Teaser for the series "The Three Body Problem"/Netflix
Many things can be said about "Game of Thrones", but "Low-key" will probably not be one of them.
The giant fantasy created by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff based on George R. R. Martin's books did keep its feet on the ground through human intrigue and frailty, but it was always larger than life.
The huge, high-dollar and world-embracing scale of the series, with its landscapes, ships, horses and dragons, made "Game of Thrones" a mighty and impressive epic.
It remained so even when it was completely derailed in the second part of her life, when Lois Benioff ran out of source material to base herself on, the plot and characters became a shadow of themselves and all that remained was the spectacle.
"The Three-Body Problem", the series created by the duo for Netflix together with Alexander Wu (co-creator of the second season of "Horror"), shares quite a few similarities with "Game of Thrones".
It, too, is based on ambitious and difficult source material, in this case the award-winning series of hard science fiction books by the Chinese author Liu Tsechin, whose plot begins with the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the sixties of the 20th century, is anchored in our present, and finally reaches 18 million years into Future.
Weiss and Benioff imported a number of familiar faces and names from the fantasy series.
John Bradley (who played Samwell Tarly), Liam Cunningham (who was Sir Davos) and Jonathan Pryce (retired High Sparrow) star in front of the camera.
The genius composer Ramin Javadi is also entrusted with the soundtrack here, and the director Jeremy Podseva, who directed six episodes of "Game of Thrones", is responsible for the pair of final episodes of the first season of "The Three-Body Problem".
An embodiment of what happens and what can be lost.
"The Three-Body Problem"/Ed Miller/Netflix
But all these familiar names are just a testament to their versatility.
The new Netflix drama is quite different from HBO's fantasy drama. The plot of the "Three Body Problem" (originally "Three Body Problem") describes the first ever encounter between humanity and an advanced alien population, when a secret Chinese military project sends in 1967 signals into space in the hope of making contact with aliens. An alien society on the brink of extinction intercepts the transmissions and decides to make its way to Earth - except that the location of its people is four light years from our planet, and the time it will take them to arrive is 400 years, long after we and our descendants after us have died.
The director Hong Kong's Derek Tsang — best known for relationship dramas, and whose 2019 film "A Better Life" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film — directed the opening pair of soft-spoken episodes that outline the entire series. Javadi is already used to composing sleek-looking sci-fi dramas , and his soundtrack to "The Three-Body Problem" does sound like an extension of the masterpieces he created for "Westworld", but in an even more minor way (and there's also a presence of Radiohead in the soundtrack, like that canceled Maddab series loved).
The direction and the soundtrack serve the restrained, even gentle, script of the creators of the series.
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Despite the stunning ambition and obviously generous budget of the series, and in complete contrast to the rough hands that Weiss showed Benioff even in the good seasons of "Game of Thrones" (which was mainly expressed in sex scenes and unnecessarily blatant nudity), "The Problem of the Three Bodies" builds its story in a restrained, almost gentle way .
The writers very wisely recreate the characters from the source material, combine some with others, and make them our anchors.
The protagonists in 2024 are called the "Oxford Quintet", a group of brilliant people who studied physics together at university a decade ago and went their separate ways, but still maintain a close relationship.
Today some are top scientists, which brings them to the forefront of something they don't understand the nature of: basic physical laws suddenly don't work, scientists all over the world lose their sanity and end their lives in violent ways.
Some of them do this after playing a video game using a mysterious helmet with extremely advanced technology.
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Definitely not Samwell Tarly this time.
John Bradley, "The Three-Body Problem"/Netflix
This game provides most of the big action in the first season of The Three-Body Problem.
The players in it must save civilizations whose world is at the mercy of the gravity of three different suns, which makes it unpredictable and the events in the game completely crazy.
These moments, rich in effects and concentrated mainly in the first episodes of "The Three-Body Problem", are interesting and spectacular - and even so, they turn out to be a relatively weak link in the series.
Many minutes are devoted to something that in the end has zero necessity, certainly at this stage of the story, and its point could have been made in ten minutes.
The series' real-world action, however, is much more exciting.
It is provided sparingly, but when it happens it is fateful.
Its climax comes in the fifth episode, with four minutes that present an amazing event in detail, and are preceded by additional minutes of building tension and drama performed by an artist (Weiss and Benioff themselves wrote, and Minki Spiro directed, "The Conspiracy Against America", "I'm None").
Everything in these moments is executed with astonishing technique.
The effects are like I have never seen before.
The sound design translates the event into sounds that haunt the characters and the many viewers as it ends.
The editing while all this is happening, jumps between the place of the gruesome event and the soundless screens on which the event engineers are watching in shock, creating dissonance and alternating distance that only intensify the unbelievable thing that is happening before our eyes.
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The point could have been made in a much shorter time.
Jess Hong, "The Three-Body Problem"/Ed Miller/Netflix
With each passing episode, "The Problem of the Three Bodies" unfolds as an extraordinary visual experience, one that stands out even in the period of the MDB renaissance that television nowadays is blessed with. In fact, the new series brings to mind quite a few parallels from recent years. This is the second series in the last two years that features a helmet A game that is actually much more than that, and the third since 2017 - it was preceded by "Future Man" with its wonderful first season and the striped "Peripheral". The breadth of its canvas over thousands and millions of years is reminiscent of that of "The Institution" according to Asimov, which was also adapted Fantastic television. "The Three-Body Problem" even prepares the ground for the preservation of the characters beyond their aggression, in exactly the same way that "The Institution" did in its second season.
However, "The Three-Body Problem" is also unique in its very starting point. Apparently it is another work about an alien invasion (and understandably (there's also one now on the small screen, the dreary "Invasion" of Apple TV Plus) But since this threat is so far in the future, "The Three-Body Problem" does not recall any previous work on this subject. Despite the presence-through-messengers and a few critical implications Already on Earth, the invading entity becomes something ethereal, abstract.
This allows the series to deal with questions of the morality of survival in a much more intellectual and conceptual way.
Is it really a war if it only happens in hundreds of years?
And what is the meaning of her victims who will fall by then?
And of course, it's hard not to see this as an allegory for the seemingly distant existential threat we experience in our reality, and which is still dismissed by most of humanity: climate change.
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Excellent in their every moment on screen.
Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham, "The Three-Body Problem"/Ed Miller/Netflix
But beyond the interesting ideas and the jaw-dropping action moments, the strength of the series is the characters.
Liam Cunningham is excellent as Thomas Wade, the man pulling the strings on behalf of humanity in the simmering war.
He is charismatic, stoic and ruthless.
Benedict Wong is so great as the investigator who works for him.
He is the epitome of the cynical film-noir detective, albeit without a long raincoat but definitely with an excessive fondness for cigarettes, even in closed rooms to protect the hearts of others.
He is excellent in almost every moment of his time on screen: in his witty conversations with Wade, in his sarcastic interrogation with Dr. Ye Wenjai (Rosalind Chow, "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), as he flashes behind Auggie (Aisa Gonzalez, "Baby Driver") and startles her while she's watching TV, or when he displays - with great intent at first - an incredible insensitivity regarding the death of her professor, Vera Yeh (Wedt Lim, "FBI").
Most of all, the beating heart of "The Three-Body Problem" They are the members of the Oxford Five, played by Bradley, Gonzalez, Jess Hong, Alex Sharpe and Jovan Adepoe. In a story whose central threat lies centuries into the future, the Oxford Five are the contemporary embodiment of what could happen and all that could be lost. Not only Because some of them are at the forefront of the current threat, but because they are the different faces through which the enlightened human experience is viewed - the potential, the friendship, the appreciation, the love.
From here on, a slight spoiler for the second chapter of "The Problem of the Three Bodies":
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the beating heart
"The Three Body Problem"/Netflix
Of all of them Will is probably the most important.
His character treasures the central emotional and humane theme of the series: his necessity, that of his friends and of humanity as a whole to deal with a tragedy that is perhaps, probably, inevitable.
It radiates what humanity is fighting for, honey and sting.
Love that does not depend on anything.
The unbearable weight of missed opportunities and wrong choices.
In fact, Will is all of humanity, and Cancer is the invading alien.
Under the influence of the painkillers, Will tells his friends: "It turns out that the cancer isn't inherently bad. It's actually looking for a place to live - like all of us, I guess - with its children."
Will also tells them that he made a deal with the cancer that it would only colonize a small part of it and let it live in peace.
Maybe this will be the solution of the whole series in the end?
The story with Will is the most exciting element of "The Three-Body Problem", and its emotional climax was also written by Weiss and Benioff, who illustrate in this series that they may lose their way when they are not based on source material, but when they are, they process with grace.
And here, 13 years after the premiere of "Game of Thrones", they once again created a series that leaves an impression too strong to protest.
All eight episodes of "The Three-Body Problem" are available on Netflix.
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