Tag Archives: Jovan Adepo

3 Body Problem: Countdown – TV Review

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TL;DR – This first episode has left me cautiously optimistic, but I am not sure if it can sustain the momentum it has set for itself, and I am concerned about some of the sharper edges getting sanded back.  

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this show.

Warning – This episode contains scenes that may cause distress.

The sun breaks over the horrizon on day one.

3 Body Problem Review –

There was a certain amount of nervousness as I sat down to watch the first episode of 3 Body Problem: Countdown. It would be a lie to say that Season 8 of Game of Thrones was not part of that, even though I think I am a bit kinder on that than many. But more than that, how is an American team going to go adapting a work that is deeply entrenched in Chinese history and culture into an international product? That is the question I am looking at today.  

So to set the scene, we opened at Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 1966, at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Where students are bringing their professors out in front of the mob for the charge of being counterrevolutionaries. It is here where a young Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng) watches as the crowd and members of her own family turn against her father, Ye Zhetai (Perry Yung), for teaching the Big Bang Theory. The crowd roars as the older man is beaten to death in front of them. In 2024, in London, Da Shi (Benedict Wong) arrives at the site of a scientist who committed suicide, a countdown written in blood on the walls. One of many reasons is that physics has stopped working as particle accelerators across the world have decided to put out nonsense. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.     

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Musings on The Leftovers (or did Nora Lie?)

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TL;DR – In which I wax lyrical or ramble about the series The Leftovers and its exploration of faith and truth.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series.

Two men on a roof after an apocalypse that didn't happen.

The Leftovers Review –

Today, we will do something a little different than usual in that we will be less of a review and more of a retrospective on a series. Well, it’s not quite a retrospective, but more some musings that have been rumbling around in my head for months and that I better put down on paper somewhere so I can let them go rather than pondering on them all the time. With that in mind, we delve into the world of guilt, trauma, religion, faith, and crisis.

So to set the scene, three years before the start of the series on October 14th, 2011, two per cent of the world’s population vanished instantly. One hundred forty million people were gone in a moment of time, with no rhyme or reason as to why they were chosen. A child was screaming one second, gone the next. A family was eating breakfast one moment and gone the next. The person you were holding hands with during a science experiment, the person you were making love with, all gone. How do you move on after an event like this? Can you? Can society? Can the town of Mapleton and the Garvey family? Now from here, we will be looking at the whole series as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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