One month after Bilibili launched its new animated adaptation of The Three-Body Problem, rival Chinese streaming platform Tencent Video has revealed the first episodes in its own, live-action TV series based on Liu Cixin’s Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novel. The first episode was made available on Tencent Video, Migu Video, and China Central Television 8 on Jan. 15, with a further three episodes available to Tencent Video subscribers. Tencent Video declared that within its first hour the show had broken popularity rating records for a debut drama on its platform. The 30-episode project, which focuses on the first novel in Liu’s trilogy, was first announced in 2019 and filming was completed in late 2020, ensuring Tencent’s show debuted ahead of Netflix’s own Three-Body Problem live-action adaptation, which has yet to announce a release date. While Bilibili’s animated adaptation has a score of just 4.6 out of 10 on user reviews site Douban, after garnering over 100 million views in its first two days, the Tencent version has so far been receiving rave reviews, with many viewers commenting that it remains more faithful to the original novel. [Securities Times, in Chinese]