The creators of Game of Thrones are back on Netflix with a sci-fi TV show that asks big questions. Our spoiler-free review before release on March 21 digs in.
When Game of Thrones ended in May 2019, the hunt was well underway for a series that could match its blockbuster scale. HBO was already talking spinoffs with George R.R. Martin, while Netflix’s The Witcher, Disney’s The Mandalorian, Apple’s Foundation, Paramount Plus’ Halo, and Amazon’s mega-budgeted gambit on a Lord of the Rings prequel bubbled at various stages of development and production. Five years later, all the shows exist — but there’s no clear champion. Even reactions to HBO’s prequel, House of the Dragon, were more golf-clap acclaim than calls of the second coming of a franchise.
What the wannabe successors proved (that everyone seemed to know at the time except IP-hungry executives?) is that Thrones’ secret wasn’t scale, but substantive drama. A great show needs characters with big questions and big goals, but down-to-earth emotions. The balance of a continent could hinge on valiant knights and ancient prophecy and dragon battles as long as when those involved got mad, it felt like actual people getting mad. For all the finale-related flack, Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were afforded the time and space to adapt the human side of Martin’s sprawling narrative as well as its set-pieces. So it’s no surprise that while the rest of Hollywood chased tentpoles, Benioff and Weiss set their boyhood dreams of making a Star Wars movie aside (phew, crisis averted) to cash their chips on a deal where they could demand time and space and quality work that didn’t involve swordplay.
And they actually did it: Teaming up with veteran TV writer Alexander Woo (The Terror season 2), their new Netflix series 3 Body Problem, like Thrones, feels epic in scale while probing the messiness of human instinct. Movies like Interstellar and Solaris ventured into deep space to confront our innate spirituality, but 3 Body Problem season 1 sticks close to home to the benefit of its characters, who juggle romantic relationships and work-life stress and impending doom. Still, there is something extraterrestrial out there in the universe, a cosmic unknown.
