Netflix's 'What Happened to Monday' Squanders a Fantastic Premise

Maggie Shen King is the author of An Excess Male, a science fiction novel that explores the future consequences of China's one-child policy. The policy was enacted in 1979 in an attempt to curb overpopulation, and even though the country started to phase it out two years ago it led to a huge shortage of potential wives due to so many parents choosing to have sons instead of daughters. "It sounds like dystopian fiction, but in actuality China was the one nation that had the political system and the wherewithal to enforce the policy," King says in Episode 279 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "And 40 years of this is very, very scary to think about." Overpopulation has been a popular theme in science fiction for decades, from the movie Soylent Green, based on the Harry Harrison novel Make Room! Make Room! to the Star Trek episode "The Mark of Gideon."