I know some of you have been waiting to hear my opinion of the new Netflix series 3 Body Problem, based upon the book series by author Liu Cixin, so here goes. I guess the best way to illustrate how I feel about it is to say I binged the entire series in one day. I couldn't stop watching. It was totally engaging and kept me on the edge of my seat.
I was not familiar with the source material, although I had heard of it. I'm not going to offer up any spoilers other than to say the San-Ti, the story's antagonists, are truly are evil—but at the same time I can't help but think that if humanity was faced with the same impossible fate the Sai-Ti were, we'd be just as coldheartedly ruthless. Hell—we're coldheartedly ruthless to our fellow humans now when not faced with complete societal destruction.
The first season ends on a cliffhanger…of course. This led me to researching the story further, and if I thought the alien invaders were ruthless before, all I can say is you ain't seen nothin' yet.
The story is intriguing, and initially a bit of a puzzle if you're not familiar with the source material, but it soon becomes clear exactly what is going on. It basically highlights the dark forest theory, one of many hypotheses used to explain the apparent lack of other civilizations in the universe. The acting was uniformly good. The special effects—while somewhat cheesy when the characters were in "the game"—were still quite good otherwise.
In short, recommended.