Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

you're allowed i think!

dr annushka "anna" volovodov is a very annoying character tbh

Need to watch s3 again.

more relevantly maybe, a fvck of a lot of old-school quasi-hardcore hard-science nuts-and-bolts rocketships type 50s/60s SF -- the stuff that wasn't stars wars and wasn't the ballardian new wave -- was about how the science-which-we-didn't-understand was actually opening portals to magickal elvish realms

(i'm thinking colin kapp's "lambda-1" or donald malcolm's “beyond the reach of storms” and the like, maybe lewis padgett's "mimsy were the borogoves" -- which is abt fourth-dimensional logic rather than rockets)

so anyway

― mark s, Thursday, September 21, 2017 8:05 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it all got quite beyond the reach of storms, didn't it??

i remember anna being a) annoying as fuck b) interesting because she thinks she's the hero when actually she's kind of a baddie (though i do need to watch it again because i can't remember precisely why i think that)

ok now i have to rewatch all 3 series despite more miller than i bargained for plus also his horrible hat

Trying to deconflict my book and series memories but she is a godfathering busybody. IIRC in the book her internal monologue is a lot more conflicted although IIRC her role in the book is very different so....

They posted this yesterday. The coordinates are for the San Diego Convention Centre so assume there'll be a release date announcement at comic con in a couple of weeks

Coordinates set. Prepare for flip and burn. pic.twitter.com/ruPiwmLlRX

— The Expanse (@ExpanseOnPrime) June 25, 2019

rewatching from s1e1: miller gets his stupid hat lampshade hung at just 7 mins in

first holden sex-butt shot is a p much hard cut from some guy's arm being squished off ("stand by for thrust correction"

I thought it was pretty funny that there was zero-g boning in the first 10 minutes of the show and then no one so much as kisses for the rest of the season.

that's they mean by "stand by for thrust correction"

lol it's mike from breaking bad in a micro-role

head-knocked-off scene still good

a neat little thing is when a belter on ganymede sprays a "remember the cant" graffiti (with a pic of holden beside it) and the spraycan does the entire correct slogan and image in one preprogrammed sweep

(i mean, i assume CAD spray-beds exist that can do this now but this was just a little just-shaken hand-held)

At times I've wondered whether Ashford's character was a rewritten Anderson Dawes once they realised Jared Harris had other commitments

there was an Ashford character in the book, though he was a bit different ... and Drummer basically stands in for two different characters ... so, i don't think so, but on the other hand, maybe the writers' idea was to substitute Dawes for the book captain?

don't think i grasped before (ftb sleepy inattention) that the anderson station story is a flashback and an origin story

i love protomolecule glitch Miller

more hot takes from mark s: alex is good from start to finish

i kind of like holden more also

(also he's definitely got younger since i first watched)

rewatching from s2e1: enter bobbie draper

Bobbie is probably my favorite character on the whole show

holden (the second worst character after miller): "alex? make us look like something that got dropped"
alex (the second best* character after bobbie): "you got it hoss"

*i will not be taking questions at this time

My initial reaction to Alex was “come on” but over time he grew on me to reach the top tier (along with Drummer)

drivers and drummers

ok I may take this show from the top again. It's really so very good.

squash klaxon

"not dead! [exultant pause] becoming!!"

does the "becoming" trope come from red dragon? like when weirdos are excitedly explaining why they do horrific stuff? "it's not me, i'm becoming"

"i've heard that shit in bars, i thought it was just bad music"

(insert amos in cafe oto gag here_

has there been IRL mormon comment on the nauvoo hijack? i mean it's fiction but i's still a bit of a burn

I know I said this before, but the show is full of the most interesting faces

it's very well cast

Amos in particular, the way his face seems to flicker back and forth between wide-eyed innocence and dead-eyed sociopathy is amazing.

amos really really really reminds me the young steven wells in look and now (and then in manner)

BONE DENSITY ENHANCER

welcome back to earth dudes

gunny is a slur

(i mean i guess it's not but it feels super-patronising whenever anyone uses it)

I still haven't figured whether to read the second book or start with the second season. Hmm

The first season finished about half way through the second book, but the plot started to diverge. If that helps.

super-patronising?

I had a uncle in the US Marines who made E-7 before mustering out. Some gunnery sergeants are indeed still called gunny, with affection.

i'm sure but in the show

a good thing is that s2 and s3 are both 13 eps long (10 is a bad and stuid number which shd fuck off)

also: the way her superior officers treated bobbie in the U confirms my sense that gunny is a slur (to them)

Probably officer vs. enlisted tensions.

of course but these are kind of baked into the situation in any case

"is there a plan b?"
"yeah! make sure plan a works!"

other enlisted marines will use gunny as a term of respect because duh, that probably means they’re your boss

navy officers use gunny as a replacement for the second person pronoun, with baggage

that probably means they’re your boss

wait who's whose boss?

this wasn't at all obvious as i originally wrote it but my abreaction was purely in response to its usage in this show: where lines of are somewhat corrupted by the fact that the high-ups are all* scheming arseholes who treat lower-downs as contemptible pawns and worse (so that even if neutral or affectionate usage occurs here -- as y'all say it does IRL hoss -- it's poisoned by viewer doubts abt the users and their agendas)**

*even the "good" ones
**noticed at all bcz "gunny" is more a regional term perhaps than other possible names for ranks (but this is probably why it was chosen in the first place)

a gunnery sergeant in the USMC is in the upper echelon of the enlisted hierarchy

bobbie's strength as a character is possibly that she's the only (lasting) person who actually believes in military ideals as ideals (and martian military ideals as ideals): everyone else is more or less sardonic or cynical towards same, so that their appeals to esprit de corps always ring hollow (amusingly when yr one of her men i guess, and nastily when yr one of her superiors)