Yea i concur. It is not HBO standard.
If you read the RT reviews, there seems to be a conscious effort to rehabilitate Weiss & Benioff and absolve them of taking a huge, steaming shit on Game Of Thrones. I'm not buying the redemption arc.
The negative reviews always feel more honest, and are more entertaining to read:
"Most of 3 Body Problem’s adaptation choices just feel like failed attempts to spice things up."
"A misfire in every way, 3 Body Problem has some talented actors delivering some memorable moments, but none of it adds up to an experience that is satisfying, fulfilling, or even all that enjoyable."
"Based on the way this season all but runs out of momentum at the finale, its ticking countdown may come to an end sooner than later."
"Netflix's 3 Body Problem plays things too safe, edgy and drab despite the book's wild vision."
"The show should be a celebration, a statement, a home run swing. Instead its style is anonymous, the work of a corporate author rather than an artistic intelligence."
"In the boldest though not best departure from the source material, we’re introduced to a group of young and deeply uninteresting brainiacs known as the “Oxford Five,” who are similarly rocked by anomalies that cast everything they know about physics into question."
"Whatever captivated American readers when the novel was first translated into English in 2014 is barely evident in this ungainly, forgettable TV series."
"This is a story about sacrifice and the ability to be concerned about more than the moment you’re in, and when faced with these kinds of large, ruminative dilemmas... yet somehow 3 Body Problem does not, in any way, feel urgent."
"When a book is deemed “unadaptable”, it is almost interpreted as a challenge. Of course, no book is really unadaptable; the problem is that rendering it on screen will simply be too dull, or confusing. 3 Body Problem is somehow both."
"It’s the equivalent of a cheap house flip, gutting a beautiful midcentury structure and redoing every room in shades of millennial gray."
"A collection of mysteries that, while rarely boring, is too untidy to consistently grip the imagination."
"Most of 3 Body Problem’s adaptation choices just feel like failed attempts to spice things up."
"... A tired, heavy, slow and drawn-out resolution that is finally expressed in three long yawns."
"The background material is weak, and the new ideas are virtually all depressingly familiar."
