is one of my favorite science fiction books, it never seemed like something that should or even could be adapted into something like a movie or TV show. But Netflix tried, and did so with an extremely high profile pair of showrunners, Game of Thrones’ David Benioff and DB Weiss, joined by Alexander Woo.
Their ‘3 Body Problem’ adaption for Netflix is live now, and after binging it in one day, they…technically did it, and it’s pretty good, but yes, there are many aspects that do not translate from page to screen all that well, and other storylines that seem hurried through. It’s hard to view this as an outside observer, having read the books and understanding where this was going from the start. I do believe it’s probably a pretty effective mystery for the uninitiated, but it can admittedly be a bit dull in parts . It feels like a project that was interesting to take on and may engage some, but it doesn’t even seem like a top five sci-fi entry on Netflix, and there are at least 3-4 more engaging sci-fi shows airing on Apple TV+ as we speak .
I would recommend 3 Body Problem in the end to most science fiction fans, though I can understand why a good amount of people may bounce off it, or why some book readers may begrudge many of the changes. It just feels like an extremely high-profile project that will ultimately produce somewhat middling results for Netflix. Critically, that’s kind of already happened. Viewership wise? I guess we’ll see in the next few weeks here.