Posted in: TV | Tagged: chinese science fiction, Da Shi, Liu Cixin, TenCent, The Dark Forest, The Three-Body Problem, Yu He Wei

The Three-Body Problem Getting Season 2, Spinoff Storyline Miniseries

The Three-Body Problem is getting a second season in China, adapting Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest & a miniseries featuring cop hero Shi Qiang.

The Three-Body Problem, the Chinese television adaptation of Liu Cixin's Science Fiction novel, is arguably the biggest Science Fiction show in the world right now, even if most people watching it are in China. Rumour has it that the series has over one hundred million viewers following the show from beginning to end, including rewatches and days after an episode's premiere. Now it looks like the rest of the books will be adapted into a series as well.

According to this screenshot from Chinese social media, the streamer announced that when viewers tune in for the streaming of the 20th episode, they will get official news that fans won't be starved of The Three-Body Problem for too long after the end of the series. They've announced Three-Body: The Dark Forest and a side story miniseries, Three-Body: Da Shi, featuring Shi Qiang, the fan-favourite cop character played by Chinese A-lister Yu He Wei.

Fans of the books would know that The Dark Forest is The Empire Strikes Back of The Three-Body Problem. It's a fascinating portrayal of a proxy war waged between the Earth and the invading alien army, the Trisolarians. Since the latter will take over four hundred years to reach Earth, they resort to using human proxies on Earth to wage war on Humanity, sabotaging scientific research into defenses, assassinating key figures, waging acts of terror bombing and destroying key facilities and using Trisolarian weapons against Earth's governments and military. The second book also jumps forward decades, even centuries, as it follows the Earth's progress as it struggles to find a weapon and strategy that would work against an invading alien army whose technology is far in advance. It also evolves into outright space opera by the end of the second book. Think John le Carré on a cosmic Science Fiction scale.

Shi Qiang is the one character who carries over from The Three-Body Problem to The Dark Forest. A relentless cop who used to be a counterterrorism expert in the Army who joins the Earth's elite defense force against the Trisolarians by the end of the first book, he's gregarious and rude but also ruthless, and deadly when called upon. Yu He Wei plays him with a snarky, goofy charm that hides Da Shi's competence and utter relentlessness when things come to a head. He makes Da Shi the most human and relatable character in the show.

The makers of The Three-Body Problem are determined to make the adaptation of the books a jewel in China's cultural crown since it embodies much of what China wants to represent: Scientific progress, looking to the future, and the ability to produce television as good as the West. They're moving ahead while Netflix still hasn't announced a premiere date for their Western adaptation. The longer the Chinese version is out there, the more people on social media are saying the Netflix version will be bad or won't ever match the scope or ambition of the Chinese version.

The Three-Body Problem is currently streaming on Tencent's YouTube Channel and other Chinese and Asian streaming services available worldwide.

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