Netflix '3 Body problem' is a thrilling tale of a hostile alien invasion (Review) Made by the creators of 'Game of Thrones', this sci-fi series challenges the audience on every imaginable level.

Promotional art for Netflix's "3 Body Problem." (Image credit: Netflix)

In his 2008 sci-fi novel The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu created a fascinating world where cutting-edge particle physics, VR gaming, and Chinese history played crucial roles in shaping humanity’s response to an imminent planet-wide threat. It also seemed unfilmable. The depth of the book’s ideas about cultural memory and the complexity of its central mystery made The Three-Body Problem feel like a story that could only work on the page. That hasn’t stopped streamers from trying, and last year, Tencent debuted its own live-action, episodic take on Liu’s book. Netflix spent a fortune putting 3 Body Problem in the hands of executive producers David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo. Their adaptation is leaner and more diverse than the book in a way that makes it a very different kind of story. Often, it’s a good one — and very occasionally a great one — that works as an introductory crash course to the basic ideas key to understanding the larger concepts that shape Liu’s later books. But rather than confronting the sophistication of the book, Netflix’s main priority with 3 Body Problem seems to be selling it as the next Game of Thrones (Benioff and Weiss’ last series). And while it’s easy to understand why the streamer might want that, it’s hard not to see the show as a flashy but stripped-down version of the source material. 3 Body Problem involves a constellation of distinct narratives spanning multiple decades and generations. But at its core, the show is a compelling thriller about how the sins of humanity’s past come to shape its future.

   

The Oxford Five and Jin’s partner Raj Varma. Image: Netflix 

Here's the official synopsis:

"A young woman's fateful decision in 1960s China reverberates across space and time to a group of brilliant scientists in the present day. As the laws of nature unravel before their eyes five former colleagues reunite to confront the greatest threat in humanity's history.

Shifting to modern times, Da Shi, a gruff London detective (Benedict Wong), investigates a bizarre suicide linked to dozens of strange scientist deaths around the world. He's conscripted into a clandestine organization led by a mysterious figure named Thomas Wade (Ian Cunningham), a sardonic "fixer" with unlimited cash and resources tossed into a frantic fight to try and halt the invasion before it's too late.

In a nutshell, it's an eight-episode, non-linear sci-fi series that hops around telling its somber tale of how our planet reacts to and prepares for an imminent invasion of super-smart hostile aliens. These manipulative extraterrestrials have abandoned their home planet's climatic horrors and gravitational anomalies due to its position around three suns. There are ample fringe ideas tossed into the maddening mix, which can be confounding to the average layperson but it should remain stimulating to more science-based viewers familiar with these baffling astrophysical topics.

After fruitless attempts are made to solve the Trisolaran's planetary problems by predicting the periods of calamity via a hi-tech chrome headset for a VR experience called Three-Body, the invited armada makes a beeline for our Big Blue Marble.

Various factions form after irrefutable proof is revealed that these approaching visitors' intent is not a elaborate hoax or the result of deep-fake hysteria, with secretive folks creating a floating alien-worshipping commune, and a gang of Oxford scientist friends swearing to protect Earth by thinking up crazy contingency plans.

"3 Body Problem" is graced with an incredible international cast that provides exceptional performances by Liam Cunningham, Benedict Wong, Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Rosalind Chao, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, and the great Jonathan Pryce.

With a massive ensemble of multicultural characters to follow and an avalanche of smart exposition to digest, not to mention tough concepts like quantum entanglement, weaponized nanotechnology, and celestial mechanics, it would be wise to get a good night's sleep prior to immersing oneself in each chilling chapter.

While the cryptic Trisolarans (aka the San-ti) endure the long 450-year journey from their insane homeworld to our stable star system, highly-advanced supercomputer constructs called sophons are sent out at near light-speed to be the eyes and ears for the refugee aliens, who stage all manner of unnatural illusions and experimental deceptions to create division among Earth's citizens and disrupt our scientific community so their arrival won't be met by a superior technological counterforce.

When a series serves up tempting visuals like a virtual reality netherworld replete with flaming horses, dark skies filled with blinking stars, hallucinatory countdown clocks, desiccated alien life forms, a nano-fiber slaughter show in the Panama Canal, and a message relayed around the world seen on every cell phone, TV, computer and digital billboard declaring that we're all bugs, you know you're in for a head-spinning yarn that ends its season on a depressing-yet-hopeful cliffhanger note.