Destroyer of Worlds (3 Body Problem)
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Episode 3
| "Destroyer of Worlds" | |
|---|---|
| 3 Body Problem episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 3 |
| Directed by | Andrew Stanton |
| Written by | Alexander Woo |
| Cinematography by | PJ Dillon |
| Editing by | Simon Smith |
| Original air date | March 21, 2024 |
| Running time | 54 minutes |
| Guest appearances | |
| |
"Destroyer of Worlds" is the third episode of the American science fiction television series 3 Body Problem, based on the Chinese novel series Remembrance of Earth's Past by Liu Cixin. The episode was written by series co-creator Alexander Woo, and directed by co-executive producer Andrew Stanton. It was released on Netflix on March 21, 2024, alongside the rest of the season.
The series follows Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist who sees her father beaten to death during a struggle session in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, who is conscripted by the military. Due to her scientific background, she is sent to a secret military base in a remote region. Her decision at the base to respond to contact from an alien civilization, telling it that humanity can no longer save itself and that she will help the aliens invade Earth, affects a group of scientists in the present day, forcing them to confront humanity's greatest threat. In the episode, Jin and Jack continue exploring the VR game, working together to reach more levels.
The episode received highly positive reviews from critics, some of whom considered the episode as the best of the three up to its point.
2024
In Switzerland, Clarence (Benedict Wong) visits the CERN to investigate another scientist's suicide. Checking his house, he discovers a VR headset. While meeting with her colleagues, Auggie (Eiza González) is dismayed upon learning that Jin (Jess Hong) and Jack (John Bradley) have similar VR headsets, and asks them to not play again.
Despite that, Jin and Jack ignore her warning and decide to play the game together. They are summoned before Pope Gregory XIII (Conleth Hill), who wants to know about the strange activity in the Sun. Jin offers her hypothesis, suggesting three Suns could affect the Earth's orbit as it is part of a three-star system. Deeming them as heretic, the Pope orders her death. But as Jack prevents her from being burned alive, the civilization is destroyed after the three suns fall upon it. A woman appears before them, stating that they have gained access to Level 3. In the real world, Auggie decides to power up her nanofiber project. However, the countdown returns and she again hastily shuts the project down.
On Level 3, Jin and Jack find themselves in Shangdu, where they compete with Isaac Newton (Mark Gatiss) and Alan Turing (Reece Shearsmith) in offering an explanation behind the Sun movements to Kublai Khan. Newton and Turing introduce their "Human Abacus", a giant analog processor in which soldiers act as binary input and output, but Jin concludes that there will be a tri-solar syzygy. Her theories prove correct, and the civilization is once again destroyed. The woman appears again, and tells them they advanced to Level 4, as they immediately concluded that their purpose is not finding a solution to the three-body problem, a mathematical impossibility, but ensuring the survival of the civilization.
In the real world, Jin and Jack are invited to a secret location to access Level 4. They meet a woman named Tatiana (Marlo Kelly), who gives them access to the level; a real-world meeting between other victors. There, they discover that the purpose of the game is to find a new home for an alien species known as San Ti, and Ye Wenjie helped them in the past. Jack refuses to participate any further and asks to leave, which Tatiana allows. He returns home, unaware that Clarence is surveilling his house outside. Sensing a noise, he enters and discovers Tatiana. He asks her to leave, but she responds by brutally killing him. Despite that, neither Clarence nor the home security system recognizes Tatiana, who suddenly vanishes from the scene.
Production
Development
The episode was written by series co-creator Alexander Woo, and directed by co-executive producer Andrew Stanton. It marked Woo's second writing credit, and Stanton's first directing credit.[1]
Filming
On the scenes featuring the virtual reality, Stanton said, "We took full advantage of reality with that world. We were able to build the very tip of the observation deck that would be on top of the dome, and then implied the rest of the world." Weiss was interested in the concept of the gravity affecting the Shangdu scene, explaining "Its such a clever conceit, the Mongol setting and the Kublai Khan of it all. Mixing that very grounded historical reality with something that's completely bonkers: gravity getting turned negative."[2]
