It's TV season for book lovers!
Three new shows based on fantastic novels.
Three (very different) new shows based on beloved books — plus a new album perfect for the bibliophiles.
Earthquakes and eclipses, oh my! What are your eclipse plans?? Are any of you in the Path of Totality? I have never experienced that, but I have seen the Northern Lights, and the feeling of being so totally small, so totally wrapped up in something bigger than I can fathom, will never leave me. I imagine an eclipse has similar brain-altering effects. [In a good way!]
Tomorrow, I’ll be on my roof at 3pm, awaiting an alien invasion 85% eclipse!
One of the shows we’re talking about this week feels VERY eclipse-adjacent — a sci-fi thriller about suns and gravity and alien life: 3 Body Problem on Netflix. My question for you this week, Dear Reader, is this:
In your most instinctual assumptions about reality, do you picture a universe with other intelligent civilizations out there? Or not? For me, my analytical brain believes that other intelligent civilizations probably exist. But in my lizard brain, or when I peer into my most basic-level feelings, I definitely have always assumed Earth is all we got, baby! Weird, huh?
How about you?
3 Body Problem — Netflix
What’s up, math-science nerds! This one’s for you!
The Book: Netflix’s new show 3 Body Problem is based on the Hugo Award-winning book The Three-Body Problem, published in 2008 by Liu Cixin, an engineer-turned-author who wanted to write a story about physics theories such as, well, the three-body problem. That might sound boring at first, but let me ask you this: Have you never gotten a chill down your spine hearing someone try to explain Dark Matter?
I highly recommend the book, with the caveat that 1) It’s a trilogy, and I’ve only read the first one, and 2) It’s a bit like Moby Dick in the sense there are long passages in Moby Dick that only a whaler would enjoy, and there are long passages in The Three-Body Problem that only a math nerd would enjoy. It drags a little! But I loved it, the blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, cosmological imagination, deep questions about who we are.
So, what about the show? OK. There’s this thing with a lot of sci-fi adaptations where they try to sex it up and dumb it down. It’s like the producers don’t quite believe audiences will hang with the science stuff, so they create shiny distractions like compelling prostitutes or sex robots. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
In 3 Body, the shininess veers towards the juvenile. But I still found it worth sticking with! [I think, had I not read the book first, I would’ve bailed on it — because I am a snob!]
It was adapted by the two guys who did Game of Thrones, and we know that as long as they have a source text to pull from, they do a great job! But in GoT, when they had to go off-book toward the end, the storytelling got lazy and the characters thinned out.
In 3 Body, we encounter the same problem. [See what I did there? 3 Body…Problem?] They created new characters to flesh out the emotional stakes, but those characters act like they’re in a melodramatic teen soap like The OC, not a sweeping planetary epic about the fate of humanity. The dialogue is at times wooden and nonsensical, and one character in particular — played by Eiza González — is possibly the most irritating character on TV since The OC’s rich-girl-who-won’t-take-responsibility-for-a-single-thing-she-ever-did Marissa Cooper. [I SAID IT!]
With that strong caveat, I still had a fantastic time watching it! It’s overall an excellent adaption conceptually, holding to the core theories and science/philosophy of the book and translating them into visually stunning TV. After watching it, I immediately purchased the next two books in the series.
Here’s a final wild fact: The production of the show is mired in a poisoning-murder trial!!! I am not exagerrating!
Ripley — Netflix
I have discussed my deep, enduring, obsessive love for Andrew Scott’s acting. And yet, while I really appreciate slow-burn arthouse projects, I tend not to enjoy them all the time. So, needless to say, I was curious which direction I would go with this slow-burn arthouse project featuring Andrew Scott! My curiosity burgeoned after reading two reviews with completely opposite reactions to the show: A Variety critic thought Scott was “utterly charmless” while a writer from The Guardian thought he was “absolutely spellbinding”!
I’ve watched just three episodes, and it gave me just enough to commit to watching all eight. I’m intrigued. If you DO like a slow-burn arthouse, literary kind of show and you are a patient and attentive viewer, I think Ripley will reward you!
It’s an adaption of Patricia Highsmith’s classic 1955 psychological thriller, The Talented Mr. Ripley. I was at first thrown off by how different it is from the wonderful 1999 adaptation of the same name, starring an in-the-prime-of-their-youths Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. But then I came to appreciate how intentionally different it is. It’s not vibrant, sexy, opulent, prurient the way the original is. It’s more restrained, frustrated, bleak, noir. The most obvious difference is that it’s shot in black and white — which I at first HATED. I mean, imagine sweeping scenes of the Italian coast with no turquoise-blue ocean!??!? They take away the color that you associate with Italian luxury and instead make you sit in the discomfort of what that life can be without the right resources. Everything is uncomfortable and effortful, everyone is trying to steal from you, and nothing is safe.
In short, the black and white is clueing you into the fact that we’re involved in a specific type of story. Our main character, played by Andrew Scott [who is at some of his best face and body acting! He doesn’t even need to talk, and we know everything we need to know about this character!], is an awkward, irritable, bratty striver who is quite unlikeable yet also funny, charming, relatable, and immoral, and we want to root for him while also being like, “Please just let it stop.” It’s quite a trip!
The black and white feel like how he sees the world: a lack of appreciation for any beauty around him beyond what benefit he can squeeze from it. At the same time, he mentions color a lot. It’s like they’re intentionally messing with you, gaslighting you, making you feel like you aren’t quite seeing things as they are. When he calls something “blue,” it doesn’t seem like he can actually see the color — he’s just faking what he knows he should say.
Anyways, the whole show feels like that, like every choice is a clear perspective from the writer, an intentional way of filming. There’s so much symbolism: Fire and water, mirrors everywhere, duplicates and shadows everywhere, stairs everywhere, opened and closed doors in key places — all of it means something and yet none of it is too obvious or heavy-handed somehow. Like I said: Literary!
But you definitely have to be patient with it. This is a very specific type of show.
[Also, I think the guy who plays Dickie — the “Jude Law” character — might be a terrible actor.]
A Gentleman in Moscow — Paramount+/Showtime
I loved this book so much. I don’t even remember the important plot details; I just remember how it made me feel. Maybe part of it is that I grew up reading Russian novels, so there’s something just so cozy and nostalgic and beautiful about the writing and the setting and the characters. But I think the author, Amor Towles, is fantastic at creating characters that you want to spend time with in a setting where you want to stay for a while. Not a ton happens [until the very end, and then it ALL happens!], and yet you feel like you are submersed in such a rich world. I wanted to stay in it forever. It was like having caviar and vodka in front of a warm, congenial fire, talking to a friend who makes you laugh.
ANYWAYS. Now it’s a show! With Ewan McGregor! And I was very panicky about whether it would ruin the book or not. [Because why not let your anxiety ruin a show you haven’t even seen yet??] Only two episodes are out so far, but I am really enjoying it. They’re doing a good job! They seem to be capturing the nuance of the character I loved so much — his lightness in helping others and himself through a dark heavy time, the natural humor that covers an overwhelming sadness. The lush world shrinking under the Bolshevik Revolution but finding ways to shine through.
I’m thrilled to be experiencing such a beloved book again in a different medium. Cheers!
P.S. Another Thing You Bookish People Will Love
A New Vampire Weekend album dropped Friday! Baroque pop is back, baby! Tennis vibes are in!
I am the exact age/gender/class/education target of Vampire Weekend [35-year-old, white, liberal-arts-educated female who loves a tennis aesthetic but is not sporty herself and idealizes institutions of higher learning, incidentally named Hannah?] and I’ve seen them in concert more than any other artist, which I can’t decide if that’s embarrassing or just a reflection of the fact they were touring when I was at prime concert-going age and their concerts were relatively cheap.
I like the new album! What a week for Isla Fisher to announce her divorce from Sacha Baron Cohen with a tennis-themed Instagram story!? [Her choice for divorce announcement: Unhinged, baffling, incoherent, perfect.]1 Is this all just a total-submersion marketing campaign for Zendaya’s upcoming tennis three-way movie Challengers?? Discuss!
Anyhoo, here are a few tweets celebrating Vampire Weekend’s new album that might only be funny to VW fans.
Have a great week, y’all! Please drop a heart to help me grow, or a comment to share your thoughts and opinions. It truly keeps me going!
For context, Fisher and Baron Cohen have apparently been divorced for over a year, but she is announcing it now. Likely because Baron Cohen is coming under fire for his alleged horrific treatment of Rebel Wilson while filming a movie together, which Wilson details in her just-released memoir. I sincerely wish the best for these women.
Love 👏🏼 every 👏🏼 beat of this!! THANK YOU for admitting that gal is SO ANNOYING on 3 Body Problem. I love the show soooo much I felt bad criticizing any part of it. But I can’t stand her!!