Posted in: TV | Tagged: dune, frank herbert, Liu Cixin, science fiction, TenCent, The Three-Body Problem

The Three-Body Problem Ep. 3 Falls Deeper Down Rabbit Hole: Review

Episode three of The Three-Body Problem goes deeper down the rabbit hole of paranoia with more set-up and mystery, but very little happening.

The third episode of The Three-Body Problem unlocked today, and it's time for a review. That's right; we're going to cover this show just like we're in a book club talking about a new chapter every day. Considering Liu Cixin's epic trilogy is the most significant Science Fiction epic since Frank Herbert's Dune, and the show is getting over one hundred million viewers in China, it's kind of odd that we're literally the only site paying any attention to it, no? Are Western outlets ignoring it because 1) anti-China bias and 2) it suits Netflix for people in the West to think their still-unscheduled adaptation is the only version in existence? We can't help wondering. Oh, by the way, there's still no date for the Netflix version.

Anyway, onto The Three-Body Problem, where things are getting increasingly paranoid. Episode three finds Yang Miao's (Edward Zhang) hallucinations getting worse. He's falling further down a rabbit hole he doesn't understand. The same timecode has been showing up on the photos he took with his analogue Leica camera, starting with the one he took of the late Yang Dong at her particle accelerator months ago. He gets all sweaty and paranoid as he realizes he's been targeted by an unknown party. Then the timecode starts appearing before his eyes all the time. It's a countdown. His insistence on keeping it to himself drives Shi Qiang (Yu He Wei) crazy since the cop is just trying to keep him alive and find some answers.

The direction of this episode is more distinct and focused, most of it isolating Yang Miao's face (and Zhang's excellent performance) in close-up as he desperately looks for a scientific explanation for seeing the timecode. Visual hallucinations often point to psychosis, and he's terrified he might be losing his mind. Then he goes to see Shen Yufei (Li Xiao Ran), the spokesperson for the highly suspect think tank Frontiers of Science, who hints that the timecode might disappear if he halts the important work his lab is doing developing nanotech material, which sounds awfully specific and, yeah, totally not suspicious at all. The chilly Shen couldn't be more obvious if she were wearing an "I'm a villain who knows all the secrets" sign on her forehead. Yang Miao goes home to his very sane doctor wife and lets her know he's starting to lean into the idea that humans are metaphorically turkeys who don't know they're going to be slaughtered, and the two of them are turkey scientist and turkey doctor who don't know they've reached the limit of their understanding of their universe before a big axe from outside it comes swinging for their necks. This is not the best way to keep a marriage healthy, and that's it for this episode. No one's brought up The Three-Body Problem yet.

Then we're treated to an ending montage of cryptic images: the mystery woman (Wang Ji Wen) in 1979, Yang Dong (He Du Juan), working on her research while her physicist fiancé Ding Yi (Eric Wang) looks on, weeks before her death, Yang Dong's mother (Chen Jing) sitting around looking pensive. With the sense of impending doom and the unspoken promise that these images from the montage will be explained or paid off later. Let's hope so; otherwise, what are thirty episodes for? The writers might be treating that as a luxury so they can draw out the story for as long as possible. It's a good thing the story is reasonably compelling, but things had better start moving soon. We can only take people acting mysterious and our heroes looking paranoid and confused for so long. Sooner or later, exactly what the Three-Body Problem will have to be explained.

Of course, everyone who's already read The Three-Body Problem knows who everyone is, where the story is heading, why Yang Miao's nanotechnology research is important, and what the payoff to the countdown is. The slow pace of this episode might be annoying if the next episodes weren't readily available. We're covering one new episode a day because why not? At thirty episodes, that makes January "Three-Body Month." We're all in. We'll even make it easy for you – we're linking to the free episode on YouTube. Who says we can't have nice things? You just have to find them.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!