Posted in: TV | Tagged: chinese science fiction, Liu Cixin, season 2, TenCent, The Dark Forest, The Three-Body Problem, three-body

The Three-Body Problem Offers Clues to What's to Come with Season 2

The Three-Body Problem teased the next chapter's hero before Season 2 was greenlit, and now that story will be told in "The Dark Forest."

The television adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem has ended its thirty-episode run, adapting the entire novel, barring the parts the censors insisted the producers cut out of the show. However, studio Tencent announced that it would be getting not only a second season adapting the second book in the trilogy, The Dark Forest, but also a spinoff miniseries featuring fan favourite character, maverick cop Shi Qiang, played by Yu He Wei. The later episodes of the series actually featured easter eggs and teasers for what's coming next.

The First Teaser for The Three-Body Problem: The Dark Forest

In episode twenty-three, Science Grandma Ye We Jie (Chen Jin) visited the grave of her daughter Yang Dong one last time before heading off to the Earth Trisolaran Organisation meeting, where all hell breaks loose, and she's arrested. At the grave, she meets a man paying his respects to Yang Dong, who wears a Tsinghua University badge, the same university that Ye Wen Jie taught and her daughter studied Physics. The man is seen in the distance and out of focus. This is Luo Ji, the main character of The Dark Forest, and this is a preview of one of the opening scenes of that book and will be at the start of The Three-Body Problem: The Dark Forest. Luo Ji was a classmate and friend of Yang Dong's. He tells Ye Wen Jie about his academic career hitting a dead end because Physics has not been his strong suit, and he can't figure out what his specialty should be. Science Grandma, in her usual ability to give good advice, suggests he start a new subject: Cosmic Sociology. Luo Ji ends up having the field all to himself and ends up becoming a professor of the subject at Tsinghua University years later, after the first book ends.

Who is Luo Ji? (Minor Spoilers)

Luo Ji replaces Wang Miao as the focal character in The Dark Forest and a major player in the war against the Trisolarans. He is completely different from Wang Miao – he's not investigating anything, and he's a lazy, self-serving hedonist who would rather not have anything to do with fighting aliens or the terrorists who want to kill him. The Trisolaran fleet is still at least four hundred years away, but they will reactivate the ETO and assign them to assassinate key figures who will be instrumental in developing strategies against the invasion. Luo Ji will turn out to be the most important player in the war and a major target for assassination, which brings Shi Qiang into his orbit when the latter is assigned to protect him. Luo Ji is seen again in the final scene in the finale of The Three-Body Problem, where he's sitting in a coffee shop typing a blog on his laptop describing what his fantasy dreamgirl would be like. He's a massive nerd and a bit of a jerk. In other words, totally relatable!

The twist that nobody has noticed is that Science Grandma Ye Wen Jie may have helped save humanity by suggesting Luo Ji become a sociologist. She doomed humanity by revealing Earth's location to the Trisolarans, but her advice to Luo Ji ends up buying Earth time when Luo Ji eventually comes up with the first strategy that successfully defeats the invasion. How and what does he do? You'll have to wait for season two, The Three-Body Problem: The Dark Forest in 2026, or read the book, to find out. The casting of Luo Ji is already a big deal, as major as a new Doctor Who might be.

The entire first season of The Three-Body Problem is now streaming on Prime Video.

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