Everyone wanted a Game of Thrones clone except the Game of Thrones showrunners, who made us one better
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When Game of Thrones ended in May 2019, the hunt was well on for a series that could match its blockbuster scale. HBO was already talking about spin-offs with George RR Martin, while Netflix's The Witcher, Disney's The Mandalorian, Apple's Foundation, Paramount Plus' Halo and Amazon's mega-budget game about a Lord of the Rings prequel bubbled in various stages of development and production. Five years later, all the shows exist – but there is no clear champion. Even the reactions to HBO's prequel, House of the Dragon, were more glorified golf pats than talk of a franchise's second coming.
What the wannabe successors proved (as everyone seemed to know at the time except IP-hungry execs?) is that Thrones' secret wasn't scale, but substantive drama. A great show needs characters with big questions and big goals, but down-to-earth emotions. The balance of a continent could depend on brave knights and ancient prophecies and dragon battles as long as when those involved went mad it felt like real people went mad. Despite all the finale-related blemishes, Thrones showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss were given the time and space to adapt the human side of Martin's sprawling story as well as its set pieces. So it's no surprise that while the rest of Hollywood was chasing tentpoles, Benioff and Weiss put aside their boyhood dreams of making a Star Wars movie (phew, crisis averted) to cash in on a deal where they could call time and space and quality work that didn't involve swordplay.
And they actually did: Teamed up with veteran TV writer Alexander Woo (The Terror Season 2), their new Netflix series 3 Body Problem, like Thrones, feels epic in scale while exploring the messiness of human instinct. Movies like Interstellar and Solaris ventured into space to confront our innate spirituality, but Season 1 of 3 Body Problem stays close to home in favor of the characters, who juggle romantic relationships and work-life stress and impending doom. Yet there is something alien out there in the universe, a cosmic unknown. Benioff, Weiss and Woo treat that promise like a chemical being pipetted into a petri dish. Just a few drops of knowledge cause an immediate reaction with consequences that will only be felt hundreds of years into the future.
