Summary
3 Body Problem slightly sputters out of the gate. Although the ideas are concise, the execution leaves much to be desired after the first episode.
In the premiere of 3 Body Problem, we discover that the Oxford Accelerator Project has been shut down, leading to the suicide of the project’s lead. We also meet the team behind the project, including Auggie, who is starting to see a countdown that promises to kill her if she doesn’t follow their orders. Season 1 gets off to a sputtering start in Episode 1, with solid ideas but less than concise execution.
Da Shi walks into a crime scene where Dr. Mohammed, born in Karachi, has killed himself. Inside the room, there is a strange countdown on the wall that Shi’s fellow investigator says is”just like the others.”
Jin and Auggie are at a bar discussing work, and Jin mentions that physics has turned to shit. She mentions that about a month ago, all the major accelerators started generating results that made no sense. While she attempts to explain it, Auggie begins to see gold static lines on the karaoke screen. Moments later, Saul calls Auggie, and she ignores it but sees those same lines. When Jin takes the call, Auggie sees them again, but this time, it reveals a countdown of 04:09:17:41.
Who dies in “Countdown”?
Although the Oxford Accelerator Project has been shut down, Dr. Vera Ye walked in on Saul continuing to work on the project. According to the experiments, all of their theories are wrong, and all of the physics from the past 60 years are wrong. Before leaving, Vera asks Saul if he believes in God, and he says no. After this, we see Vera jump into a pool of water and kill herself.
At the bar after the funeral, everyone is sitting around talking about the final moments of Dr. Vera’s life. Saul mentions her asking if he believed in God before she left. Things quickly turn awkward, as the pressure of constantly seeing the countdown puts her on edge, leading her to snap at Jack.
How can Auggie make the countdown stop?
Auggie goes for a cigarette, and a woman arrives asking about Auggies countdown. Of course, this freaks her out, but the woman tells her that she can make it stop by putting an end to her work, no more nanofibers, and she shut down her lab. The woman tells Auggie to go outside at midnight tomorrow and look up at the sky.
We meet Ye Wenjie, an author who is being tortured for being in possession of a book she wasn’t supposed to have. Although she won’t give them what they want, The Commission has decided to give her one more chance after discovering she wrote a book that could help them. However, they tell her that if she enters the base, because of its highly confidential information she may never leave, and she agrees to enter.
Jin is talking to Dr. Vera’s mother about how she can’t understand why she would kill herself. As she attempts to unpack things, Jin asks her mother if she did anything strange, and she tells her she was playing a video game quite a bit. It’s a golden helmet, which is the same helmet we saw on Da Shi’s wall.
How does 3 Body Problem Season 1 Episode 1 end? What is the Red Coast Project?
Auggie tells Saul about the lady and brings him with her to see what unfolds at midnight. At the same time, we see men sitting with Ye Wenjie to inform her of the meaning of the Red Coast Project. It is a frequency modulation that they will use to communicate who is out in the universe. Auggie and Saul look up at the sky, and the sky is winking at them. Saul decodes the Morse code of the blinking, which equals Auggie’s countdown.
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