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Posted in: Netflix, TV | Tagged: 3 Body Problem, Alexander Woo, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, eiza gonzalez, Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, netflix, Vedette Lim
3 Body Problem: Weiss, Benioff Delayed Premiere for This One Scene
3 Body Problem had finished production before the WGA Strike, but the premiere was held back to add a new scene to the pilot for clarity.
Article Summary
- Netflix's 3 Body Problem added a new scene to the first episode for series clarity.
- Showrunners felt introduction of key characters in a bar was vital.
- The scene was delayed due to the WGA Strike, pushing back the premiere.
- Netflix and producers focused on storytelling and character depth.
3 Body Problem, the Netflix version, had completed production before the WGA Strike of 2023, but the premiere of the series was pushed back because showrunners D.B. Weiss, David Benioff, and Alexander Woo came up with one new scene they felt was necessary to make the show better, or at least clearer. The showrunners teased what that new scene was at the series' premiere at SXSW last week in various interviews, even saying it was a scene in the first episode. Now they've come out and said what that scene is: it occurs near the very beginning after the two deaths that open the episode. It's the scene that introduces best friends Augustina "Auggie" (Eiza González) Salazar, and Cheng Jin (Jess Hong) having a drink in a London karaoke bar.
The New Scene in "3 Body Problem"
The purpose of the new five-minute scene in 3 Body Problem was to give the audience a quick infodump where Auggie and Cheng Jin literally spell out what they do when a drunken dude hits on them. Auggie tells him she's a nanotech engineer who started her own company and Cheng Jin says she's a theoretical physicist to intimidate the guy into leaving them alone. Then they get back to their conversation. Both are drinking away their woes because they're worried about their careers – Auggie is under pressure for her project to succeed, and Cheng Jin may not have a job because the entire field of Theoretical Physics is screwed because Science is "broken," which was revealed in the earlier scene where lab assistant Saul (Jovan Durand) and his boss Vivian Ye (Vedette Lim) going over particle accelerators spewing out nonsense data that effectively kills all scientific research of the last sixty years before Ye commits suicide.
Saul has been trying to call Auggie, who's ghosting him again because of their messy ongoing relationship where Cheng Jin says they're behaving like fourteen-year-olds, then Auggie starts seeing the spooky countdown, and they finally get the news that Ye is dead. Without this scene, we would have been introduced to the Oxford Five meeting at her funeral, with Auggie already seeing the countdown without knowing who they are. The showrunners realised that without the new introduction scene, audiences might have felt completely lost. It also helped to ground the show's beginning with Auggie and Cheng Jin's friendship.
Getting the Greenlight from Netflix
"We got the scene written the day before the strike," Weiss told The Hollywood Reporter. "It was literally five pages, but we really thought it was worth doing. Netflix was great about it. It would have been very easy for them to be like, 'You have a finished show that is ready to air, for us to hold that [for a scene that's] five minutes of two people in a bar … that it took some fortitude for them to just say, 'Yeah.'"
Netflix gave them the go-ahead, and they were all set to go back to shoot that new scene and add it to the pilot episode, but the WGA Strike was declared, so they had to wait for the strike to be over before they could get the actors and crew together for production. As a result, 3 Body Problem was held back longer than anyone might have liked.
Peter Friedlander, head of scripted content at Netflix, said, "I want to tell the best version of this story, and if there's a critical moment that the producers want to capture and we have the time and resources to do it, I want to figure it out with them," he tells THR. "They were total professionals, total collaborators, and very clear what their vision is. I don't want the audience to miss out on that. So it was not a hard decision for me."
The Netflix version of 3 Body Problem has a greater focus on emotional interactions than the book or Chinese TV series, and this new scene is part of that change.
3 Body Problem is streaming on Netflix.
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