The new Netflix series 3 Body Problem based on Chinese sci-fi novelist Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy is among the most-watched shows internationally. Predictably, it’s reviled by many fans of Liu’s books. It certainly doesn’t help that there’s a longer Chinese adaptation that came out last year available on Peacock. Chinese viewers complain about the shallow Hollywood treatment, the shift in setting from China to the UK, and the anti-Chinese bias they see in this new version, which has “globalized” both the characters and the narrative. Fans of the books lament the loss of the in-depth treatment of physics and the many changes made to the original.

I’ve never read the books and went into the new eight-episode first season cold, not knowing any of the context. I found it slick and populated by too many pretty TV-actor types, but nevertheless engrossing and highly bingeable. Ignorance may be bliss when watching 3 Body Problem. It should be noted that the series has a great asset with the hulking, phlegmatic, pockmarked, nonpretty actor Benedict Wong as a central investigative figure. I love that guy.

Adapted from Liu’s novels by Game of Thrones creative team David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, along with Alexander Woo (The Terror: Infamy), the series concerns a complex doomsday scenario. Particle acceleration experiments generated at top scientific research centers around the world are suddenly producing nonsensical results that seem to invalidate ten years’ worth of data. Centers are shutting down, and many scientists are committing suicide or dying in mysterious circumstances. And Wong’s character, intelligence detective Clarence “Da” Shi, is assigned to figure out what’s going on by Thomas Wade (Liam Cunningham), a ruthless spymaster working for an unnamed government agency.