f13.net

Trailer etc.  (http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse)

Seems like a legit effort by Syfy, I'm intrigued.

How Thomas Jane has fallen :(

Fallen? From being the Punisher, or from being a Gigolo on tv?

I've never even heard of him so I suppose it's a step up for me.

How could you not? he was a vegan cop on Scott Pilgrim!

He was in Boogie Nights, to film star (Punisher, the Mist, etc.) to HBO to...  Syfy channel.


I managed to make it through the first book in this series, and found it pretty meh, though there seems to be a bunch of people who love it.  The plot was Scoobie Doo levels of extremely complicated shenanigans and the antagonist made no sense.

The world is kind of more interesting.  Earth with the numbers, Mars is independent and more technologically advanced, and they balance each other out so that the other settlements in the asteroid belt/around other planets in the solar system maintain some independence.  I mean, it's incredibly convenient that Mars is somehow technologically ahead of Earth balance out their numbers advantage and blah-blah-blah.


It was like reading bad Scalzi.  Everything John Scalzi writes fits together like a perfect jiggsaw puzzle, but generally people enjoy him enough or find enough nuance in the portrayals to give him a pass on his convenient plotting.  The Expanse books felt just as ridiculously engineered but without that charm to make you overlook it.

But then again, the books have been pretty popular so what do I know.

Could be good. It's got a decent cast.

I enjoyed the series somewhat. The central characters began to grate after a while--you could buy them being at the center of events once but not every time, though there was some effort to explain how their accidental celebrity began to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It could make for decent space opera if they put some money into it.

You know, I think that's the only thing I ever saw him in.  I looked him up, though, and he looked familiar.  Thanks for the reference.  I looked up some of those comics, too, and I really hope this is good.  It looks really fun.

Looks pretty good.

Being circumspect so as not to spoiler:

I didn't get it.  There were some parts that showed promise, but too often it felt like they knew where they wanted to go and weren't afraid to massively hand-wave shit to get there while winking and saying "it's space opera"...  plus the Scooby Doo shenanigans and the Complete Monster antagonist with a plot that didn't make sense.  Literally, it was the Underwear Gnomes plan.

The author (Corey) is a pseudonym for the Daniel Abraham and writing partner.  Abraham is one of those guys that SFF boards love but he hasn't really had much mainstream success, and I wrote alot of the love off as fans trying to get behind a more accessible work of a beloved author.

The pilot episode just released and I gotta say, it's pretty good.  Probably SyFy's best effort since BSG, as I don't consider Defiance to be a "best effort."  First thing you will notice... is this show has to cost the network a metric fuckton of money to make.  The CGI is pretty top notch and there's just enough viscerality to stave off the uncanny valley.  This is probably due in part to the filters used.  They've done a nice job eliminating video effect; things are suitably "dusty" in this sense.  

The overarching ambiance of the show fits together nicely, and some scenes are frankly pretty breathtaking.  Script?  Fairly well writ, though get ready to crank up the volume as there's a lot of hushed tones and complex jargon to pick up on.  The acting is passable, with a few notable faces of course.

That said, it does indeed feel like Game of Thrones in space (as reviewers have stated).  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of GoT.  Way too many characters and subplots to follow.  This show follows a similar methodology.  That, and expect it to be heavily serialized.

I suspect many will fall in love with it, but for me... I dunno, probably not.  And I'm as hardcore a sci-fi geek as there is.  In the sci-fi sense, this show has just about everything you'd want to see; from augments, to low-G mutant sexcapades, to capital ships and space stations.  Then again, this is just the pilot and the remainder of the series may be clownshoes.

Yeah, that was actually pretty good. Decently hard/gritty sci-fi. A few spots I was confused (what did the girl at the start see and freak out about?)
Nice strong ending. I want to see more.

Book spoiler answer to your spoilered question:

Best show on Syfy since Battlestar Galactica.  I'm hooked.

This is so fucking good, it's not funny. Gritty, dark and realistic enough to pass a bunch of bullshit tests.

I dig.

It diverges from the books in a number of ways (some of which make a lot of sense for a TV adaptation, some less so), but nothing that fundamentally breaks it.  Definitely enjoying it.  Hasn't been any solid grungy spaceships sci-fi on TV since BSG.

Holy crap.

From what I've read, the major change is the TV show is following characters that are important in later books in season one, so that you are introduced to major characters in season 2 etc now.

Yea pretty much just that.

This show captures the books almost perfectly. I'd agree with the best since BSG comment, except I haven't watched anything on SyFy since BSG :-)

So yeah, this is really good.

As for SyFy's shows, this year has actually been okay for them. The Expanse being the best one so far, imo. Dark Matter, 12 Monkeys, and Killjoys were good enough to watch. And I like Dominion well enough to keep it on my DVR (though that started in 2014 I think).

There was a min-marathon on this morning and I gave it a shot for two and a half episodes. ( end of ep1, all of 2 and 3) I'll pass.

There might be a good story here, but I couldn't tell. Three things killed it for me:

1) The heavy Orange/ Teal "all scenes must be one color" cinematography. It was obnoxious and led to a very flat, boring look.

2) There's no low-end on the sound. I've got hearing loss but even I picked-up the terrible audio, meaning it was incredibly hard to hear most of the talking. (Why is sound compression a thing on a TV show?)  I checked on both the other TVs to be sure it wasn't just the one in the bedroom. I know the female Persian woman from other things and her voice was totally off so I couldn't understand her, which is what tipped me to it.

3) The concept felt like it was trying too hard. I didn't care about Mars, Earth or the guys on the blown-up shuttle (freighter?) It felt more like I was jumping into the middle of a long-running series. When I found out I wasn't in the middle I realized there was no more backstory I couldn't get into it. I hate in medias res in general, though, so that's very me-specific.

Don't agree on the story--it's nice to have something that just jumps in and trusts in the intelligence of the audience.

But agree on the sound editing. It's actually pretty terrible on most of the dialogue.

Agree about the orange & teal palette, it's egregious. However it's almost universally endemic now so I have to try and shrug it off or I find 95% of all shows and films annoying.

Also agree about the terrible sound. So, so muddy. But, after the first episode I started being able to understand the dialogue much better. I think I've adjusted to the accents, which are pretty well done. It reminded me of watching The Wire the first time, when I had to put subtitles on for a few episodes and then it all started to become clear.

Those two technical issues aside though, I'm loving this. I think it's very well done and it's a nice change to see some hard science fiction that isn't dross. I was quite impressed when I saw a Δv symbol on a tracking monitor on one of the ships  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, I'm enjoying the hell out of this.  I hope the ratings are good enough to justify the cost because i want to know where the story goes.  I guess i could just read the books if it gets canceled.

I've heard some people say the sound is really good, and others say it's really bad. Maybe it depends on your setup. Using just TV speakers I do find it hard to understand some of the dialogue in parts.

Overuse of filters and post-processing normally bothers me a lot but I didn't mind in this. That's why I never got into Breaking Bad, the first episode was so desaturated and brown with filters that I couldn't watch it.

Syfy's website for this show is pretty cool if you're like me and wanted some more background on the setting.

Thanks to this thread, I gave it a shot.  Loving the series so far.

I wanna invest in it, but later on does it get any more grounded?  I can't do another scatterbrained over-plotted series. 

If they stick to the books, it will eventually get overplotted, yes. Quite considerably so.

Caught this over the weekend. Rather good. Mars Navy are badass...

Glad to see Syfy has all the episodes up for streaming. It's pretty good.

Really enjoying this.  I like the stranded crew storyline as well as the Julie Mao storyline. 

I dont know, compared to the shit going on at any given time in Game of Thrones, the Expanse series is usually fairly tightly wound.

That's true enough. I think it's mostly the level of contrivance required to keep the central characters involved in every major event in the solar system starts to become strained.

I didn't read the books but I'm willing to endure a bit of Forest Gumping for the sake of a good story. I like the TV series, its the best thing that came out of SyFy since BSG, and calling them out on plot contrivances seems a bit petty to me.

Also the show is in the build up to the crap storm really errupting phase as well. I am sure a lot of people who never read the book are looking at the miller stuff and wondering what the hell does this have to do with anything.

Godammit fine.  I will get into this. (on the premise it's not completely GoT-plodding)  :uhrr:

That's exactly the position I am in. Starting to see some connections now though.

At the rate they are going it should start getting clearer and clearer in the next episode or two and then shit gets really real. And while it seems like the whole julie mao thing is a weird side story it really is not.

I totally get that, this clearly isn't the kind of show where they show you things to pad out the 45 minutes. That awareness alone makes me try and pay attention to everything.

There's way less moving parts than GoT. But there's a lot to set up the world I guess and the episodes are kind of short compared to GoT. And since it's basic cable they can't just shoot porn scenes and have a monologue in the foreground as an info dump. It shouldn't sprawl into a gigantic ensemble cast like GoT where you go chapters or episodes without seeing your favorite character. The main cast is probably going to remain a lot smaller than BSG. Things will clear up.

Not much more to say than I'm liking this. Go Syfy channel!

Didn't care for the torture scenes.  Boring.  Enjoyed the Rocinate crew and Fred Johnson. God I love that name for some reason. 

Personally I like his other name

I think I'm now finally beginning to understand what it felt like for GoT book fans (which I was) when people who never read the books started watching the HBO series (which I've never seen).

Like Hayduke said, this doesn't have nearly as much going on as GoT did. The story is way more linear with clear resolution points at the end of each book, and there's never more than four long concurrent storylines going on, which all converge by each book's end.
 
It's space opera in that Corey spends a lot of time setting the stage. But it's not so opera that each character is a whole series unto themselves like GoT became in later books.

I don't agree with Khaldun though: this never really gets overplotted outsiide of a half of one of the books.

I want this to be successful mostly because as cool as the first season could be when it ends (assuming it aligns with the end of the first book), the end of Cibola Burn is even better (though that was the book which included the overplotted portion).

Binged the first 8 over the past 2 days. I think it works better as a binge. I won't be calling it Got in space, but I am enjoying it.  Filters and sound are bad, some of the acting is not up to snuff, and some of the science seems odd ... but there is a lot I am really enjoying.  I have a feeling I'll have forgotten everything important when season 2 breaks. A lot to hold onto for 9 months.

So far only two things really rub me the wrong way:

Holden's acting and character - just super bland. It's like he's playing "generic guy" character. Some interesting things have happened to him but none of that really comes through in the script or the performance. I mean, him reporting the derelict got all his friends killed, you figure that would make some impact on his character beyond just casually mentioning it once or twice.

The idea that hidden codes would be printed on a fucking scroll in a safe - just lol.

I really love Jane in this - his accent, his beaten-down body language, etc.

The codes thing isn't so weird, something similar is used for nuclear codes to this day (there is a safe containing pieces of paper with the challenge authenticators on them). Hardcopy can't be hacked, there's an assumption that the safe won't be accessible to unfriendlies long enough to non-destructively open it.

As for Holden, he had the same problem in the book. It gets worse.

--Dave

I really don't like the UN Deputy ambassador or whatever lady. Her voice just pisses me off.

She gave the best performance of the series in one of the last two episodes -

She's an excellent actress... first popped up on my radar in 24 I think?

Get used to her or give up, her character is pivotal to the entire series... in some ways in the real heroine.

It feels like she's supposed to be a morally grey character in terms of actions (maybe even generally good but with a bunch of realpolitik), but the way she is played makes it seem like we're supposed to dislike her. The accent is certainly part of that - she comes across as very upper-caste.

In the scene where she was sharing details about her son's death it felt like manipulation to me. Not sure if that is intentional or not. I don't mind the performance at all though. Though I also wouldn't mind if her character is eventually shot into space.

Her voice is certainly very deep. In my head she's called Bari White. Is that racist? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Watched episode 9 last night. Shit got crazy fast.

Also the telescope in the dead ambassador's office was pointed the wrong way round.  :awesome_for_real:

I like her, if nothing else for the gorgeous threads they put her in each episode (she must be the costume designer's fantasy). Holden is usually pretty annoying but I enjoyed his interaction with Jane in the finale.

Season 2 is confirmed but looks like we'll have to wait a year to see it. Bummer. Might have to try 12 monkeys.

If you have not seen it deffinately give 12 monkies a shot. I was pretty dubious when I heard about it but the production values are really high and it wound up being way more interesting than I had any right to expect it to be.

I wasn't a big fan of the finale. The first 20 minutes or so, showing old events from a new perspective, didn't really introduce new information or advance the plot, and was more "hmm our plot is pretty complicated let's do an extended recap." (To be fair which one is the Anubis and which one the Scopuli I did find pretty confusing)

The wandering around in the tunnels felt bit uncharacteristically cheap, and the whole thing just felt dragged out. It was enough content for 1.5 episodes, stretched into 2.

That said still looking forward to a season 2.

I didn't mind the finale. When fast-forwarding through commercials it was pretty much exactly an hour long, so only a little longer than the traditional 40mins.

I still get confused about what ship they are on/talking about, even though I try to pay attention to that since it's somewhat important. Reading the books doesn't seem to help with that when watching the show, though I generally know where to *expect* people to be in various time frames.

Was anyone else bothered by how expansive the Roci's deck was?  Spaced is supposed to be at a premium in spaceships and it feels wasteful, especially on a military ship.

Not really, as there is plenty of space in space, so to speak.

The reason we see cramped spaceships in modern times is due to the horrible thrust to fuel to mass ratio we're trapped in with chemical rockets. It costs so much fuel to move a mass, then you have to have even more fuel to move the mass of the fuel you added to move the original mass -- it hits a hard limit pretty soon. The ships of The Expanse don't seem to have that problem, as they have found some way to get enough energy out of the tube to keep constant g thrusting going for days at a time. Cuts solar system travel time down to weeks instead of years and plus means you don't have to care as much about each and every little gram. Also means you can pretend to have gravity for the trip.

But while we're talking about how things appear-- Have we maybe finally crossed the threshold to where enough of the mainstream audience doesn't expect to see WWII style combat in space that we can finally move ahead to what things might actually look like? I mean, I love me some Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, but each one of those and more supposedly set-in-space shows feed right into the common visualization of WWII era fighter planes and battleships duking it out on and over the high seas. Maybe, just maybe enough people have been raised watching real live people operate real live spaceships in space (I count robots probes in that too) that we can expect at least better settings in future set-in-space shows, if not better stories.

Anyhoo. Loved the show, can't wait for next season.

The space battles in early B5 were some of the best for that shit. The fighters in particular carried out newtonian physics and on-point turns really awesomely. It wasn't until later seasons when it became closer to swoopy WW2 fighting but still maintained a lot of the earlier concepts.

I'm going to lose a lot of nerd cred for this, but I never watched Babylon 5. No good reason, just "never got around to it."

Looks like I've been missing out.

Only the first 2 seasons are worth watching.

The books go into a bit more detail on the Epstein drive, although it's still a bit of a handwaving Macguffin: It's an extremely efficient form of fusion drive, developed as an advance on an ordinary fusion torch drive by a man who wanted to reach another star (so he needed more efficiency in order to get up to relativistic speeds). But he left behind the plans, and it became the standard space drive  (this had various economic effects, for example the Canterbury was a first-generation slowboat colony ship that was refitted and used for an ice-hauler).

A lot of what has dictated the tight confines of our spaceships has also been the problem of re-entry, the more surface area that has to be protected from the heat of re-entry aero-braking the higher the risk (the shuttle might seem like an exception...but is it really?). Ships that can bring themselves to an orbital halt and ease into the atmosphere (or that will never enter atmosphere at all) don't have that concern. Cube-square law, if you double the radius of a solid you square the amount of surface but cube the amount of volume, so if you're not trimming down to the absolute minimum, you may as well give yourself room to move around.

--Dave

EDIT: The Rocinante/Tachi is also a gunship with a monster drive for its size (the book notes that it is capable of acclerations that would kill the crew even with drugs and high-tech acceleration couches). It was designed for a much larger crew (20 plus a contingent of Marines), so with 4 people they have a little spare space.

Another point about the size of the Rocinante - we make space vehicles small and light today because we have to launch them from a planet. Getting out of gravity wells requires a LOT of delta v. Every kilogram you have to push into orbit needs at least 10 times it's weight in fuel. If you're building ships in space that aren't intended to ever land on anything bigger than small moons and asteroids then you can be a lot more liberal with the mass.

This is the best point, I think.  I had forgotten about the originally intended crew compliment.  Otherwise, despite not needing to worry about atmospheric flight, it's still a combat ship in a universe where they are lobbing torpedoes at each other across vast distances, so presenting a slimmer target would seem like one of the most important things.

They're lobbing *nukes* at each other across vast distances. "CQB", Close Quarters Battle where the gatlings and railguns come into play, is supposed to be an extremely rare event (the gatlings are primarily for point defense, the railguns for attacking unarmed or nearly unarmed ships that won't surrender and you don't want to nuke).

--Dave

Just binged it the last two days. Liked it quite a bit and good adaptation considering its SyFy and TV.  I agree that some of the casting is off to my mind (mostly on the too young side for Holden and Amos, who in particular should be much more grizzled but I actually do like this guy's performance). Lots of other good choices though, particular Cutty from The Wire and Johnson and Jared Harris as Dawes (who knew Lane could be such a badass brute).

I must be seriously mis-remembering the book or accelerating some events from the second half that they didn't cover because

Book spoiler, don't click unless you want a major spoiler:


I think Caliban's War is actually the better book and they can do some really interesting stuff with it.  So good work SyFy building a good base to move forward.

Someone up thread mentioned that there are 4 books. There are actually 5 (6th one comes out in August). I have the newest one on my shelf but haven't cracked it yet.

EDIT: Book based spoilers, don't read just because you're caught up on the show.

--Dave

Oh ya. Thanks.  Bad memory.

There's a backstory to Holden they haven't gotten into yet (can't remember if it even comes up before book 3), but what you don't like about his acting is actually him acting the role as defined in the book. He's pretty much a bland character that shit happens to but he makes the right decisions because he's trying to be decent.

It's just that there's a very narrow gulf between "play the everymane" and "play super bland" :-)

Read the first book and halfway through the second one.  The writing really falls apart in the second.

Oh yea, you gotta get sucked into the story to get through the writing that otherwise starts to get in the way. Corey is a very new writer. He starts to get more polished around book 4 (I think book 3 was the weakest iirc).

The only reason I started reading him was before Leviathan was on special and while I don't mind paying for kindle books, I don't like paying more than $4 per book. I consume them too quickly to justify higher costs. So instead I've lowered my standards of quality  :grin:

Currently going through all of Sanderson's stuff. Actually, after reading the latest Mistborn, I think I've gotten through everything. I'm sure a bunch of you don't like him for whatever reason. But he's got a great imagination, remains pretty self-consistent, and doesn't mind having completely different universes with completely different rules.

It's actually a "they" not a "him."  It's two guys writing under a pseudonym, so you will have some variability in the writing style book to book and even chapter to chapter I have noticed.

One half of Corey is. The other half is Daniel Abraham, who is spectacularly good on his own. He did the Long Price Quartet, which is truly phenomenal, and is working through The Dagger and the Coin series -- next book is book 6 and last I think.

He also wrote some entertaining urban fantasies as M. L. N. Hanover.

Solid opening to the second season tonight. They are really jumbling around the order of some stuff if my (admittedly faulty memory) is any guide.

Goddamn, that was indeed an excellent double episode. Marred very slightly by having to pause it every 15 mins to explain to my wife what was going on. She really struggles to understand what they're saying.

I did laugh at the breaching pods labelled FedEx  :awesome_for_real:

They're obviously taking some liberties, looks like they are going to compress the last half of the first book with all of the second (skipping the Ganymede subplot completely).

Still awesome. Bobby Draper throws you, she looks like a little 'china doll', then you realize she's 6 freaking feet tall and could probably break me over her knee.

--Dave

The fact they were able to find an actress of similar stature to the book as well as heritage is pretty impressive go go human diversity.

Most people probably don't care too much, but I figure F13 may: I really really like the fact that space ship combat at least tries to stick to realistic intertial space physics rather than starwars pewpew.

I also really care about that. And I also really care that they use realistic space travel physics. If you pause it when they're showing charts and graphics of ships in flight and routes etc, it's proper orbital mechanics. Someone done been playing some Kerbals.  :awesome_for_real:

Maybe not.

--Dave

They just dropped the name as their next destination, so the place itself will come into play in some way I imagine. 

They did the ending of Leviathan really well even if it is odd in its placement within the tv series.

Haven't read the books.

I have enjoyed this TV show tremendously though.  Just great all the way through.

Yep, me too.  Really good tv.

They are doing an amazing job with this show.  Great version of the start of Caliban's War and they are finally getting Avarasala's character closer to the awesome book version.

Yah I really like this. Took me until season four of GoT to regard the ASoIaF books as the novelizations of HBO's Game of Thrones. This show did it much faster.

Honestly our week revolves around this show now. It's as thrilling as GoT for me.

Same here, just superb. The pacing is relentless (I haven't read the books). And I am transfixed by Avasarala's outfits. I think she's my favourite character in it.

Why does the UK not have s2 yet ?

 :heartbreak:

Revenge for BSG.

--Dave

Yeah, we do seem to get some stuff really early lately, so I should probably just shut my yap.

But I liked S1 a bit and you guys seem to be creaming about s2, so it makes me sad.

Man, they are just fucking killing it this season.  Sooooo good.

This show is SO good.  I didn't think Thomas Jane had it in him to be honest.

If they follow the books at all (and they seem to be trying to for the critical bit), you'll see more of him in a season or two.

--Dave

I have the season sitting on my DVR unwatched. Watch or delete?

Which season? Season 1 is a bit of a slow burn but Season 2 has been killing it week to week and is worth going through 1.

Season 1 is worth it for itself, although the sfx on Eros are a little B-movie grade. And it's really important for setting up season 2, which has been awesome.

--Dave

Ya, didn't mean to come off like Season 1 was not good.  I loved it, but it doesn't have the momentum that Season 2 does and you'd be pretty lost without having seen it.

You kind of need Season 1 to get that these guys don't start as best buddies, and how Holden ends up a celebrity the first time, and a lot of other backstory that has continuing significance.

You need season 1 because it's extremely good and far better than almost anything else on TV.  Just because season 2 is better doesn't mean skipping season 1 should even be in discussion.

You should watch it all.  I even like it and I'm not a huge science fiction fan for the most part.  Between this show and Better Call Saul, I'm a happy tv watcher right now.

The second season is waiting on my DVR.  I had mixed feelings about season 1.  I will queue Season 2 up and burn through it one of these weekends.  Thanks everyone. 

I'm a couple episodes into the second season and am noticing the typical syfy slide.  Weaker acting, poor plot choices, etc.  Especially those martian marines.  I really hope they all die horribly, they are barely tolerable.  Still solid performances from a lot of the leads though.

The plot choices are from the books.

I think the acting's been great. Plot is from the books, and it's mostly great. Not sure how I'll feel about a particular character from the 3rd book that I didn't like so much, but otherwise, fine.

If you don't like all those marines, well, keep watching.

Watched through E5 last night.  Much better.  Totally hooked again.

Frankly, the transition to the 2nd book's plot is rough--it's even rough in the books.

Reading the 5th book now and pretty surprised at the status quo shakeup in the middle. Will be interested if the show gets that far.

The acting's mostly been good but one scene in the last episode of the season made me cringe.


Other than that though, loved season 2. I'm itching to read the books but I think I'll wait until the show is finished.

I've binge watched a bit of this over the last few days.

Its quite good (hence the binge watching), but there is some very uneven acting, and some choices about how the characters are portrayed that I think diverges from the books for the worse. Or maybe it's just bad acting there too?

Sadly I think the guy playing Holden is one of these areas.

Makes me want to re-read the books though. I stopped after book 3 last time because it just lost it too much for me.

Having read the books I think helps me enjoy the show more, but it does also make me wonder at the direction sometimes: they belabour poignant points to the extent they strip them of impact a bit too often, especially when it comes at the cost of a little more (already written) supporting context.

I liked that sequence. It is actually a prequel short story called The Drive (http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/prequel.php) that they put out first in an anthology and then as a booklet as part of a Con promo.

Ah, I guess that explains it. The book reference is quite glib (in a funny way) IIRC, so I thought the show writers had made it up to try and force emotion in. I'm (obviously) not up to date.

Was definitely a tonal shift, so I could see how it was a bit jarring. I just thought it was well executed and in step with the whole "real physics" aspect of the books/show.

One thing I remember from the books that seems missing most from the show so far (only a few episodes in to season 2),

If memory serves they actually make a pretty good joke about it later in season 2.

It didn't really belong in the episode though ;  True Story -  I can't remember how he got out of his predicament.  I literally can't remember the last bit when he was getting sandwiched and couldn't switch it off.

Of course, I'm senile, so there's that.

I have bad news for you my friend.

Really ?  Goddamn..

That's why I like it. Physics don't play.

Physics don't provide an afterlife neither, so how are we hearing his story? Also, as physics don't play, how did they know what he had done and how to replicate it?

P.S. I liked it and I will not hear a bad word said about The Expanse, except maybe the acting of the guy who plays Diogo.

Because his wife knew what he was doing and what he intended and they had solid tracking data on him all the way. So anybody watching saw a ship do what was thought impossible and worked until they were able to recreate what he did.

I am pretty sure it was mentioned that he had left his research notes or something with his wife, so there was probably very little work that needed to be done to re-create what he had accomplished.

Yeah, his notes were still in his workshop he mentioned.

This is back, and immediately diverges so far from the books, I suspect they didn't have the rights to the sequels.

--Dave

I can't watch the new series yet where I am (without pirating), but they definitely still have the rights. The James SA Corey Twitter account (controlled by both novelists) has been all about the making of this series. They are still involved directly. Cast members have been eager to say that this season would shock and that it was the most intense for them, so perhaps they've diverged deliberately? BTW I request spoiler tags!

Like TWD, I suspect they'll diverge to increase interest, but the reroute will be superficial with book characters that die on the show replaced with similar characters, with events taking a different path but reaching the same conclusion, etc...

It's hard to see how they get from here to there as far as following the books, since literally the only thing this episode has in common with them is Chekov's Goo.

--Dave

I enjoyed the series, but Holden was miscast for me (a shame, as some of the other casting choices are inspired), and I found it was detracting from my enjoyment of the books. So I can't watch it no more.

"Pitch your tits and pucker up, it's time to peel the paint!"

Who cares if they are following the books beat by beat. This show is great.

As far as casting, I don't think Holden is wrong at all. My only beef on that front is that Amos should be older/more grizzled, but I like the actor's portrayal so much that I don't really care.

The guy playing Amos gets him just right. Alex and Naomi too.

Holden works for me. He was always going to be toughest to cast. You don't want him to look too movie-star Dudley Do-Right so that you get the idea that he's almost falling into the role of being Savior of the Solar System through a series of accidents.

Bobbie Draper is working for me now too; she didn't always earlier on.

I wonder if the missionary lady is showing up this season.

Yes the missionaries show up later this season I believe as I have seen some casting pics of her and some of the other priests.

Now I want to see a Bobbie v. Amos throw-down SO BAD.

In the books, it happens.


But I doubt we will follow that timeline. Hard to do a thirty year jump on TV.

--Dave

Shit just got REAL!

Too real; 'The Expanse' cancelled at Syfy, will be shopped to other networks (http://comicbook.com/tv-shows/2018/05/11/expanse-canceled-syfy-season-3/).

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

I can see why, though--the deal is really bad for Syfy, because it's a very expensive show and the margins are thin for them. I hope Netflix or Amazon or Hulu pick it up.

Amazon seems likely.  They’ve been pushing it hard since they acquired the streaming rights, and have the money to burn.

Although... Netflix streams it in the rest of the world (that's how I watch it in Australia, where it's not on Amazon - it also appears six months late and I can't legally watch it yet).

Amazon is eyeing a 4th Season pickup.

Ha! You knew from the title they were going to do something like that but man they went all-in on the Delta-V.

Yep, having read the books, that episode title was a pretty awesome giveaway.

Woot, its official. Amazon picked it up.  I forgive you Bezos for the extra 20 bucks you are tagging onto Prime.

I just started S1.  It's terrific. Glad there's more to look forward to.

This has pretty much become my favorite SF episodic series.

Ya, its really good. The way they pulled off Abadon's Gate in only  half a season was pretty impressive.  Can't wait to see what they do from here with Amazon.

I’m in S2.  It's grand space opera, but the fact they give a shit about the characters and actually develop them is admirable.

I'll be curious to see if they get on and off Ilus relatively quickly, as Cibola Burn is maybe the slowest of the books in plot terms. But it's overall really critical to establishing the new status quo, so they'll have to think carefully about it.

At the end of the 3rd season finale, my wife was like, "Oh, now it's going to be Star Trek and Holden will be like Kirk, that's sort of disappointing". I was like, nope.

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I was given the first three books as a trilogy and loved them.  Then I learned there were several more with no apparent end in sight.  Is it worth continuing on with the series or do we think it's going to end in frustration as these things often do?

It's a signed 9 book series, book 8 comes out this December, they have been releasing once a year the whole time (only delay was 6 months, from June to December, when the TV series started).

And do they hold up?

I'mma skipping over most of the comments here since you guys are spoiling the hell out of future developments (curse you literate people who read the book first!), but I just wanted to jump in and say that this last season was science fiction perfection for me. They even got the ships turned around right to show them braking into orbit (something they screwed up a couple of times in second season). Tech stuff that looked right, lots of zero-g action, reasonable human reactions to things, good political backdrop, and I don't think they ever "reversed the polarity" once.

Glad they got the Amazon gig. Can't wait to see what they do with it.

And Amos is perfect:

The books hold up so far, in my humble opinion. There is very little sense of stalling or padding--each book moves the status quo forward significantly, sometimes startlingly so. The characters are also getting older and that is making a difference. The antagonists are mostly interesting, complex and generally somewhat sympathetic in some way. Won't go into the details. The major shoe that has still to drop is anything particularly detailed about the Ultimate Menace which has made its appearance for the first time in the last few episodes of this season.

I would say Cibola Burn (the 4th book), is the weakest of the bunch, though if you are a big enough fan of the series, it's still pretty good.

The books (at least the first 4-5) were written (according to the authors) with specific themes in mind.

Book 1: Space Opera + Noir
Book 2: Space Opera + Tom Clancy
Book 3: Space Opera + Haunted house
Book 4: Space Opera + Western

I think I read an article that book 5 was Space Opera + War and Peace, but there might have been some joking involved. I am up-to-date on the books and am looking forward to see how they conclude the series in Books 8/9.

There are also novellas/short stories (4 or 5 I think), if you blow through the main books. At least 2 of the short stories have been turned into episodes/arcs in episodes.

My view (stated in the book thread, of all places) is that the first book is the best but that the later ones are still readable and enjoyable, if a bit more padded out. Got to expect that if they're churning one out every year, though.

Not sure they can deliver on the undercurrent they're been teasing, but will keep reading and see.

Showrunner gave an interview where he makes pretty clear that season 4 will not be entirely on Ilus, but will instead do some work back in the solar system also that will set up the transition to the fifth book's main plot arc.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-expanse-showrunner-talks-about-the-move-to-amazon-a-1827815805

All three seasons of The Expanse have just gone live on Amazon Prime video (Amazon's cheap Netflix equivalent), after Bezos saved the series. Season 4 coming soon.

It's no longer a Syfy network show, but it is the best sci-fi show right now.

I always forget how good this show is.

I had not read the books (I've started now) and the TV show always leads to "holy shit" moments for me.

It's just such a good combination: a long-term narrative arc that's not afraid to unsettle the status quo and where you believe (for good reason) that almost anything could happen; some relatable, interesting characters; some smart thinking about the politics and sociology of human society in this setting; and some serious respect for the technological underpinnings of the show.

Loved the books, loved the TV series. Keep em coming!!!

Nine.
More.
Days.

Then it's time to lose an entire weekend binge watching the whole season :P

Which reminds me I might need to, uh, Shiver Me Timbers, and get caught up on this.  Have only seen the first two seasons, seeing as how they took it away from Netflix, the socialist bastards.

The third season is the best so far. It's also interestingly structured a bit like a Walking Dead season - a new arc begins mid-season.

They seem to have structured it so that cliffhangers can happen at the end of seasons so they aren't doing a season a book. Book 1 ended mid-season 2 and season 2 and 3 seems to have handled books 2 and 3. Not sure how the books are structured after that, but they aren't keeping themselves to a strict outline according to the books.

4th book is pretty self-contained story-wise so I don't expect a ton of cutting back and forth to different venues as much as previous seasons.  I think they may likely do the full story arc for book 4 this season.  The story of book 5 really doesn't mesh with book 4 well at all, the main players are literally not in the same systems across the 2 books.

I suspect they'll do all of book 4 but start seeding book 5, if for no other reason than you don't get any Avasarala in book 4 except at the beginning (and maybe the end? I don't recall clearly.) 

I also think they may take the time to introduce a certain Martian commander who is important later in the series.

Agreed. They will have to sprinkle some of that in there to prep as I don't see how they can even do all of book 5 in one season given the split perspectives unless they change up the structure, although that would kinda blow apart all the plot lines.

I suspect they'll take care of a lot of the ground work for Book 5 with Bobbie's adventures on Mars this season as well as perhaps with the Belters. Depending on how they play things out they could spend the end of the season setting up Book 5

Season 4 dropped early. Available to stream now on Amazon Prime.

First episode was too much "Previously on the Expanse...", the second episode top-notch.

I’m two episodes in and like what I see so far.

Finally got my boy into it and caught up so starting S4 tomorrow (although I secretly watched the first ep on the night it dropped).  The full re-watch was pretty cool. Actually forgot a few surprises and story beats.  Jane is so damn good in this. Also had a newfound respect for Elizabeth Mitchell and what she did with Anna who in the books is pretty drab.  Glad Gee got into the opening credits as she is great and Drummer is one of my favorite characters. She seemed pretty pumped about it on twitter.

I rewatched seasons 1-3 in preparation (loved 3 even more this time). I've done 4 episodes of season 4 and I'm loving it. At this point I could imagine there being complaints about not enough happening this season, but what do I know (haven't read further than book 2, and I guess a lot can happen in 6 episodes). However, where do you go with a storyline that has opened up possibilities on this scale? You use subplots to paint the big picture. This is the right approach.

Goddamn, I really love this show. 

Finished binge'ing this.  Really enjoyed it overall, as usual!  I'll stick a few minor quibbles into the spoilers, as well as some questions for book readers.  Note, I discuss ending and cliffhangers, so it is full spoilers.

Ugh, never mind, went a head and googled spoilers.  I'll probably stop bothering to watch this show over that silly plot point.

I just finished season 4 and thought it was fantastic.


I think they're scriptwriting the series much better than they wrote the books (I've read one and a half). The characters have more dimensions and any changed/sped-up plot points improve the story for TV.

I read spoilers from the books on what happens next.  That's the silly plot point that bugs me.  Maybe the series will write it to be a bit different, but ugh.

Great season and our speculation was pretty spot on.

Teleku, keep with it. Don't know how far ahead you read, but even hitting highlights really doesn't give insight on to where the narrative goes.  Plus, Amos's journey in book 5 is one of my favorite of all 8 books so far (assuming they do it on the show). Naomi's is pretty great too.

Book Spoiler that gives away plot that hasn't happened yet:

Eh, I think you’re selling things short Tele. I disliked that plot for a few reasons, but it doesn’t really get rid of what you like, it just changes it.

Yes, that's what I mean as well. It doesn't do what you think it does.

Fair enough!  I haven't read the books, just read spoilers.  Show could do it a bit differently also.  Was just being grumpy before, I know I'll keep watching regardless.

Exactly.

I have no idea how they are going to handle the '20 years later' transition of the last couple of books. Seems kind of hard to handwave.

--Dave

Cast is aging pretty nicely into it; they could probably do the next two seasons in a 'present' frame and then skip ahead just fine 4-5 years from now in real world time with some makeup.

As for the skip of several years, I doubt they'll address it at all. It's either makeup for the whole cast or just not worry about it. At most, they may make it shorter, like 10 years, say and just handwave it away.

Just finished binging it this week and damn it was good. The piling on of perils was getting a little much but I felt they wrapped it all up pretty well in the last two episodes. I kind of agree about the boarding action - did Ashford really think he'd win with just 3 boarders? It seemed very compressed and odd numbers wise. Other than those two things, I fucking loved it and can't wait for the next season.

Well...fuck.

https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-expanse-star-cas-anvar-investigation-sexual-misconduct-allegations-1202971689/?fbclid=IwAR1vbs-bIbloo9WJtQfwTSulN6keKLDjJ5ZwTjZpCDQJIPv9MFZPzxh_q8s (https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-expanse-star-cas-anvar-investigation-sexual-misconduct-allegations-1202971689/?fbclid=IwAR1vbs-bIbloo9WJtQfwTSulN6keKLDjJ5ZwTjZpCDQJIPv9MFZPzxh_q8s)

Cas Anvar accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. I loved how much he advocated for the Expanse but assuming this goes how I presume there is no way he'll stay on the show. I don't know if they'd just recast or if it'd kill the show or what.

Well fuck.

Shit.

I would assume recast. I think it can survive him being recast--he is kind of the weakest character in the books too imho. I think recasting Naomi or Amos would be pretty destructive because the actors do such a good job with much more difficult/complicated characters.

Recasting Amos would absolutely destroy that show. He is hands down one of my favorite characters on TV as much for how well the actor does with that role as much as how he's written.

Seriously, that could have been SO BAD and instead Wes Chatham finds even more depth and value in the character than the books even hint at. Imagine an actor just playing him as a tough-guy hard-ass action hero dude.

Ya, this sucks. S5 is already done, which will make its release super weird with this all happening and could lead to delays or even cancellation.  Maybe Bezos can throw some big money to either the victims themselves or victim orgs to smooth things over since he likes the show so much.

Fuck that guy for jeopardizing such a good show just to get his dick wet or run privilege trips. If they can power through, just cast Naveen Andrews in the role and keep going. Hell, kill off Alex since he is kinda useless anyways and put in some other pilot. You will lose one very powerful scene regarding Bobby if they ever get to it but that's about it.  Rework Peaches to be the pilot going forward as that wouldn't be much of a stretch.

I though Chatham was way too young to play Amos when the show first started based on how I saw Amos in my head from reading the books, but he is so good in it I can't see anyone else playing him at this point and he has made the book character retroactively better.

Finally watched S4.

Feels like the show is falling apart a bit with the need to rewrite stuff to fit for tv. Loses much of the appeal of the books for me in doing so. Bobbie has never done much for me but Advarasala is completely wasted with this hack election crap.

The problem is that in the books, she pretty well drops out for an entire book's worth of narrative and when she reappears after the shit that's going down next season she's in a different situation. So they kept her in the mix--she's a popular character--and tried to give her more of a dramatic arc that frames her upcoming actions. I think that's fine. They're already looking ahead not just to the new situation next season but the big status quo changes to come further down the line, assuming they get to do S6 and beyond.

I agree its a difficult situation to connect through. I just thought tension with cliche focus groups blah blah stuff was pretty boring. And the whole husband personality change they thought they needed to throw in to sell it.

Im not sure half the Bobbie stuff did much service to her character or the plot points it was trying to round out.

Season 5 drops December 16th. Three episodes, than weekly episodes after that. 10 episodes this season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caLji74IIp4

Not much Alex in the trailer, for obvious reasons.

Looks great.

I think this will end up surprising anyone who has watched the series and not read the books. Not quite at Red Wedding levels but sort of close, at least for me.

Ya, I saw some comment on twitter like "where is all the protomolecule stuff?" and I'm like AHAHAHAHAHHAA.

That trailer certainly leads me to believe it's a pretty important part of this season, but I only just finished reading the 2nd book.

For the book this season is based on, the proto molecule (and the alien remnants associated with it) are on the back burner. It's still gonna be pretty  :drill: :drill: :drill:

--Dave (there may be an alien surprise, depending on how far ahead they decide to compress things. But it won't be protomolecule related)

With season 5 about to launch, it's been announced that season 6 will be the last: read all about it (http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2020/11/24/amazon-studios-picks-up-fan-favorite-sci-fi-series-the-expanse-for-sixth-and-final-season-7414/20201124amazon01/).

They are going to have to basically jettison the late-arriving plot from the last 3 books, which is probably okay since they wouldn't really transfer all that well to TV anyways IMO.  Be interesting to see how they wrap it up (and what they do with Anvar).

EDIT: So reading around, they shitcanned Anvar, so the question I guess is what they do with the character.

Besides the obvious?

Well there are 3 possibilities: 1) recast; 2) kill him off and replace with a new character; 3) kill him off any have an existing character backfill his spot. 

My guess is #3 with a couple of possibilities I already have in mind.

4) Introduce a character played by a Weinstein accuser (Ashley Judd, Rosanna Arquette, etc) who ends Alex Kamal.

It's interesting. They can't really get into the next big plot arc of the series at all, I'd almost say, unless they skip some of the set-up to it and go straight to the end, more or less. They may just have reckoned that it would be extremely expensive to do all of it if they went to a season seven. But I'm sort of not sure what they'll actually do in a season six, really, if this season is about Earth and Marco Inaros, which seems like a single-season storyline.

I just think they couldn't do any of the Laconia stuff in the timeframe they were looking at for the show so they are going to ditch everything past the time jump other than some major big theme issues with the gate-builders/destroyers. 

It's too bad: I really like the Laconia material, actually.

Tomorrow is the day! Only 3 episodes to start, and the previews have been solid.

It has just dropped early.

See Amazon Prime Video. I can see first three episodes live.

Edit: James SA Corey twitter account confirms.

Amazon's "release date/time" stuff for Prime is always midnight UTC.

Blazed through all 3 episodes. They are going through A LOT of plot in a hurry and did some of what I speculated about above.

Somebody needs to bump this when they finish the season and I can binge it.

--Dave

That's February 3.

Watched episodes 1-3 and had a good time. Haven't read beyond book 3 so this is unknown territory to me, but I'm actually finding it slow.

The last two things become very important and tie into big developments.

Yeah, though I'm wondering now if they actually do, with only one season left? Maybe they're planning something after the last season that is a wrap-up? It's plain that they're not going to touch any of the territory that the last book and the forthcoming conclusion deal with.

LATER BOOK SPOILERS:

Based on what I've read, the show is "on pause". There is also a lot of vague insinuation by Daniel and Ty that Alcon Entertainment, who they sold the tv/film rights to, is still dreaming up ways to continue the story in some way. I would not be surprised if we saw a couple or three of films covering books 7-9.

The pause would also help deal with the Cas Anvar situation, as they could even recast the whole crew if they wanted.

Also, I think anyone expecting book 9 to neatly tie things of is probably going to be at least somewhat disappointed. One of the biggest series themes is that humanity is Holden writ large.

Interesting big change from the books concerning one major character in this week's ep.

Yup. They do this enough that it keeps us book readers entertained.

Good episode. Not slow.

Despite how split up the narratives are in this book, they are doing a really good job of adapting it this season. The last two episodes were great.

Yeah. I have really enjoyed it and my non-book reading spouse is riveted. The changes to the book stuff are really smart.

I'm just super-invested at this point at whether  is at all a thing or not.

I loved this week's episode. Dominique Tipper's acting in the Naomi scenes was outstanding.

It was fucking great. She completely sold "flinging yourself through vacuum and barely surviving into a stripped-out bomb of a ship is PAINFUL and AWFUL and not recommended". It was all done so so well.

it's a thing. It's in the opening credits if you look for it. Not sure if it will be a major thing though.

Yeah, I saw that, but I'm just trying to figure out how they handle the pacing with only a season left. I almost wonder if they're going to (as per earlier discussion)

Your spoiler seems to be a leading candidate, based on info from cast and crew. Ty and Daniel have ben pretty clear they aren't going to ram books 6-9 into season 6... And Wes and Ty on twitter and in their post-episode shows have been pretty coy. The term "pause" has been used repeatedly. And there was one interview I saw, with Wes, where there was definitely a pause when he had to think about what he could say, post season 6.

Yeah, I honestly wouldn't want [/spoiler]

True enough--really old people (with money) are common in this universe.

Ya, one thing they have sort of conspicuously left out of the tv version is how the Roci crew became incredibly rich running all these errands for various powers.

Which is kind of too bad, but I get why, mostly just because they've wanted to tightly chain the narrative sequence across and within seasons, so there hasn't been a long status quo moment where that could have been happened, except maybe if they'd done it as an expositional insert before the Ilus expedition.

Just watching ep 4 now. Daaaaamn.

The last 2 episodes have been really great television, this show does an amazing job of horribly tense scenes. I am finding myself utterly buzzed just watching it and have go walk around a bit afterwards. I really, really need to read the books for this...

My wife got up and anxiously paced around after the last one--Naomi's suffering felt really visceral to her.

Heh, I'm sort of torn on it.

I fully agree that Dominique Tipper did an amazing job with her acting and selling just how fucked up and desperate she was.  When the previous episode ended, I literally yelled at my TV because I thought they were doing the stupid "the super freezing vacuum of space really isn't that bad!  Just jump through it with no suite and be fine!" horseshit that Hollywood does so often.  Then this episode rolled around and they really hammered in how badly it fucked her up.  Which is great!  But then they spent so much time on her desperately trying to accomplish something, and failing.  At everything.  Over and over.  It was great acting, but especially with the limited amount of airtime this series has left, it felt a bit excessive.  Every time they cut back to her, it was her just yelling out in pain as she failed again.  By the second half of the episode, every time they cut back to her I was just like "OK, I GET IT, MOVE THE PLOT FORWARD, I KNOW SHE'S NOT GOING TO DIE, FUCK".

Did you not notice she succeeded?

I mean, jeezus, if she'd instantly rewired the ship, removed the booby traps and found a way to zoom off to safety, you'd be shouting that it was all too easy and it doesn't work like that. The whole point is that the character is both clever and driven and despite that, in a nearly impossible situation.

Yes, at the very end she did.  After watching her painfully fail at 800 other tasks beforehand.
You're probably right.  It's just a hard thing to balance.  I want to emphasize my little rant was just a very minor thing that in no way made me hate the episode, and I overall thought the entire sequence was well done and well acted (particularly for a TV Series).  It's just always a bit hard for me personally in these sorts of situations when they do this on a TV show.  Because I KNOW the hero is going to eventually win, and get away.  So when they spend an entire episode focusing on the struggle of a character trying to not die, it annoys me because I already know what the end will be, so please use the screen time to advance the plot for me instead.  Just a personal quirk.

The protagonists almost always survive. Plus prequels and flashback scenes also got a fixed conclusion, as do all  Historical dramas. Hell, that "x amount of time earlier" gimmick is really prevalent in modern television too.

Just saying you must be annoyed quite often while watching TV.

I think it's one of those episodes where it's the repetition that sells the narrative. A bit like a time loop in Star Trek, etc. It's also a consequence of the show trying really hard to play straight with the world-building rules they've established--that there is a drug that lets you survive (briefly) an exposure to vacuum but with severe physiological consequences, that in setting the ship up as a booby trap the Free Navy has stripped it of anything really valuable not so much to keep someone from taking control but because that's how they operate as scavengers, that they've left nothing but the one room with atmosphere for the same reasons and that they took the cannisters for suits but not the suits because the suits aren't particularly valuable but the atmospheric cannisters are, etc.

I appreciate that the show undertakes narrative bits to pay off the physics of its setting. They're pretty restrained about it--it's never an infodump where some character eats up fifteen minutes just explaining how magic works etc.

I was only half paying attention during this episode and I missed a lot of the nuance that you just mentioned, Khaldun.  That attention to detail makes it all the more interesting for sure!

Yeah, in the book they did a better job of conveying that reaching the point where she could switch off the transmission required a lot of separate tasks disabling redundant systems, opening up spaces not meant to be accessed in flight, and so on. What the show carried better was that she had to do this while running back to her air supply every few minutes.

--Dave

IMHO episode 9 was the best episode of The Expanse.

When I read the book I was at first disconcerted by the crew splitting up (which the book makes clear is at least going to be for a period of years just because that's the way the physics works in the show) and then I was kind of delighted by the way the plot draws them slowly back together. I'm enjoying it even more in the show.

This spoiler applies to Episode 10 BTW. I know not everyone watches it the minute it posts.

The  left my wife reeling in confusion particularly the very last bit   

I don't think they are.  The scuttlebutt is that they are going to do book 6 for season 6 and then maybe do movies or limited series for the rest. Likely with a completely different cast.  Some are even talking theatrical release-type stuff but I doubt that.

Do we know why next season is the last? Is that Amazon cancelling an option to buy more or is it the production company or is it the cast being too expensive to re-sign?

There's a time jump in the books of 30 years between effectively seasons 6 and 7 so it's possible things may be put on hold while they recast things or figure out how to deal with that time gap. Or it may just be too expensive to keep producing.

https://screenrant.com/expanse-season-6-ending-cancelled-reason-explained/

https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/10/22167489/the-expanse-season-6-canceled-or-season-7-beyond-plans

I loved this season. It felt too short, however, with too much packed into the last 15 minutes of episode 10. I started watching the episode again a few hours after my first watch, to try and digest some more of what occurred at the ring gate and the new location. I'd even read some book spoilers so it wasn't a surprise, but the fine details were too numerous to understand. Haven't finished my second watch yet.

Another thing that was confusing was the space battle between the Roci, the Free Navy and Drummer's crew. It was hard to identify which ship we were looking at and what exactly happened with all the missiles and PDC activity. I've watched it twice and still need to read some kind of breakdown of what happened and to whom.

When you think about Alex, both series and book Alex but especially series Alex,

He's kind of like the divorced sadsack friend of a close-knit group of people. Like the guy you all like but nobody knows him that deeply and he's kind of fucked up and if you have him over to a party he gets kind of drunk and offends a single woman by making a bad pass at her, but he's a fucking genius at one thing you all do together, whatever that is. So if he croaks everybody is sad but there's a slight part of that social world that's like well, fuck, ok. Life goes on.

That's what's kind of weird about Cas Anvar's real-life behavior--it is a worse version of his character's behavior. It would be vastly more gut-wrenching if it was Steven Strait that was being the sleaze because his character is Space Atticus Finch.

I struggle honestly to remember what Alex does in the books past this point. Amos and Bobbie and Holden and Naomi have character arcs that feel completely indelible going into the Laconia storyline and beyond, but Alex in my head just does pilot things and says some things about his family and Mars. I am probably forgetting something.

Nah, that's about right. After this point in the books, he's just taken for granted as an amazing pilot. No viewpoint chapters I remember, not much dialogue.

--Dave

I agree with Tale, by the way, that the three-way battle between the Roci, Drumm'er's ship and the other Free Navy ships could have been improved with even a single line of expositionary dialogue. If at one point Holden said something like "one of the ships is firing at the others, it's got to be a rebellion within Marcos' ranks, let's help out the rebel ship!" and then Bull said something about a firing solution on the cruiser or whatever, that might have been enough.

I totally get why they wanted the Laconia operation to spring out of nowhere in the last episode, but again, maybe even one or two lines would have helped out people who haven't read the books, because we've been told all season long that some of the Free Navy ships are Martian-built and I think for most non-book readers, they lost the thread of Bobbie's investigations at the point that Bobbie and Alex were spying on the handoff and then got pulled away to help Naomi. Something like Bobbie urgently pulling Avasarala aside at the start of the cocktail party scene to say something like, "Ma'am, I've been thinking about the investigations you had me doing, and there is something that still doesn't make any sense--the big players don't seem to be making money by supplying Inaros and they're the heart of the Martian Navy's command structure, so what is it that they were getting in return from Inaros? And I don't think all the ships that have gone missing have been transferred to Inaros' control. There's something wrong here that we haven't seen yet."  Something that primed the audience to understand that there's a big shoe left to drop.

Alex in the books is not so much the "sadsack friend" but the guy who is the center of the group. Everyone else in the group has other friend-groups, but this one person only is friends with the others in the group. He's the lasagna-cooking stitching of the group. IMO.

He does have one of the best lines in the later books though.

I dunno. I haven't read all the side books, but Holden, Bobbi and Naomi mostly look on Alex's relationship and family troubles with a kind of distant empathy but also a bit of pity, I think. (I was always incredibly grateful that the writers in the books didn't decide to pair up Bobbie and Alex in a romantic relationship rather than a close friendship, which would have been a terrible idea.) Obviously they'd never dare to poke into Amos' life without explicit invitation (the scene with Peaches in the season-ender is beautiful, even better than in the books) so that's not really an issue in the group's bonds.

Finally binged the season this last week. It was good not great because it really felt like half a season's worth of story. Keeping the characters apart for the entire season makes sense in real life but makes for a bit of a tease in the show because you really want to see these characters together. I felt like the stuff with Amos on Earth didn't really give a good sense of how fucked up things were - I mean clearly shit was fucked, but there wasn't any kind of context for what cities got destroyed, what the authorities on Earth were doing or even which ones were left. In the books it is likely explained better and I gather from the show that there is this layer of rich people, politicians and well-off that is so totally separated from the working class and the poor that it really is like two separate worlds. It just seemed like there needed to be a bit more explanation for why things were so bad so quickly. I like the Amos/Peaches dynamic though and Amos had some good lines in this. A lot of this felt both too compressed and too drawn out at once. Part of it may be that we don't really get a good sense of the time scales, which is felt most acutely in the Amos On the Road scenes.

The resolution with Alex was abrupt and I gather it's because it had to be based on the situation. Way to fuck up your life, dude.

I do look forward to the next season though. I'm only through the 2nd book so I will be continuing it. The showrunners have said that after season 6 is a pause not a cancellation, so we'll see if that holds true.

Episode 1 of season 6 is now at Amazon Prime Video.

This short final season is being released weekly.

Reading the last book now; I want to finish before I start the last season, plus we're binge re-watching with a friend who never saw it.

Devoured episode 1, which was pretty bleak, and felt nothing much really happened for a thing that's supposed to be wrapped up in another five episodes. I'm gonna have to watch it again though, because I can't be expected to wait another fucking seven days to soak up fresh Expanse. This show happens too rarely and it's ending and I've rewatched the other seasons already and something else had better come along to fill the gap.

Felt really rushed. Sucks that budget it making them cram all this into six 45 minute episodes.

oh man... I don't need to hear this.  :oh_i_see:

My wife and I binged this a few years ago and we've been waiting on the next season - hated to hear it was the last, and now this? I'm waiting for them all to be out before watching, but I'm a little less enthusiastic now.

To me it felt like a really typical episode 1. "Let's catch up with the main characters and what they are doing and set a few events into motion."

I'm interested that they introduced

book spoiler


I have no idea how they plan to wrap up 3 books worth of content in six episodes.

They aren't going to try, from what I understand. There's talk they will revisit the later parts of the story as movies.

Everyone's just come through an incredibly traumatic event and this episode was mostly about the characters coping with it and the next few months of fallout.  Moving on too quickly would probably be a disservice to that.

Sort of.  I was kind of annoyed they are going back to the 'there is tension and the crew is at each others throat' line of plot.  Like, they've been with each other for years now and we've already been through internal drama for many seasons.  Kind of a lazy fallback by the writers.  It's the last season, can't we just lean in on everybody being back together again and having one final great space adventure together?  As a team of friends?  There is plenty of plot to cover with only 6 episodes, don't need to waste it on stuff that's already been doing repeatedly in previous seasons.

Anyways, wasn't bad.  Sets everything up and it's nice to see everybody back again.

It really comes down to where they're going to leave this and thus whether they're deliberately going to leave us ready for some form of follow-on or wrapping it all up.

The text at the start said it was "Day 187" of their recon mission in the Belt. That's more than six months of tense work and combat in a tin can in space, with a surprise crew member who used to be trying to kill Holden, immediately after the sudden death of a close friend, and a total change to the balance of power in the Solar System (with the devastation of Holden's home planet and the takeover of the Belt by Naomi's ex, who has her son and recently tried to murder her).

They're kind of losing their minds under those circumstances.

After 2 eps I'm officially frustrated. There is no structure, rhythm or time for stuff to breathe. It's just this happens, then this happens, then this happens.  They are cramming so much stuff into brief dialogue that doesn't connect to anything else going on. Also, no idea why they are even including stuff from a novella that doesn't have any impact until books they aren't even covering when budget/screen time is so limited.  Really worried this is going to faceplant the landing.

It's lovely to inhabit for an hour each week, but it's not enough.

Consoling myself by diving straight from Expanse into Wheel of Time into The Witcher season 2, all out simultaneously.

I seem to be doing Witcher -> Expanse -> Titans (Season 3) -> Hawkeye

I tried WoT but it just felt disjointed and confusing and I gave up. Hopefully there will be another season of Umbrella Academy.

A website says it knows there is an Expanse sequel series and a movie coming. (https://thathashtagshow.com/2021/12/22/exclusive-the-expanse-sequel-series-movie-amazon/)

The creator (well the one half that runs the twitter account) says that article is complete bullshit.

Ok, I liked this episode much better. Episode 2 was written by the book authors so maybe they felt like they needed to cram a bunch of stuff in and no one would tell them they overstuffed it.

Yeah I could live with another 83 episodes along these lines.

The 360 no scope was a thing of beauty.

I'm confused how they're going to end this season, given it's stated it's the last one.

They're obviously setting up a bunch of stuff they're not going to cover in the last two episodes, they're going to rush to just cover off the marcos stuff.

I have to assume they've got some assurances of future seasons or a movie or something.

Enjoying it enough, though it's not as tight and focused and directed as some seasons have been.

Latest episode felt like more setup, with little progress. Sure, there was a gunfight, but everything else was just about pissing off Marco and rabble-rousing against him. The scene playing Alex's music was just unnecessary at this point. We've said goodbye already.

Their stated mission was to wrap up the Marcos plotline and introduce the Laconian expat Martians, it is not intended to cover the last 3 books.  IMO I think they are winding down nicely given that they wren't given the option to run 3 more seasons.

It's mostly a question of whether they'll finish in a completely open-ended way or with any sort of dangling plot/cliff-hanger. If the latter, they'd better already have a deal in the works or people are gonna be pissed. If the former, I think we'll all just be hoping they have something up their sleeves. I mean, there is a time jump necessary for the Laconia books, so a few years won't hurt in that sense.

Episode 5 got me in the tear ducts several times.

I was playing The Ramones’ “Pet Semetary” for the wife at the opening of this one.

I'm just not feeling it in Ep5. Maybe Naomi's character has paled into insignificance, but the acting felt wooden. Holden was flat, Amos was off getting laid, Bobby was wasted in the episode and only Drummer was truly convincing. I know where it's all going, but I found it tedious viewing.

I actually agree that Dominique Tipper's acting in the scene with Drummer was wooden. Her solo acting in the booby-trapped spaceship last season was outstanding, but this scene felt like Dominique was just reading lines, while Cara Gee was playing Drummer to perfection. It still got me, because of what happened to the #polyambelterfam as the actors call themselves on Twitter.

I'd watch Cara Gee read the damn phone book.

Can confirm.

This season is meant to be longer than 6 episodes right? I see 0 way to tie up any of the plots beyond deus ex machina in episode 6. It is making me want to actually read the novels though, probably going to need to start from the beginning based on how much they've split from the books though.

meh

I thought it was good but rushed.  That was the case all season.

It could've been better but if this is it for The Expanse then I'm happy to have watched it and I'm ok with how it ended.

ditto on the Cara Gee

This show has been a roller coaster for me.  Back in 20?? whatever I dismissed it out of hand after only one episode.  I remember smugly telling a co-worker that it was total bullshit and that they were lifting directly from this great book I read called Leviathan Awakens.  Only to have him tell me "duh, that is what it is based on"  flash forward however many years and it is probably my favorite sci-fi series of all time.

I stopped reading after book 2 so I really can't comment how far they have deviated with the show, but, as others have said if that was it, I can live with it.  I would like to see more, but I would rather that abrupt ending than watching Amos and Peaches jumping space sharks or something like that.

Note - my paternal grandmothers nickname was Peaches, so every time I heard Amos call her that it was a pretty odd set of emotions washing over me.

Inaros defeat... WTF? He was set up as the big bad, but this season he was just mustache twirling and then... yup, dead. Laconia needed to cliffhang with their ships heading out of the gate, otherwise they should have just left the protomolecule story alone. It really did need a couple more episodes but I guess I can always read the books again.

It's kind of the way it is in the books too--Inaros is set up as the guy you most hate ever in the books and then he starts to unravel some even before the Earth-Mars fleet heads off to engage him because he's just not up to the task of actually ruling the Belt, particularly in terms of the Belt's inability to feed itself without Earth, and then pretty suddenly he's over and doesn't matter much any longer given how powerful Laconia is.

But I think everybody who has read the books got nervous when it was clear last season that they were going to at least introduce Laconia, because there's just no way to cram that story into anything less than a full season or more. It just keeps making me think they're hunting around for some way to make more Expanse in the near term.

I think it was the lack of time to finish either arc. Usually the series did a great job of re-imaging the books, but the Inaros writing for the series was poor. Like other characters, all the effort in the previous season, just died away. If only every character had the writing investment that Drummer got.

Yeah, they followed the books, but just didn't really have the screen time to do it justice.  I actually loved how they did the Inaros Arc in the books.  They basically make him to be a true pure Che Guevara character, but in the belt.  He's a passionate extremist with a lot of charisma who pulls off this audacious and insane plan that works, and gains the love and support of everybody in the belt for it (that would be book 5/season 5).  Now he's in charge, and it turns out he is actually super incompetent and is so caught up in himself he just does one stupid thing after another which hurts his own people more than the enemy.  Just keeps failing upward.  I loved how that worked out in the books rather than making him some stupid over top Machiavellian character who's always grinning and saying 'just as planned'.

Well, they combined about 4 different characters into her so there was a lot to work with.

Yeah, the Drummer in the TV series is the most hilarious non existent book character of everybody.

Cara Gee is hot. That is all.

That for sure.

I finally watched the last one and well, yeah, I gotta join the chorus who said that they really mishandled how they fit in the Laconia material. Giving Cara and Xan that amount of screen time was just a damn mistake if this was the last season--it was completely baffling if you didn't know about the books.

I feel like what they could have done was in the 2nd to last episode, as the prep for the final battle against Inaros was unfolding--with none of the Cara and Xan material and Duarte having not appeared so far--you have Inaros talking to Filip and he says something like "I have one more big surprise for the Inners: a taste of their own medicine". Then Filip could say, "What you mean?" and Inaros could say something like "You know the Martians who helped us at the Ring and gave us the railguns? The ones who went beyond to the system they're calling Laconia? I'm going to call them in to help us beat the Inners forever."

Cut to Duarte and his war council. Have him give a five minute "We've done everything we planned: our new warships incorporating protomolecule technology are nearly done, Laconia is developing as we planned. When our research develops enough, I'll be ready to solve the problem of how we rule an empire spanning a thousand stars for a thousand years." Murmurs and nods around the table. Camera goes tight on Paolo Cortazar and he says "On that subject, sir, I have developments to report--we will be ready to give you the treatment soon." Duarte nods and Cortazar gets ready to speak (maybe we see a slide or a something suggesting/mysterious on the display in the boardroom) and then suddenly an aide says "Priority message for you, sir. It's Marco Inaros."

Then we see Inaros grinning and asking for aid--and Duarte turning him down hard, same scene as actually appeared on the show. Back to the boardroom: "Marco Inaros and his enemies are our past. Laconia is the future. Let's see to it."

That's it for Laconia in these six episodes except for Holden worrying about the ship that went Dutchman and some dialogue that clarifies that the railguns inside the Ring came from whomever those guys that helped Marcos were. Especially no Cara and Xan. If they do work out a deal to do the Laconia arc in a sequel series or a final movie or whatever, they can cover Cara and Xan fine then.

I also think the "going Dutchman" death for Inaros was handled pretty poorly--it really needed even two or three more lines of exposition.

I thought the ending was fine. A little rushed but I can't really gauge how rushed since I've only read the first two books. Keeping the Duarte plot for all 6 episodes then leaving it dangling definitely makes me think they were trying damned hard to get an agreement on a sequel series and/or movie, and I hope they do. I'm going to miss this show.

The last episode has some really dumb stuff in it. But ok enough to watch I guess.