The Expanse

mid_gen said:
Binged S4 at the weekend. Vastly improved over previous series imo. Series 1 sucked frankly, 2 was ok, 3 showed some potential, and finally with 4 and a decent budget it's a pretty good show.

Vastly better acting talent available with the Amazon budget, Murtry and Wei were excellent supporting characters and really delivered that whole story arc. Nagata's painfully bad performances were mercifully limited. Pretty boy Holden spent less time doing his Dawson's Creek act and was OK. Best of all, we finally got rid of Miller. Amos has become a decent character now instead of the walking cliche meathead.

Looking forward to S5 now.
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Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but what you've disliked is what made the show great -

Miller was awesome, a link into the protomolecule

Amos - he had some form of surgery (I think) which removed feelings etc, so his character was spot on.

Holden was terrible terrible this season and a waste of his cpatain/team lead skills, bad decision after bad decision.

And season 4 was sub par compared to the previous seasons.
 
ivrytwr3 said:
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but what you've disliked is what made the show great -

Miller was awesome, a link into the protomolecule

Amos - he had some form of surgery (I think) which removed feelings etc, so his character was spot on.

Holden was terrible terrible this season and a waste of his cpatain/team lead skills, bad decision after bad decision.

And season 4 was sub par compared to the previous seasons.
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The protomolecule story arc is good. Thomas Jane and his terribad cliche detective persona was just awful.

Series 1 was just this horrible cliche rough and tumble band of sci-fi spaceship crew cliches played by C-grade actors....Miller was the worst of the lot. It's slowly been improving, as I said, you can see where the money is going, the new cast additions are getting better and better.
 
I loved season 1. I couldn't stop watching it because I thought the story was gripping, and the world that's been created seems almost plausible as our own future. A breakthrough in engine technology, vastly increasing the speed of space "flight" will reduce or remove many hurdles. I find that fascinating.

The acting is wobbly but at least the decisions the characters choose make sense, and the story doesn't rely on gimmicks and completely improbable luck at every step to advance it; something the new Star Wars film is plagued by.

That said, Naomi Nagata needs to be killed off to save us from Dominique Tipper's "acting" and the weird Holden/Nagata relationship that turns on and off depending on the scene. It doesn't work. The other low end actors carry it off just enough, but Tipper is just appalling. There are kids in secondary school drama classes that could do a better job.
 
Ok up to episode 9. So many times between eps 1 and 5 that I stopped watching as kept feeling it felt low rent but I went back a few times and now I'm hooked. Think I binged 5-9 last night and now can't turn away. The buildup of the deeper story and how each character connects to it is quite cool. And the space scenes are great too.
 
I wrapped up the season earlier this evening. Much like the books, I found this season the worst of the 4. No major character development and a mostly useless plot arc that could have been summarised in a couple of episodes.

I'm looking forward to S5 though :)
 
Really surprised by some of the comments between best / worse seasons. I personally like operatic Sci Fi, so found this season (4) quite claustrophobic, limited in scope and well a little dull if I'm honest. I think I may need to re-watch as I've gleaned pretty much zero about the ...
rings, ancient artifacts or the suggested ancient alien races. I'm also fuzzy on the meaning or mechanics of what was going on regarding the planet and the (twelve?) moons. Was this a weapon designed to be fired into the rings destroying all connected systems? I was instantly reminded of Alistair Reynolds Inhibitor species but perhaps I've imagined / come to the wrong conclusion.
Still enjoyed the season but not patch on the previous.
 
Dup said:
Without knowing any facts I'd say 4 was rushed in after the shows takeover while everyone got settled in. Don't know the books but it's reassuring to know it's of a similar pace despite my assumption

It was enjoyable, if a little disjointed with everyone spread out doing their thing as opposed to crossing paths but I guess this season was a build up more than anything.

They're already shooting season 5 so it may not be too long before we see more.
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I don't think it was rushed, and from what I understand basically everyone carried over so no settling in needed.
I think (from memory) they're covering parts from two books to keep the Holden/Earth/Mars/OPA thing going this season rather than it being almost entirely being set on the planet (it's been a while, but I think the book concentrated on the planet, then the next one covered a lot of the Sol system stuff), so they're juggling things around a bit but book 4 was slightly different to the previous ones as it was about the politics of the ring gate.

Next season should be good as a lot of what was happening in this season pays off.

As I think I've said before, the Expanse is a bit like B5 in that things that seem minor/insignificant in isolation mean much more later on (one of my favourite examples from B5 is vir's wave).
 
Werewolf said:
As I think I've said before, the Expanse is a bit like B5 in that things that seem minor/insignificant in isolation mean much more later on (one of my favourite examples from B5 is vir's wave).
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"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange this for me, Mr. Morden?"
 
FInished it, one thing I couldn't understand was how nutty knew who was responsible for the shuttle accident, and I assume the captain of the ship was also on the shuttle?
 
darkgen said:
Really surprised by some of the comments between best / worse seasons. I personally like operatic Sci Fi, so found this season (4) quite claustrophobic, limited in scope and well a little dull if I'm honest. I think I may need to re-watch as I've gleaned pretty much zero about the ...
rings, ancient artifacts or the suggested ancient alien races. I'm also fuzzy on the meaning or mechanics of what was going on regarding the planet and the (twelve?) moons. Was this a weapon designed to be fired into the rings destroying all connected systems? I was instantly reminded of Alistair Reynolds Inhibitor species but perhaps I've imagined / come to the wrong conclusion.
Still enjoyed the season but not patch on the previous.
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I pretty much agree with this. Unless they expand upon what happened on the planet in the next season I don't think they explained things even remotely well. His comment to Millar when seeing him off about "we'll remember what you done for us" really, remember what? I'm still not sure what he achieved or why.

If it's a slow burn and season 5 clears all this up then that's cool, as it is it was a pretty unsatisfying series, probably the weakest to date.

Really don't understand the high production value comment either. Apart from season 1 where they were clearly on a shoe string I found this season seemed to be too reliant on Green screen, so many times there were so many instances where it was painfully obvious it was green screen. I'm guessing here, but it feels although they've got a load of money and went away fr physical to green screen and personally I thought it looked poor in a lot of instances.

Complaints aside it's still great TV, just didn't live up to previous seasons for me.
 
No1newts said:
I pretty much agree with this. Unless they expand upon what happened on the planet in the next season I don't think they explained things even remotely well. His comment to Millar when seeing him off about "we'll remember what you done for us" really, remember what? I'm still not sure what he achieved or why.
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Miller was basically being used by the Protomolecule to find out what had happened to its creators, which it did by turning things on without any care for what might happen, leading to the huge explosion on the planet, fusion drives not working in orbit and ships not being able to land on the planet. To fix this the human side of Miller took over, turned on everything and let himself be pushed into the portal, which killed him and everything that was switched on.

This meant the fusion drives would work and ships could land on the planet, in-effect saving everyone.

darkgen said:
rings, ancient artifacts or the suggested ancient alien races. I'm also fuzzy on the meaning or mechanics of what was going on regarding the planet and the (twelve?) moons. Was this a weapon designed to be fired into the rings destroying all connected systems? I was instantly reminded of Alistair Reynolds Inhibitor species but perhaps I've imagined / come to the wrong conclusion.
Still enjoyed the season but not patch on the previous.
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The planet is better explained in the book that it has un-natural concentrations of lithium and I assume the moons are all part of the geo-engineering to do this. In later books there are more strange unexplained worlds and when compared to the Alastair Reynolds novels The Expanse series doesn't go into the same depth to explain things and build a universe.

From my view book 4 is the worst in the series and picks up at the end.
 
I really liked it. Not as action packed as season 3 4 but it remains a good character based show. I like all the leads and given the constraints of TV I think they’re doing a great job.

edit: I probably meant season 3
 
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Leg said:
Miller was basically being used by the Protomolecule to find out what had happened to its creators, which it did by turning things on without any care for what might happen, leading to the huge explosion on the planet, fusion drives not working in orbit and ships not being able to land on the planet. To fix this the human side of Miller took over, turned on everything and let himself be pushed into the portal, which killed him and everything that was switched on.

This meant the fusion drives would work and ships could land on the planet, in-effect saving everyone.



The planet is better explained in the book that it has un-natural concentrations of lithium and I assume the moons are all part of the geo-engineering to do this. In later books there are more strange unexplained worlds and when compared to the Alastair Reynolds novels The Expanse series doesn't go into the same depth to explain things and build a universe.

From my view book 4 is the worst in the series and picks up at the end.
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Thanks for trying to help but even your explanation makes no sense and contradicts itself :p

As o day I still enjoyed it, was just not up to scratch (IMO)
 
Is it just me or is the acting in this randomly shockingly poor? We are only on season 2 and understandably there's been an influx of new characters but my god some of the scenes are hands over eyes bad. One example is the four Martian Marines, the leader of which is an plump women in a tight suit who's been given the stereotypical moody soldier role but to be undertaken as an all empowering women who can punch males in the face, shout "huu MARS" at random intervals, talk smack to the ships captain and snap the arm of the robotic arm wrestling machine whilst gurning at her slightly scared looking colleagues. All of which is provided by a woman who to put it bluntly is a worse actor than Daniel Radcliffe during his first outing as Harry "I I I I I'm not a wizard, I I I I'm just Harry" Potter.

I'm hoping they improve of get absorbed by the Tron man who lives on Eros (sic)?

Bizarrely though we are enjoying it lol.

As a side note Holden = John Snow
 
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LOAM said:
Is it just me or is the acting in this randomly shockingly poor? We are only on season 2 and understandably there's been an influx of new characters but my god some of the scenes are hands over eyes bad. One example is the four Martian Marines, the leader of which is an plump women in a tight suit who's been given the stereotypical moody soldier role but to be undertaken as an all empowering women who can punch males in the face, shout "huu MARS" at random intervals, talk smack to the ships captain and snap the arm of the robotic arm wrestling machine whilst gurning at her slightly scared looking colleagues. All of which is provided by a woman who to put it bluntly is a worse actor than Daniel Radcliffe during his first outing as Harry "I I I I I'm not a wizard, I I I I'm just Harry" Potter.

I'm hoping they improve of get absorbed by the Tron man who lives on Eros (sic)?

Bizarrely though we are enjoying it lol.

As a side note Holden = John Snow
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You just have to look past the shonky acting and cringe dialogue at times. It does gradually get better through the series.
 
LOAM said:
Is it just me or is the acting in this randomly shockingly poor? We are only on season 2 and understandably there's been an influx of new characters but my god some of the scenes are hands over eyes bad. One example is the four Martian Marines, the leader of which is an plump women in a tight suit who's been given the stereotypical moody soldier role but to be undertaken as an all empowering women who can punch males in the face, shout "huu MARS" at random intervals, talk smack to the ships captain and snap the arm of the robotic arm wrestling machine whilst gurning at her slightly scared looking colleagues. All of which is provided by a woman who to put it bluntly is a worse actor than Daniel Radcliffe during his first outing as Harry "I I I I I'm not a wizard, I I I I'm just Harry" Potter.

I'm hoping they improve of get absorbed by the Tron man who lives on Eros (sic)?

Bizarrely though we are enjoying it lol.

As a side note Holden = John Snow
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She get's better as the show goes on. Guess gets more familiar with the character and the setting.
 
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