MIDNIGHT REVIEWS 3 Body Problem Episode Seven
Midnight Reviews features reviews and thought pieces written and edited by a parent, at night, after bedtime.
3 Body Problem Episode 7: ‘Only Advance’
Series created by: David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, Alexander Woo
Featuring: Benedict Wong, Eiza Gonzalez, Jovan Adepo
Synopsis: A problem for the Staircase project leads to an unusual solution, which of course simultaneously provides another problem.
Review: Another day, another episode of 3 Body Problem to review. The problem with reviewing something that a streaming service, in this case Netflix, has decided to just drop in its entirety is that, if you’re not particularly enjoying the show, watching it day-after-day gets to be a bit of a slog. It’s difficult to tell if I’m not enjoying certain episodes because it’s the same thing I watched yesterday. Another problem is the repetition; of course the chance of a show becoming repetitive goes up if it’s being binged. Anyway, it’s also these two reasons that enable me to say with clarity that the seventh episode of 3 Body Problem is actually quite good.
There are the usual issues, in this case Auggie (Gonzalez) not getting enough screentime. This leads to the guilt she feels over events from episode five simply being denied before she disappears for the rest of the episode. A waste of what could’ve been an amazing performance and character. Hopefully she’s given a lot more to do in the finale, but I don’t see this happening.
Feels tinged with […] a melancholy.
The quite good bits involve Will Downing (Alex Sharp), cancer-ridden and facing the end, Ye Wenjie (Rosalind Chao) making a mysterious journey, and Jin Cheng (Jess Hong) dealing with being torn in a million directions. Hong’s performance in particular is fantastic; what she does is low-key as her character tries to hold it together at work, but her entire world is crumbling.
After a darkly comic scene featuring a dog in a tube, the show enters into properly weird yet heartbreaking sci-fi territory. Perhaps being in the situation of constantly being spied on (itself a tantalising, tense story idea) has put people under pressure. The show puts its viewers under pressure too. It’s no secret that Will is close to death, but how it all unfolds is nerve-wracking and so mournful. When Jin runs out the office, it’s us running out the office with her.
Ye making her journey to China feels tinged with something similar, a melancholy, yet the show allows us short moments of grace including her finding a friend for the plane ride over. A small story beat that allows the show to have breathing space. Despite her inscrutable nature, when she finally reaches her destination and it’s revealed why she made the trip at all, it all makes sense. The same as when she first contacted the aliens, despite it threatening humankind as a whole, we understand why she does so even if we wouldn’t do it ourselves.
3 Body Problem also does well at placing all the ducks in a row for a season finale that’s still full of questions and problems to be solved. As a setup, it works perfectly. Episode seven leaves things teetering on the brink and it still feels like things could go either way. The same as with 3 Body Problem itself, as episode to episode the quality dips or rises seemingly at random. Like humanity, I hold onto the small hope that things end on a high.
3 Body Problem is available to stream on Netflix.
Matthew D. Smith likes to overshare his views on movies whenever and wherever he can. Indulge him, and follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Smith_M_D
