3 Body Problem: Season 1

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I’m still a little unclear how China works. In terms of the ability for artists, authors, journalists and all manner of creators to publish their stories. You know, with the whole censorship and government control thing. But it seems sci-fi stories about alien shit like 3 Body Problem are just fine with the CCP. I guess? But it does kind of make me wonder if perhaps I’m being brainwashed or manipulated when it comes to some of the Chinese political history that is portrayed in this series. Granted, this is not the insane, 30-episode Chinese adaptation of the original novel, but the American production helmed by Game of Thrones dudes, Benioff and Weiss. I’m not feeling indoctrinated after watching one season of this thing — but, truth be told, my attention did wander at times, so maybe the hypno-wizbang didn’t quite work on me.

I’ve said many times that I’m not a huge “hard” sci-fi guy. But then I bitch about the wishy-washy way soft sci-fi tells stories and doesn’t stick to the rules they’ve set up. I don’t necessarily care if the science all adds up, only that the way the narrative explains the world and how it works remains consistent. Easy. The issue with 3 Body Problem for me is that I couldn’t follow the rules because it all seemed so incredibly random and all over the place. It may have hung together. The science may be sound. But the plotting was so convoluted and the story so wacky, I couldn’t even stop to question what I was watching. There are aliens who are somehow mailing people VR headsets? Okay… Do they have like interstellar, 8000x lightspeed Pony Express? Which I’m sure isn’t how these things came about, but there’s no real explanation so I have to assume that these aliens have their own really cool version of DHL. I mention the VR headsets because they are at the crux of this story, despite their origin being kind of yada-yada’ed in this supposedly hard sci-fi series.

When the science-y types receive their personal headsets via intergalactic messenger, they stupidly put them on. Because why not? Inside they play what amounts to bad versions of Dragon’s Lair. So, stick with me here. You know those fictional TV shows or movies where there’s a band who is supposed to have awesome songs, and they actually plays songs? Or where a show about an awesome sketch show actually runs their sketches… Those songs better actually be good. And those sketches better actually be good. Issue is, these are neither real bands, nor real sketch shows. So their trade craft is usually underwhelming. Just like the VR “game” that happens in these incredibly advanced helmets. They’re lame medieval nonsense. Nonsense that subsequently makes them see a virtual countdown when they take it off. That then makes them commit suicide after seeing a woman who doesn’t actually exist? Well, that’s a hard thing to refute science-wise when there’s no science to support it. It’s fantasy.

There’s a Scientology boat with a bunch of alien cultists on it who get all Ghost Shipped. And they launch a brain into space propelled by a string of firecrackers to head off an alien invasion. The same aliens use the Jumbotron in Times Square to tell all the humans that are, in fact, bugs. There’s some stuff about the Chinese revolution, I think, and an incredible maudlin storyline about a dying dude and his friends who go to visit him in Scotland. And I swear there’s some stuff about humans who can deflate themselves like sex dolls and roll themselves up like a sleeping bag in the face of natural disasters only to be dehydrated later on when the whatever passes. This may have been a totally different show all together, or maybe I dreamt it. The Internet is no help. All or none of this may or may not be true, but, honestly, it doesn’t matter. Because after all this, I still have no idea what a three body problem is. Why is having three bodies a problem? Why does this show use the numeral 3 rather than writing it out? That’s dumb. All-in-all the show is weirdly interesting, but kind of a mess. The CGI is also super-inconsistent. It’s like they had one person focus on the Chinese portion where things are historical and tight and good looking and then the modern other stuff in Europe and other places is just… floaty and kind of bizarre. And at times looks like a SyFy basic cable production.

Even with all of this I will tune in for season two. Or, in the vernacular of the show, season 2, I guess.