You know you're on to something special when, in the middle of episode three, you're sitting Googling quantum physics at 11:41 p.m. -- not because you want to understand it all, but because you'd like to be able to nod wisely if someone brings up the series to a dinner you're not invited to.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
This isn't just another Netflix sci-fi series with dark color-grading and anguished faces. The Three Body Problem is an uncompromising space-gackle with Chinese culture wallpaper, academician melancholy and more existential turmoil than an average DMJX intro day.
The series is created by Game of Thronesdynamo Benioff & Weiss — yes, them. This time, however, they've let the dragons stay at home and plunged into something as ambitious as filming Liu Cixin's Chinese sci-fi mammoth. And it has actually succeeded. Half.
There are scenes here which are so beautiful and strange that you consider whether you are dreaming. A visual raft of computer animation, philosophical world-disdain and dry scientific facts that feel sexy nonetheless. Yes, sexy ones.
But what really lifts the series is its mood. That special Netflix darkness where all the characters look like someone who should get some sleep and talk to a therapist. It fits perfectly with the narrative of man's encounter with something far greater than itself -- the cruel but calm wait of a distant civilization to wipe us out. Not in anger. Just... because.
The acting is a mixed pleasure. Benedict Wong is a delight as a stoic agent with baggage, while some of the younger characters struggle a bit with making scholarly dialogue sound like anything other than -- well -- script. But that is forgiven because it all exudes ambition. It's a series that WANTS something, and you feel it.
However, there is a problem with rhythm. The series starts off slow -- as in really slow -- and it takes a kind of serial Buddhism to keep from reaching for the phone. But the rewards are coming. Once you're inside it, it's hard to let go. It's like a cold, precise hand slowly tightening its grip on your curiosity.
Let's just put it like this...
The Three Body Problem is not for everyone. But that's exactly what makes it worth watching. It requires something from you. It expects something. And when you then -- in episode seven -- suddenly understand a fraction of something cosmic, you feel like a genius. Or at least as a human with internet.
