Netflix has renewed 3 Body Problem to finish the story
For an indeterminate number of episodes and seasons
Netflix has announced (h/t to Max Covill in the TO Slack channel) that it's renewed its science fiction series 3 Body Problem for at least another season in order to bring the story to an end. Created by Game of Thrones' David Benioff and D.B. Weiss and The Terror's Alexander Woo, the series adapts Cixin Liu's novel The Three-Body Problem, in which humanity makes contact with an alien civilization, an encounter that will leave both reeling with devastating consequences.
First published in 2008 in China The Three-Body Problembecame a worldwide hit when they were translated by Ken Liu into English starting in 2013. The first novel begins during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when an astronomer exiled to a remote military base makes contact with an alien civilization and angry over the state of her life, invites them to our planet, despite a warning that it would bring about humanity's downfall.
The first novel contends with a string of suicides by prominent physicists around the world, and the efforts of a small team of people to try and figure out how a virtual reality game figures into it, ultimately discovering a plot to invade humanity. The following books, The Dark Forest and Death's End follow up and ultimately bring the story up to the end of the universe in a spectacular fashion.
Netflix's eight-episode adaptation debuted in March and became a huge hit (I'm a little surprised that it's taken this long to get a renewal announcement), and covers the events of the first book and a bit of the second. By contrast, the Chinese-produced version ran for 30 episodes and covered only the first book.
Where the first book was a pretty concise thriller, the next two books are big. They cover immense spans of time and lots of territory, some of which we've seen teased in the first season. The team behind the series will have their work cut out for them, and that's what makes this announcement interesting: it's pretty vague!
Benioff, Weiss, and Woo note that they're "thrilled that we get to tell this story through to its epic conclusion," but and the rest of the announcement goes on to say that "all other details are under wraps including the number of seasons and episodes which will be revealed at a later date." So, it looks like at the very least, we're getting another season, but presumably, they've hammered out a commitment to carry the adaptation through the final two (ish) books.
Given that the first season isn't a 1:1 adaptation of the first book, but something that's mixing in elements from the other two novels, I don't know that we can expect a Season 2 = The Dark Forest and Season 3 = Death's End. Indeed, the final seasons of Game of Thrones were playing fast and loose with the events of the books (or at least the books that have been published). That's not necessarily a bad thing: we've seen this model work pretty well with shows like The Expanse, which I've come to see as an adaptation of the entire story, rather than discrete adaptations of each installment.
Regardless, I'm happy with this news: I really dug the first season, even if they made some big changes and departures from the book. (There was a mixed consensus on my Facebook page about it.) I read the book while watching the season and felt that you could describe the series as a well-edited version of the book, one that captured all of the high points and eliminated some of the exposition. I'll certainly be watching the show when it comes back, whenever that is. There's some wild concepts and events coming up in the The Dark Forest, and if they can capture half of them, it's going to be quite a ride.