Transcript: Culture chat — ‘3 Body Problem’, Netflix’s next big swing

This is an audio transcript of the Life and Art from FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘Culture chat — ‘3 Body Problem’, Netflix’s next big swing’

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos and this is our Friday chat show. Today we are talking about Netflix’s buzzy new show 3 Body Problem, an eight-part sci-fi series based on the bestselling Chinese trilogy by Liu Cixin, which is out now. The show is a sprawling epic that spans different worlds, timelines and dimensions. It begins as a murder mystery with a group of elite scientists mysteriously dying, presumably by suicide. But it gets even weirder very quickly. There’s a subplot set in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. At one point, a bunch of sun-dried humans who’ve been rolled up like carpets get reinflated in a pond and come back to life. There are aliens. Basically, there’s a lot going on.

[3 BODY PROBLEM TRAILER PLAYING]

3 Body Problem is a big deal because it was created by the ambitious team behind Game of Thrones, David Benioff and DB Weiss. It also had a reported budget of $200mn. So today we’re gonna talk about it.

I’m Lilah, and an invisible woman just lit my cigarette. Joining me in London is our Work & Careers journalist, Emma Jacobs. She often writes about television for the FT. And rumour has it, she’s currently seeing a countdown that’s making her act pretty weird. (Laughter) Welcome, Emma.

Emma Jacobs
Hi.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Also in London is Madhumita Murgia. Madhu is our AI editor and the author of upcoming book Code Dependent, which has just been longlisted for the Women’s Prize. She’s also just watched the heat death of the universe on her VR headset. Hi, Madhu. Welcome.

Madhumita Murgia
Hi.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So nice to have both of you here.

Emma Jacobs
Thanks for having us.

Madhumita Murgia
Lovely to be here.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, so why don’t we just get into it? Top-line reaction. What did you both think of this series? Emma, let’s start with you.

Emma Jacobs
At first, I thought, what the fuck? I mean, I just thought there was so much going on that I couldn’t really get my head around what it was. I think that, I felt very mixed. I felt that it was quite confusing. It was a kind of history lesson and sci-fi and a physics lesson in different countries, in different periods. So I found that quite complicated. But at the same time, I found it very intriguing. I liked the kind of Chinese stuff. And I found that actually some of the scenes that were located in China in the Cultural Revolution were great, and it made me realise that we don’t see that much of it. I found the problem with it was that they weren’t very emotionally engaging. I didn’t really get many . . . There weren’t very good relationships between people. I mean, there’s no love match or, there was a kind of like flicker of romance, which is fine. You know, it’s not that I need a sort of sex scene in every episode, but it’s just kind of like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Maybe one.

Emma Jacobs
Maybe one. I just wanted some sort of emotional core. And I guess it was the kind of central character, the Chinese scientist. But you kind of wanted more of it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, yeah. And just to clarify, some of the TV show is set in 1977 during the Cultural Revolution, and then it sort of fast-forwards to modern day. You know, Oxford . . . 

Emma Jacobs
And past days . . . in a VR set.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yes. And then, past days and future days and who knows what day. Madhu, what about you? Did you like it?

Madhumita Murgia
So I’m gonna say yes. The first episode, I felt like, was intriguing and drew me in. But then the more I watched it, kind of, that’s when it got really complicated. And I was thinking, you know, like Emma, who are the people at the heart of this that I’m rooting for? And is this just a series of plot lines? But actually, I’ve got about halfway through now. I found at this point, I am enjoying it. And I’m feeling the threads coming together. And, you know, I thought it was quite original. Quite brave, some of it, to kind of try and explain things like the multi-universal world phenomenon and quantum physics, for example. You know, VR gaming technology. There were a lot of kind of cutting-edge tech stuff thrown in there, and it could seem like a mishmash or just trying to kind of get to the hottest latest topic. AI. VR. What else? What are the other buzzwords? But weirdly, it worked for me. And yeah, I think actually one of the scenes that really surprised me was the first time one of the characters entered the VR gaming world. I have tried VR headsets but they always make me feel sick. I’m not a gadget geek. But it was just like such a compelling experience, the way it was portrayed and how it felt they could smell everything.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. So the idea of what actual good VR could be? Watching people kind of be freaked out by it.

Madhumita Murgia
Exactly. And then the fact that they were, like, engaging with other beings in this world. And, you know, I just I actually found that, like, really interesting. And I wanted to see where it went.

Emma Jacobs
You’re right. The VR headset was like what the PRs tell you it’s gonna be like. (Laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
Exactly.

Madhumita Murgia
Like, this is just really heavy and I feel a bit nauseous.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And for context, basically, they’re in the modern world. These people come across this VR headset from sort of the future, and they put it on and it, like, is this amazing version of VR that everybody is promising us, but never seems to be.

I agree with both of you in that, you know, it took some time. It took a lot of focus. In the first two episodes, I kept falling asleep and having to rewind it. So it took me quite a long time to get through those. But then it hit, you know, by the third episode or so. It started to all make sense. The world started to come together. And I started to actually crave it, in a weird way. But the thing that made me actually sort of like it is when I thought to myself, what is this about? And it felt to me like it was about whether it’s too late for us to save ourselves. And that’s an interesting question. What was it about for you, if you had to explain it in one sentence? What do you think it was really about?

Madhumita Murgia
For me, it was: who are humans in a world where there are beings more powerful than us, with better technology, who can, I don’t know, manipulate what we see, and get into our brains? So, like, where does that leave us? Do we have any agency in this world? And, like, is science the answer to it all?

Emma Jacobs
Yeah. I think, like you, Lilah, I thought it was about whether we’re worth saving as well. And if, you know, is that . . . I mean, I don’t normally kind of give in to pessimism like that. I mean, but you do. There is a kind of doomsday aspect about it — whether we should just end it now, which I thought was kind of interesting to sort of . . . I mean, you sometimes see kind of doomsday cults, but this in a way, depicted on television, but this in a way, kind of made you really think about it, you know. Like, are we worth saving? The idea of a pacifist alien was fantastic. (Laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
I will say, actually, that makes me think and I will say it to our work and careers expert. Late last night, I was watching it way too late and I got off and I, for some reason, just as I was going to bed, clicked on LinkedIn and started reading people’s LinkedIn posts. And they were so, I just felt sort of like, no, I don’t think we’re worth saving. (Laughter) It really changes your perspective of everything. Because you’re reading it, like everyone’s saying, like on International Women’s Day, I’m so happy to be a mom, and oh you know, working women . . . It just was, all felt like such fluff that I was like, forget it. (Laughter)

Emma Jacobs
I think that’s one tip people should have. Don’t click on LinkedIn after watching it.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
I’m wondering how you both think this fits into prestige television. You know, the background of this show that’s really interesting to me is that these creators were looking for something that would hit the way Game of Thrones hit, in that, like, they clearly were good at taking an already popular series or franchise like George RR Martin’s books and then making them into a show that has this mass appeal that, like, suburban parents can love and also obsessive fans can geek out on on a Reddit thread. And they obviously did that really well. Over the years, there were all these projects that fell through. But finally, they found this, which is this bestselling trilogy from China. It’s popular in the west, too. Obama loved it. Mark Zuckerberg said he loved it. And that’s what they’re trying to . . . it feels like that’s what they’re trying to do is, sort of, make this the next Game of Thrones. I’m curious if you think that this has the potential to be that.

Emma Jacobs
I mean, I think it could. I think because you can watch it at different levels, like me just not really making sense of anything that was going on and kind of drifting through. I could sort of see it as a kind of teenage-parent-watching thing. Or I don’t want to just, you know, be too easy to say yes it’s the kind of science-fiction geeky thing. I don’t think it is that because it does, it is kind of Game of Thrones worldbuilding, and Stranger Things, you know, you create quite elaborate systems. And it does feel like there hasn’t been something for a while that’s got everyone talking about it in the same way. And I think that people are kind of casting around, trying to find . . . It does feel like there’s both a kind of gap for another worldbuilding exercise and also possibly, is this what people want? Are we looking for new formats as well?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, yeah. It’s interesting. Madhu, what do you think?

Madhumita Murgia
Yeah, it’s a tough one. So I think the way to make it resonate at that scale like Game of Thrones, because ultimately Game of Thrones, yes, it was fantasy but it was really about the interpersonal relationships, the power dynamics, you know, all of that really human stuff that grips us. You know, like sex and incest and, you know, war and all of, you know, really kind of fundamental stuff. I felt with this that still wasn’t all the way there. There were glimmers of that. And what this had, I guess, is a lot of kind of very current elements from even things I’m reporting on.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, that’s interesting. Like what?

Madhumita Murgia
One of the things that struck me was the Chinese, American scientists. One of them was Chinese, the other American. And how they weren’t really allowed to communicate. They had to do it in secret because, you know, they want, you know, the CCP wasn’t you know, they weren’t supposed to talk to Americans at the time.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. This is set in the ‘70s, during the Cultural Revolution.

Madhumita Murgia
Exactly. And so, you know, but she did it anyway, and reached across the sort of political divide because they were scientists and ultimately kind of united by that. That’s happening now with AI. You know, I’ve reported on this, and we’re gonna do more on the sort of track-two talks happening between scientists in the US and China who, even though there are, you know, currently a sort of new cold war happening there with chip sanctions and everything, you know, actually, scientists want to come together on this, and they feel that AI is too important to be divided along these kind of political lines. And they feel like they should come together to kind of find a solution, make sure it doesn’t go rogue or doesn’t go wrong. So I thought that was really kind of interesting that it reflects what we’re seeing with the AI story today. I feel like there’s just lots of interesting contemporary issues. But to really be like a blockbuster, kind of, that touches everyone, it needs to be like, human and appealing at that level. I’m not sure it’s quite there yet.

Emma Jacobs
Yeah, I completely agree. And I, that’s really interesting about the scientists reaching across. I mean, it was a theme in For All Mankind as well. I don’t know if you’ve seen that. It was great. I mean, in the area that I look at, at work, there’s always questions of, you know, worklessness. What is the validity of being a human at this point? You know, what do humans add to anything, which is sort of one of the questions that this TV series asks, you know, like, should we just do away with humans? You know, what is the point of them? But they did need more human relationships. You just needed to kind of zero in on some human character in development, and like, love story — there was none, which was kind of unusual. There was a lot smoking actually. It was the kind of . . . smoking indoors was one thing I noticed. Unusual.

Lilah Raptopoulos
There was a lot of smoking. Yeah. Modern-day smoking inside. That was nuts.

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I’m one of the few people in the universe that didn’t watch Game of Thrones, but I felt very left out listening to people describe the plot, and it always felt so wacky and impossible to follow. And I did feel that this had that. Like when I explained the plot to my producer Lulu before we came in, I found myself, like, being like a Game of Thrones person, being like, then they roll the people up like rugs, then, you know, creepy woman shows up and she said that aliens were coming, then . . . 

Madhumita Murgia
I found that really emotional, actually, the rolling off of the people, throwing them into the ocean.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I did too.

Madhumita Murgia
It was weird. Maybe because I was by myself and the children were asleep upstairs. I was like, oh my God, they’re coming back to life. They’ve been rehydrated.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right, exactly. Then, you know, like the gravitational pull of the suns is pulling the human computer army up into the sky. I sounded nuts, but I felt like, OK, maybe I’m in, maybe I’m, you know, this version of Game of Thrones person. But I guess, like, sort of my last question about that is just like, you know, what does this suggest that Hollywood thinks that we want out of our television? And is it what we actually want?

Emma Jacobs
I think, I mean, I think that, well, who knows? I mean, I think they just keep throwing things at different . . . see what sticks? I think that if you can create a really compelling series that builds on the last series, and you get deep into the characters and, you know, and to some extent create a world. If you get invested in that world and you kind of understand the faultlines and the kind of politics, I think it’s great. And if you can get another one of those, that’s great too.

Madhumita Murgia
You know, I don’t know what it is Hollywood thinks we want, but at least it’s not just a remake or like a sequel of another, you know, superhero, kind of well-known story. I think it’s brave to try and get people to engage with like quantum computing or, you know, time travel at that sort of level, astrophysics and on the AI front as well. Like, I thought there was some moments of like, clarity and, and like quite moving bits, which you don’t hear when you talk about AI in like news so much. Like there’s this voice, isn’t there, which is the AI overlord or the alien/AI, I don’t know what it eventually becomes, but you know where it says humans lie and it’s like realises that human beings lie to one another and says, well, in that case, like, we don’t know how to do that and we see you as a threat. And I just think that like, it’s, yeah, it’s addressing like some actually quite interesting questions coming up around new AI technologies and that if it was able to kind of push a bit further into those, it could be something really original.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Amazing. Emma and Madhu, this was so great. Thank you so much. We will be back in just a minute for More or Less.

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Welcome back for More or Less, the part of the show where each guest says something they want to see more of or less of in culture. Madhu, what do you have?

Madhumita Murgia
So I’ve been making my way through the long list for the Women’s Prize for non-fiction. It’s the inaugural year that they’re doing it for non-fiction. And I’m just, like, amazed by the variety of stories and voices. And so I think we need more non-fiction by women about more topics including serious, you know, science, tech, history. I would love more of that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, great. Relatedly, it’s quite nice to have three women talking about sci-fi in this episode.

Emma Jacobs
Yeah. I know.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Great, I totally agree. Emma, what about you?

Emma Jacobs
I think — to repeat a theme that I’ve probably mentioned before — more short things. I like Mr and Mrs Smith. I really like Netflix’s Tore. I don’t know if you’ve seen that.

Madhumita Murgia
I enjoy that.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Netflix’s?

Emma Jacobs
Tore — I think that’s how you say it. It was a Swedish . . . if I say it’s like a male-gay Swedish Fleabag, I’m gonna kind of do something crappy, but that kind of . . . But it was really neat and it was really good. And I really want people to watch it so they can talk about it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, great. So more short things.

Emma Jacobs
More short things.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. I’ll put all of the suggestions in the show notes too. I also have a More. Three Mores this week. I would say more, sort of, digging into every little enclave of your city. I am deep in writing this piece that’s gotten way too long for Globetrotter, which is our city guide. That’s partially about how Chinatown is changing in New York. And I learned in the process that the Chinatowns in Queens and in Brooklyn have gotten bigger than the Chinatown in Manhattan. It’s like shrinking at a rapid pace and, you know, could be in 20 years, like what Little Italy is in New York, which is almost gone. And it reminded me that our cities cycle in such a sort of sometimes painful way. And so while we have things, we should appreciate them. So go to Chinatown. I don’t know, like, go eat in the places that we have, because they might change. Yeah.

Emma Jacobs
That’s a nice one.

Madhumita Murgia
Yeah. So much has disappeared recently from our high streets, like the little ones where I live as well. It’s obsolete, and yeah, it’s just cycling through at a rapid pace.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, it really is. Give small businesses your business.

Madhu, Emma, thank you both so much for coming on the show. This was a real pleasure.

Madhumita Murgia
Thanks for having us.

Emma Jacobs
Thank you.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. Take a read through the show notes. We have links that expand on everything mentioned today, including all of Emma and Madhu’s recommendations and a place to pre-order Madhu’s book. Every link that goes to the FT gets you past the paywall. Also in the show notes is a discount to a subscription to the Financial Times — a very good discount — and ways to stay in touch with me on email and on Instagram. I love hearing from you.

I am Lilah Raptopoulos and here is my talented team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a lovely weekend and we’ll find each other again on Monday.