In the first trailer for “3 Body Problem,” Netflix asks viewers to “prepare yourself for something very strange.” Filled with speculation over mysterious murders and striking visuals, this first look promises to be just as trippy as Liu Cixin’s science-fiction novel of the same name.
The trailer first premiered at CES in Las Vegas. It begins with detective Da Shi (Benedict Wong) investigating a room filled with numbers and letters that have been drawn with blood. Wearily, he notes that 30 scientists have died in the past few months and that another “countdown” is unfolding. Around the same time, scientist Auggie Salazar (Eiza González) sees that same countdown everywhere she looks.
“Someone or something is targeting scientists,” a character says offscreen. “Whatever it is, it’s watching and listening.”
The trailer only gets weirder after the series’ metallic headsets are introduced. After Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham) puts one over his eyes, the trailer cuts to a series of different worlds filled with futuristic cities, fire, ice, water and war. “They are coming. And there’s nothing you can do to stop them,” a character says in the final moments of the video.
The series, which will premiere March 21 on Netflix, comes from “Game of Thrones” showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, as well as “True Blood” writer and “The Terror” showrunner Alexander Woo.
“What we are hoping to do is to convey the experience — if not necessarily the exact details — of the novel onto the screen,” Woo, the co-creator and executive producer of the series, said in a statement to press. “What stayed, we hope, is the sense of wonderment and the sense of scope, of scale, where the problems are no longer just the problems of an individual or even a nation, but of an entire species.”
Based on the novel of the same name, “Three Body Problem” follows astrophysicist Ye Wenjie, whose father was murdered during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Because of her scientific background, she was recruited by the military and sent to a secret base in China. A decision she made during that time in the 1960s will ripple across space and time, forcing present day scientists to confront the greatest threat to humanity. Watch the trailer in full above.
