3 Body Problem Review: A refreshing spin on the alien invasion trope

The most enthralling aspect of 3 Body Problem is how it approaches the alien invasion trope, one of the most famously overused plot devices in science fiction. With an impending alien invasion as its central conflict—feeding pulsating drama to every part of the story—the series never solely relies upon the aliens to build intrigue. While we are interested in learning more about this mysterious alien civilization, and while we do learn more about them in a satisfyingly slow, evenly distributed manner throughout the show, the writers use the aliens like how Steven Spielberg uses the shark in Jaws. The threat is in the peripheries while the momentum of the story is propelled by how the threat affects the humans and their actions. The series excels at using the alien invasion both allegorically and in some ways literally, to dramatize its various themes; like the human proclivity to treat those with ideological differences horribly, and our compulsive reliance on violence and oppression to justify self-preservation.

Series: 3 Body Problem

Creators: David Benioff; DB Weiss, Alexander Woo

Cast: Benedict Wong,  Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, Liam Cunningham, Eiza Gonzalez

In 1960s China, at the height of the Communist cultural revolution, a physics professor gets brutally murdered for teaching quantum physics, which according to the communist ideologues, hints at the existence of a God. The daughter of the professor, Ye Wenjie, later becomes an astrophysicist and with her unquenchable despair for humanity, decides to send a signal to an alien civilization, welcoming them to invade Earth. The story then moves back to the present where a group of intelligent minds and powerful men draw up plans to address the oncoming alien threat. The series loses a good part of its momentum after the initial set-up. With multiple key players to follow, we feel no emotional attachment to any single character and to make things worse, the over-the-top moments with a dash of goofiness in the middle—especially with the VR game-like portions—and its absence later on in the show, makes for jarring tonal inconsistencies.

The series handles deaths with a level of charming audacity. We see the supposed ‘good guys’ killing children in the name of the greater good and characters with promising arcs getting killed early on. These choices do not come as shock inducers but serve to highlight the moral ambiguity and the blurred lines between the ‘good’ and the ‘evil’ side. However, some prominent characters die just as they are starting to get interesting. Even though the central characters are interesting and likeable, the story is scattered across its many players and switches its narrative between these characters in rapid succession, to an extent where we are not given enough time to develop an emotional attachment with anyone. This problem is compounded when certain characters are either killed off or ‘stashed away’ for the next season. The series offers many such dissatisfactions with its proclivity for abruptness, the chiefest perpetrator of this crime is the final episode and its blunt, flavourless ending but we will come to that later.

However, despite its shortcomings, 3 Body Problem provides a compelling watch because it is one of the very few hard sci-fi shows in recent times to deliver mainstream commercial entertainment while not shying away from its genre. It is refreshing to watch a series that references contemporary scientific advancements like nanotechnology while showing both its magnificent potential and its capacity for boundless evil. It is also refreshing to have a sci-fi show that is not entirely reliant upon cynicism, we don’t get overly dramatic sermons about the evils of technology, the focus of the story lies elsewhere. The fact that the chief offensive strategy of the aliens is to cripple our scientific advancement over the years, is a refreshing plot device when contrasted with the overwhelming number of technophobic narratives in recent times. The major theme of the show stands firmly upon highlighting the human tendency to divide ourselves based on differences and the subsequent dehumanisation and how it debilitates our collective civilizational progress. What takes us out of these thematic ponderings and the delightful sci-fi moments are the hazy, evidently low-effort visual effects. While that might be forgivable, the biggest weakness that makes us lose grip on the show is the underwhelming final episode and the supposed cliffhanger. The final moments are severely undercooked and so hastily put together that instead of leaving us wanting for more, this cliffhanger, which is as strong as a coat hanger, crumbles easily, making us fall far away from the cliff, into the void of indifference. However, these final moments of indifference hardly supersede our curiosity to know how the rest of the story unfolds. So it is pretty safe to say that we will be back for another season.  

The series is streaming on Netflix