Some Disappointing News About The ‘3 Body Problem’ Season 2 Release Date On Netflix

3 Body Problem is Netflix’s adaptation of the famed sci-fi series by Liu Cixin, a sci-fi series that arrived with decent reviews on a very large budget, raising questions about whether it would be renewed.

The answer ended up being yes, but in an unusual way. This included a season 2 and 3 renewal, but ones that were closely connected. Very closely, as a new update from the Hungarian Nation Film Office has revealed that season 2 and 3 will be filmed back to back, meaning a smaller gap between seasons.

However, with production not scheduled to begin until July of 2025 and supposedly end in August of 2027 with both seasons filming, that means with post-production season 2 probably would not air until 2028.

As a refresher, this series came out in March of 2024, so we are looking at a nearly four year gap between seasons 1 and 2, even if 3 comes shortly after. Even in the streaming era where some of the longest gaps are interminable three year waits (looking at you, Wednesday), that’s pretty absurd.

Is all this worth it for this show? It’s got a just-fine 79% critic score and a 77% audience score and was not exactly impactful in the cultural zeitgeist. The budget was reportedly around $20 million an episode, exceptionally high, and renewal seemed like far from a sure thing. But the catches here were A) it would be somewhat embarrassing to start a hugely famous adaptation like this and not finish it and B) Netflix has a deal with Game of Thrones’ David Benioff and DB Weiss, and this is their first major project with the service with supposedly more to come. Would not be great to kill the show for that reason.

But I have to wonder what interest in season 2 of this show is going to be potentially four years after the release of season 1 where it’s all a distant memory. And without being some ultra-fantastic series, something that audiences may not exactly be itching to see in the first place compared to other series.

Streaming production times are getting absolutely ridiculous at this point. Outside of rare yearly productions like The Bear or Slow Horses, 1.5-3 years is now the standard. This is an industry that used to give us 10 episode Game of Thrones seasons every year. Why does this keep happening now?

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.