I’m a little late to the party on 3 Body Problem, but I had a few friends tell me to check it out. Fallout started streaming today and I had the day off, so here is a review of both of them, well, episode one of each of them.
3 Body Problem
This came out of nowhere for me, and landed on Netflix recently. The story is:
A fateful decision made in 1960s China reverberates in the present, where a group of scientists partner with a detective to confront an existential planetary threat.
The cast is good, Eiza Gonzalez, Benedict Wong, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Jovan Adepo, Jonathan Price, and Alex Sharp. David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Alexander Woo are credited with creating the show.
I won’t go too much into the breakdown of the first episode, but it was solid and engaging. Certain people have committed suicide after seeing a countdown, one that no one else seems to see. The countdown suddenly appears to Auggie Salazar (Gonzalez).
Auggie is a nanotech researcher, and a random stranger tells her that she has to stop working on her project for the countdown to disappear. The stranger tells her the last thing she wants is for the countdown to get to zero.
We have flashbacks to China in the 1960s. There, a girl is taken to a secret base which appears to be a radio telescope. It’s being used for China to reach out to the stars and achieve what other nations have been trying to do.
OK, so it’s only the first episode, but I’m engaged in the characters. I will admit, the whole trope of bouncing back and forth to the present is getting a little tiresome, but I’m still curious about what is going on.
At the end of the first episode, the world witnesses the stars “blinking” in unison, which seems to have a hidden code in the sequence. I need to see where this goes, so I’m going to carry on watching it.
Fallout
I have played Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4 to death. I didn’t bother with the last one, I have no interest in playing with people online, but I do love the original games and have fond memories of playing them. The stories are well constructed.
Also, just to note, I’m a big fan of the music from Fallout music. The old-style jazz, sweet tones you can sing along to. I have the albums in my car and enjoy them. The story of this series adaption is:
In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.
The series stars Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins, Moises Arias, Zach Cherry, and Kyle MacLachlan. Jonathan Nolan and Claire Kilner are the showrunners.
Episode one of Fallout opens in 1969. It’s a retro-futuristic world, with a flying service droid and those cool TVs they had in the original game.
Cooper Howard (Goggins) is a cowboy at a kid’s birthday party, performing tricks with a lasso. As he tries to get a piece of birthday cake for his daughter, a flash happens in the distance. Not just any flash, but a nuclear blast.
As Howard and his daughter escape, several blasts occur and the end of the world takes place.
Jump forward some 200 years. We meet Lucy MacLean (Purnell) and she’s putting herself out to stud, so to speak. She’s a good worker, has “intact reproductive organs” and is ready to marry someone from another vault for the good of mankind.
The wedding between Vault 32 and 33 will mean sharing some food and resources. It is good for everyone. The problem is, the person she marries is a raider and they are there for one thing, her father (MacLachlan).
I won’t spoil too much of what happens, but Lucy goes in search of her father and leaves the vault.
We also meet Maximus. He lives on the surface and wants to join the Brotherhood. He is picked on by the other cadets, but is finally chosen to be a squire for one of the Knights and sent on a mission. Somewhere, in the great unknown, is a man who needs to be captured.
At the end of the first episode, we meet up with Howard, who is now a ghoul. It seems he is interested in the man the Brotherhood is after as well.
This was again solid and I’m invested in the characters. I know that we have a “strong female protagonist” but she is set up well. She shows she’s worked within the vault, she can read well and she’s even had a little gun practice.
I did like how the vault dwellers are so “nice”. No one swears, no one is mean to each other and, when the raiders attack, no one is prepared for the violence that goes on. The outside world to Lucy is going to be a big shock.
The violence is pretty good. Much like the games, where arms and legs fly off with a good bullet shot, here they have done the same. Nothing is left to the imagination as you see people getting shot and their heads explode.
Jonathan Nolan directed the first episode of Fallout and did a great job. I liked how subtle he was, like when you first see a service droid, it wasn’t a big deal. It was a passing camera shot, which you might even miss. The production was excellent as well. I genuinely couldn’t tell if the Knights armor was real or CG.
I really liked the first episode and I’m going to give the rest of it a go. I hope it doesn’t go all “modern” on me.
What did you think? Have you seen 3 Body Problem or Fallout?
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