Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

think I watched the first episode 3 times. First time I turned it off 10 minutes in.

i never minded Miller. he was never supposed to be likeable and i enjoyed him for what his role was on the show. the books deal with him much better tho (i read them after watching the show) – it's kind of a running joke how much he creeps the shit out of literally everybody.

amazing show, i keep hoping they'll come back for more. i do think it's a distinct possibility but might be awhile.

the thing about Holden is he's space Jon Snow to an extent, but the character is a lot more likable and Steven Strait is a solid comic actor when the role calls for humor.

I didn't mind Miller either, i kinda thought he was likable, albeit truly weird. when he got inside Holden's head it made for some good comedy (see above, Holden was vv funny in a lot of those moments.) Also, Holden seeing Miller with his fedora (which never made the trip with him to meet the Roci crew) was the sign Holden wasn't losing his mind.

the most awkward part of the show was dealing w/the Alex character at the end, but the production was in a no-win situation.

https://i.imgur.com/wmDdtoo.gif

amazing show, i keep hoping they'll come back for more. i do think it's a distinct possibility but might be awhile.

I don't want to wait 30 years.

I keep saying this but there is an “interactive fiction” style videogame coming soon where Drummer is the main character, played by Cara Gee. I assume you get to play as her.

Telltale has a good pedigree with this sort of thing. https://telltale.com/the-expanse/

First episode supposedly out this summer.

the last three books i thought were amazing too. they'd make a great movie.
also i ate pizza at the place that is owned by the actress who played Monica Stuart (she was there serving pizza)!

i loved Miller! i think he was good as a slightly-but-not-really-uh normcore? “way in” to the show … like you toodle along w him into the bigger wtf ideas of the show & then off you go

It is sorta funny that the first protagonist (Miller) gets sidelined fairly quickly, and Holden pretty gradually loses his lock as main character too. After the season on the alien planet it seems like he never really had a whole lot to do. It became about the rest of the crew.

the most awkward part of the show was dealing w/the Alex character at the end, but the production was in a no-win situation.

― omar little, Wednesday, January 25, 2023 bookmarkflaglink

They definitely did what they could with that last season - getting on abruptly without Alex, limited number of episodes... and I would assume they didn't fully know they were getting canceled until after they'd committed to the awful subplot with the little girl on the other planet, which never resolved.

At first I was a little let down by how much is unresolved by the end of the series but after talking with a friend I kinda like it as a metaphor for global warming. They come to some great conclusion about how to get along with each other but they just willfully ignore this massive threat looming in the distance. They know its there but after everything they went through with the protomolocule, the idea of something out there that is even more malevolent is just too hard to comprehend.

The awful subplot with the little girl becomes central to the final 3 books. Really worth reading to see how everything plays out. Shame they didn’t have the backing to finish out the series.

and I would assume they didn't fully know they were getting canceled until after they'd committed to the awful subplot with the little girl on the other planet, which never resolved.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think it was canceled a second time? IIRC the showrunners specifically said that season 6 would be its last, not that it was a diktat from on high (FWIW Amazon rescued it from its first cancellation because Bezos is a notable fan).

IIRC the showrunners specifically said that season 6 would be its last, not that it was a diktat from on high

Well that makes that creative choice really perplexing then. It took up so many precious minutes in such a short season, only to go completely unresolved.

I get that it relates to the books, and that the door could always be open to a future season... but as pure television it's irritating and unsatisfying.

I honestly think the Amos/Clarissa plotline in S5 is one of the best TV achievements of the last decade, just riveting

otm

I just finished the first book Leviathan Wakes and was amused to find that Holden is even more of a pretty boy dumbass in there than in the show. The way he ends up together with Naomi in the book is pure comedy - the show handled that much better imo (and is also far better in its treatment of women in general. Naomi is barely sketched out so far, Julie is mostly seen through Miller's POV *eyeroll*, and we don't meet Avasarala or any of the other main female characters until later books).

I'm actually glad I watched the show first cause I'm not sure I would have liked this series as much based on how the characters are portrayed in Book 1 - Holden is good but way too naive and impulsive, Miller is a washed-up asshole in love with a perfect young girl in his head. Yikes. It's a credit to the show and the actors that they managed to turn them into tolerable protagonists at all.

The book's strengths were the space horror elements, the world-building, and Amos lol. still looking fwd to reading the rest though!

To be fair, a lot of the show was written by the book authors, so I guess they were aware of some of the book shortcomings themselves and rewrote them.

does anyone else find it jarring that Cas Anvar was a big enough asshole they had to drop him immediately from the show, yet they spend all this time in s6 being all emo about Alex's sudden death? I feel like they should've treated the character the same way and just said "oh well, fuck him" and never mentioned him again.

coulda just began season 6 with "Well after hearing about all of that startling testimony against Mr Anvar I guess we can all say we're glad he's dead, yes?" and everybody looks straight into the camera.

That would work too. Naomi being shitty to Amos for "replacing" Alex with Peaches was a bit much. Like really who gaf?

yeah, just drew more attention to things overall. plus she was a much more interesting character

There was really no easy way to handle that, they probably did the best they could. And I mean it's not the character who was problematic, so it was a farewell to Alex not to the actor.

best way to handle it would be to move on instead of continually reminding us by trying to turn it into a plot point

I thought the bigger objection against bringing Peaches in was her entire quest to kill Holden

water under the bridge, who hasn't wanted to kill Holden at one point or another?

Maybe but I don't think it was really that big a deal

Thought they did the best they could, but I also still found it slightly odd. It was just a quick moment though, I thought? There's no good way to acknowledge the death of a character people loved from the books without making us think of the POS who played him on TV

Mythic Quest had a similar situation with F. Murray Abraham and had nearly a whole episode about him in S3, but I only learned of what he'd been accused of after watching the episode. Still makes it weird in retrospect

I don't remember that much emo time about Alex but it would have been much weirder to not acknowledge the tragic death of a core character.

Yeah, this seems a deeply weird complaint. Actors and characters are actually different things.

I know, it just felt weird to me that after dispatching with him and doing a bit of mourning last season, now we're back with tensions between the crew based around who is or is not feeling the loss of Alex appropriately. This is obviously something that wasn't originally supposed to be part of the plot and I think if they just skipped it the fans would be ok with that, especially since this is all taking place some months later. I can't remember what happens after the first episode, maybe this is the last we hear about this particular thing.

I honestly just wish they would have replaced the actor. Shows have pulled that off in the past, haven't they? People would have gotten used to it. Because they wrote him out of the show even if they do ever pick anything back up again, they're going to have to deal with what they did to that character, when they could have easily explained a different actor with aging or whatever.

throw Michiel Huisman in there, that's his specialty!

He dies in a similar way in the books IIRC, not at the same point but out of the blue.

now that is something I did not know, figured he just kept on keepin' on with his Texan BS

Oh no I'm misremembering, it was another character who died that way - they just cut and pasted the names.

I don’t remember Alex dying in the books?

It was Fred who stroked out at the end of a high-g chase/battle.

Xpost there

Yes: Milo has the correct answer

GOT re-cast the Mountain TWICE (i.e. they had three different actors playing him).

so i saw this article a few days ago on mashable which made me think of a post here

taken me this long to try and post and also never tried linking to an older post, so lets see if this works

original post: Is anybody else watching The Expanse?

The clear cellphone thing looks cool, but it's so ridiculous. You can see the screen from the back! Especially silly when Miller is doing police stuff on his phone and trying to be stealthy.

and in new tech stuff. https://sea.mashable.com/laptops/31413/lenovo-thinkbook-transparent-laptop-hands-on-yes-its-actually-see-through

bah why didn’t you all tell me this game came out last year??

https://www.telltale.com/the-expanse/

Oh shiiiiitttt!!

It's cool that it focuses on Drummer