Countdown
Episode 1 of 3 Body Problem begins in Beijing 1966 with the infamous re-education program. A physics professor is marched out before the crowd but he refuses to cave like the others. Instead, the authorities march his wife out after, who pleads with Ye Zhetai to see reason, and decides to be with the people. Through all of this, their daughter, Ye Wenjie, watches helplessly from the crowd. She weeps as her pa is beaten senseless on the ground and killed. When she heads up to look over her deceased father, she gives a menacing look of revenge to the Red Guard.
We then fast forward to London 2024. A bizarre murder involving a Dr Mohammad sees a whole bunch of numbers scrawled up on the wall in blood. It’s a countdown. Eventually this leads round to an ominous message – “I Still See It.” As for Mohammad, he’s there but on the ground, with his eyes gouged out, a knife in his hand and very much dead.
Over at the Oxford University Particle Accelerator, Saul and his associate, Vera Ye, lament their studies as the project they’re working on is about to be shut down. The lights are on until midnight but whatever this is that they’ve found, doesn’t seem to abide by the rules of science and physics. Vera gives Saul some words of encouragement before leaving the room and throwing herself into a strange pool of water, killing herself.
Meanwhile, we get a glimpse of two other scientists, Auggie and Jin who explain the previous scene with Saul and Vera. Apparently, a month earlier all the major accelerators across the world started generating results that made no sense. Some of that seems to be linked to this countdown we’ve been seeing but these particles aren’t working in a way that we understand the rules of science. And bizarrely, Auggie seems to be “infected” by this. She starts to see a strange orange hue in her peripheral vision that eventually hits a crescendo when this bizarre wave turns into a countdown timer.
Connecting all these scientists together is Detective Clarence Shi, who’s bathed in a veil of smoke in his office. He has a pinboard up and checks out all the individual scientists. After Vera’s death, he crosses her off and looks over the rest.
Another new character we meet here is Jack Rooney. He’s a former scientist and something of a rockstar now but he’s there as a friend to attend Vera’s funeral. Auggie is not in the right frame of mind. In fact, she’s seeing this countdown timer everywhere. She’s even seen a neurologist but she doesn’t seem to have anything wrong with her.
After the funeral, Clarence is on the case. He follows a guy called Mike Evans, who happens to be part of a big company called Evans Energy. Clarence snaps photos of him as he heads out into a big field and gets a helicopter out of there. Keep an eye on this guy, he’ll be important later.
As for the others, they all crowd round in a small pub and discuss Vera’s death – and what seems to have happening to Auggie. Auggie leaves when Jack cracks a joke about Saul, whom we learn there’s history between the pair. It looks like they used to be a couple and have broken up but we don’t know the full extent of their history yet.
Auggie heads out for a cigarette, where a strange woman arrives and smokes with her. She mentions the countdown and asks her how much time she has. “That’s not much,” She says, asking Auggie to shut down all her work and stop with the nano-fibers. The next day, at midnight, she’s then to go and look at the stars. “You don’t want it to get to zero. Nothing good happens at zero,” She says, and then leaves. She does hand over a strange token and also mentions the stars “winking” but all of this is rather ominous.
We then jump back to Inner Mongolia in China, 1967. Soldiers nearby at a base up on the hill, complete with a huge satellite dish, have apparently been working on something top secret. Nothing good happens up there. The place is shrouded in secrecy while the numerous workers down below get to work destroying the land, chopping down trees. Ye Wenjie is here among them, secretly learning English. Unfortunately, she’s caught by the guards, and Commander Song demands she head off to Division Headquarters.
While Ye Wenjie sits freezing in her cell, cuddling a thin blanket for sanctuary, a woman named Ten Lihua shows and tries to talk to her. Ye Wenjie’s told to read a document so she can return to the Construction Corps. Her task is to testify against her father’s associates, who, they intend to track down and, presumably, kill. Ye Wenjie refuses outright and as a result, gets a bucket of cold water thrown on her and her bed for good measure.
Time passes and Ye Wenjie’s work from behind bars garners interest from the scientists up at the Military Base on the hill. The research there is of the highest security classification, but she’s allowed to rehabilitate herself there instead given her brilliant mind. Ye Wenjie accepts, and makes a bold statement that she’ll spend the rest of her life there.
Back in London, we jet off to the Headquarters of the Strategic Intelligence Agency. It’s called The Black Palace and it’s where Clarence Shi has been investigating what he’s dubbed the “Oxford Five”. He’s been fired from basically every law enforcement and this is his last chance to get his career back on track.
Speaking of investigating, Jin heads off to see Vera’s mother, who we quickly learn happens to be Ye Wenjie. She explains that Vera never left a note or anything during her death but seems to have been working with a “games console”.
Jin grows curious and puts the headset on. Just like that, she’s transferred inside some sort of videogame. In the distance is a temple, and as the sun suddenly lifts into the air, a skeleton is revealed out the sand and Jin screams, eventually ripping her headset off.
The fateful day for Auggie rolls round and she encourages Saul to come join her as she waits for the “universe to wink at her”. Saul explains that the token she was given by that strange woman apparently stopped being made in 1963. There’s a bit of banter between them… until they look up at the sky and watch the stars.
Saul comments on how bright they are, but when the bells ring at midnight, Auggie is shocked by what she’s seen as all the stars in the sky light up… and then suddenly blink in and out again. This isn’t an isolated incident though, as everyone can see it. Saul realizes that this is Morse Code and gets to work deciphering it. And those numbers, as we quickly find out, correspond to Auggie’s countdown.
The Episode Review
What is the countdown? How is 1967 connected to the present? And just what is the videogame that some of these scientists have been playing? There are numerous questions swirling around 3 Body Problem from the off, and there’s an awful lot going on too.
The episode does jump around a lot, and to different time periods too, but given the source material that’s perhaps to be expected. However, there’s plenty to whet the appetite and the tantalizing mystery is likely to deepen considerably as the episodes progress. For now though, the first chapter sets the foundations for what should be a very intriguing series.
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