The 3 Body Problem Adaptation is Amazing and Difficult to Review
Adaptations are generally difficult to review as someone with a lot of grounding in the source material. How much of the review should discuss the original works? How often should you refer to changes between the original and the adaptation? Or should the adaptation be discussed in a void, as if you have no knowledge of where the story originates?
The 3 Body Problem pushes these questions to the forefront of my mind. With eight episodes completed, the show has essentially adapted the first book and the beginnings of both the second and third book. In doing so, the first season of 3 Body Problem creates greater context for scenes that have yet to appear in the show. Yet the context they add is so good in light of the work as a whole that it gave me greater enjoyment of books I read years ago. The biggest problem in discussing the show then becomes that my knowledge of the future is tainting my enjoyment of the present.
Let me give some context. The 3 Body Problem show follows a group of five physicists grappling with a world that has started making less sense as their colleagues commit suicide and the laws of the universe break down around them. I’ve seen several reviews and discussions saying that the main character from the book has been split into five. This is wildly inaccurate.
Instead of splitting one character into five, the show smartly moved the protagonists from the second and third novels into the show, allowing their stories to unfold alongside the main protagonists. Unfortunately, the payoff for adding these characters will not appear until a second season of the show is aired. So in the meantime, a few of them have taken over some of the jobs of the first book’s protagonist, allowing the current version, Augie (Eiza González), to focus on her fear of the countdown and her horror at how her technology is used.
As an adaptation, the 3 Body Problem is not perfect. The show drops a lot of the dread from the books of living in a world where all physics has stopped making sense. Yet so many of the choices made by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss feel so brilliant in light of how the books progress that I can forgive a few stylist choices. To discuss these choices in details, I will have to provide spoilers for ALL THREE books, so please be wary in reading the rest of this discussion if you have not read the books. Instead, please watch the show and let me know what you think in the comments. Are there characters you like or dislike? Scenes that feel forced?
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SPOILER SECTION (FOR THE WHOLE TRILOGY)
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I have yet to seen a TV adaptation of a series that seems to understand the good and the bad as much as this adaptation of the 3 Body Problem. In giving us Will (Alex Sharp) and Jin (Jess Hong) as stand-ns for Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin from Death’s End, the first season of 3 Body Problem sets up its future success better than the books did. And let’s be clear, I love these books. But the relationship between Yun Tianming and Cheng Xin always felt a little forced.
When you first meet Yun Tianming, he’s already in the hospital dying from cancer. The book rushes through his receipt of vast wealth from a friend to his decision to take place in the stairway project with a casualness reserved for B-Plot characters. Given that he becomes so important later in the books, it was almost weird how lightly his story was brushed over. In the show, Will is a character in his own right. You seem how he relates to his friends and how he takes the news of his impending death. His inheritance of wealth is no longer a friend handing him a sum of money while he’s dying. Now the money was willed to him by a friend - a friend we believe would leave his fortune to Will through the time spent with him in the show. None of it is necessary, but all of it makes Will’s future decisions (and ability to make them) feel more real.
But it’s not just the overtness of giving the characters back story. The subtle changes do wonders for the characters and their future decisions. Will’s fondness for his book of fairy tales sets up the fairy tales he will later tell Jin to impart all of the scientific knowledge of the San-Ti. Jin’s gift of the fishbowl to Will adds sentimental value, which gives a little more explanation on why she would weaken the entire universe by leaving a fishbowl in a pocket dimension at the end of book 3. Shoot, just by having Jin trying to save the little girl in the video game, we can see the makings of a woman who the San-Ti know will not end humanity, allowing them to attack the second she becomes a Wallfacer.
I can’t think of a single episode of the 3 Body Problem that didn’t make me think “wow, that’s clever to set that up in this way.” By giving us future characters early, it helps us care a little more when Saul (Jovan Adepo) becomes a Wallfacer or Jin feels the loss of her friend when she fails in the Staircase Project. The adaptation adds so much depth to the future of this series at the expense of the first season, but it all feels in service of a greater good. Hopefully, Netflix greenlights a second season, because this show has expertly set up its future success.
