3 Body Problem fans dealt blow to renewal hopes
Creators have already started planning more seasons
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.The future of the Netflix sci-fi series 3 Body Problem remains uncertain – despite the show’s creators pushing ahead and planning multiple further seasons.
Adapted from a best-selling Chinese book trilogy, the series rose to the top of Netflix’s Most Watched chart when it debuted on the streaming service last month.
However, in a development that some have interpreted as an ominous sign for its prospects of renewal, 3 Body Problem has already been displaced from the No 1 spot.
In the UK, the series currently sits behind the Guy Ritchie crime show The Gentlemen, which debuted two weeks before 3 Body Problem.
Over Easter, the show also fell behind the religious series Testament: The Story of Moses, though that programme has since fallen to third.
While viewing figures are usually only released at Netflix’s own discretion, pundits have often used a TV show or film’s ranking in the Most Watched chart as an indicator of popularity – with a sustained spell at the top of the chart a hopeful indicator of renewal.
Speaking to the Inside Total Film podcast and GamesRadar+, the creators of 3 Body Problem – Game of Thrones showrunners DB Weiss and David Benioff, and True Blood’s Alexander Woo – recently stated that they were optimistic about the odds of renewal, and had already begun mapping out future seasons.
“Well, there’s three novels in the trilogy,” Woo said. “The novels get longer and longer so I wouldn't say it maps out exactly to three. We have some really strong ideas about what to do in a season two, and then it’s a little hazier down the line. But we want to get to the end, we want to get to the end of the trilogy, and whether that's three or four, you know, or some other number.”
“The goal is to get to the end of the trilogy and it seems like it would map out over probably, certainly more than two seasons but beyond that, it’s hard to know exactly.”
3 Body Problem is adapted from the first of a trilogy of novels by Chinese author Liu Cixin. Season one can be streamed now on Netflix.
In a two-star review of the series, The Independent wrote: “When a book is deemed ‘unadaptable’, it is almost interpreted as a challenge. Of course, no book is really unadaptable; the problem is that rendering it on screen will simply be too dull, or confusing. 3 Body Problem is somehow both. Benioff, Weiss and Woo made radical and transformative changes to the source material, but lost something integral in the process.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments