simon Smith, Michael Ruscio, Anna Hauger,
Production companies BLB, The Three Body Universe, T-Street, Plan B Entertainment, Primitive Streak
3 Body Problem certainly came with a pedigree. It had David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, showrunners for Game of Thrones, at the helm. It was based on a book, 三体 (3 Body Problem) that won the then-reputable Hugo in 2015 and won or was nominated for a raft of other awards.
It even came with some truly jarring real-world intrigue. According to its Wikipedia page, “’On December 25, 2020, Lin Qi, founder of Yoozoo Games and an executive producer on 3 Body Problem, died after ingesting a poisoned beverage, with four others becoming ill. An executive at Yoozoo Games, Xu Yao, was sentenced to death for murder in March 2024, the day after the series premiered on Netflix. Lin had purchased the rights to the book franchise and hired Xu Yao, a lawyer, in 2017, to manage the rights to Liu’s novels; the poisonings were an attempt by Xu to take control of the subsidiary company that owned the rights to the series.’ On May 15, 2024, Netflix renewed the series for a second season.” Well, OK then.
So of course I watched. Having not read the novel, I didn’t really know what to expect, and at the end of the 8-parter on Netflix, I found myself with more questions than answers. For example: how was life (let along advanced civilization) even possible on Trisolaris, a planet caught amidst the chaotic orbits of a three-star system? How did the changes from “stable periods” to three-star days or long nights happen so rapidly? How do you make an entire universe blink off and on like an LED Christmas tree? What were sophants, how did they get to Earth, and what were they exactly other than surveillance devices? (When it came to the climate as described, I have similar questions about Game of Thrones, for that matter).
Well, there was nothing for it—I was just going to have to read the novel. It addressed some of my questions, but the explanations, at best, led to more questions, and some were pure bat-science answers.
The basic premise of the entire plot is…well, let’s just say it’s whimsical. Like Larry Niven’s Ringworld, it’s an engaging and intriguing thought experiment that cannot be reproduced in reality.
The three bodies in question were the Solar System’s nearest neighbors, Rigil Kentaurus (α Centauri A), Toliman (α Centauri B), and Proxima Centauri (α Centauri C) collectively known as Alpha Centauri. (That part I did work out for myself.) They’re about 4 and a ¼ light years away. Call it 2.5 x 1013 miles. In reality, A and B orbit one another in a stable orbit 80 year orbit (although it has a high eccentricity of .52), and the status of C remains unknown since it may be a distant part of the system or just a passer-by. A has two planets. The book’s take is more…fanciful.
So what are sophants? The book explains. A sophant is a photon that is expanded out to higher dimensions. In the eleventh, it is nearly universe-sized. But in the sixth dimension, it is just right for imprinting a firmware AI program on it. In the eighth dimension, it’s bigger than Earth. And having almost no mass, it can be shot at Earth at near light speed. It surrounds Earth, and can not only listen in and watch everything everyone is doing, but can adjust it opacity from zero to 100%, making the universe invisible at will. (First thought that crossed my mind was “Why attack and subdue Earth when you can simply tell the sophant to go to 100% opacity and stay there for several orbits, cutting off all heat and light to Earth? Wouldn’t that just be much simpler?)
Obviously this is Kilgore Trout-level writing, and readers and viewers are advised to approach this, not as hard science fiction, but as reality-adjacent fantasy. On the level of Neil Gaiman or Jonathon Carroll. GOOD reality-adjacent fantasy.
As such, both the series and the book are very, very good. The writing (and translation by Ken Liu) are exquisite. Strong characters abound, and the glimpse into life during the Divine Struggle period of the Great Cultural Revolution in China that begins the novel is harrowing.
Similarly, the TV show has strong characters (many of whom are westernized, most notably Chinese detective “Da” Shi Qiang, who in the series becomes a Mancunian DCI, Clarence Shi, whose character and development was clearly based on Gene Hunt from the old Life on Mars BBC series. Much of the TV show takes place in England; none of it does in the books.
Books, plural. 3 Body Problem is the opening novel of a trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past, and the first season of the TV show goes somewhat beyond the end of the first novel. The two other novels are The Dark Forest and Death’s End. (“Dark Forest” is a widely used expression in cosmology and science fiction to describe a universe that is usually implacably hostile and/or inimical to human existence.) The television show has been green lit for a second season.
Approached as fantasy, it’s excellent fantasy, with a breath-taking scope of ideas and concepts, strong characters, vivid imaginings, and building suspense. So yes, I’m going to read the next two books, and I’ll watch the next series.
After all, Kilgore Trout, the world’s worst science fiction author, was actually a damned good writer. You just have to suspend a bit more belief with 3 Body Problem.