Me 'Body' problems

There are three problems with the relentlessly awful 3 Body Problem, all of which seem endemic in television and film.

Problem one: There are gung-ho heroes. There are conflicted heroes. There are anti-heroes. Seldom do those heroic archetypes exhibit the morose, idle, and self-absorbed qualities that characterize 3 Body Problem's young principals. I'm no Louis B. Meyer, but I suspect human beings, even those who are morose, idle, and self-absorbed, don't wish to spend much time rooting for such people, yet such people appear with distressing frequency as ostensibly valorous protagonists nowadays. (It doesn't help that the morosity and idleness and self-absorbedness seem third-hand, as if observed by geezers lurking on social media or, worse, reading newspaper feature sections.)

Problem two: It's not clear if this reflects animation becoming so good or visual effects becoming so bad or something else, but most of the set-piece effects look like animation. Just because that's the intention doesn't mean it works. This, of course, is a criticism now levelled with drumbeat regularity.

Problem three: Another common criticism, at least for TV shows, is they're two-hour flicks jammed into eight hours of television; the morosity and idleness here play like filler. (Another example: Shitty primeval) While I can't say I share the rapturous admiration many have for Lin Cixin's novel - clever enough story, but told with prose flatter than the San-Ti on a hot day - there's enough there for a fun flick. The economic incentives involved in running a successful streaming service are not my problem no matter how many bodies are dependent upon them.

ADDENDUM: The show doesn't seem to be the massive hit Netflix envisioned. It's "successful" by the opaque standards of the streaming business, but no one's swinging from vines.