The sky is falling on another great season of The Expanse
The Expanse’s greatest strength is also the source of its biggest weakness
TV Reviews The Expanse
The Expanse’s greatest strength is also the source of its biggest weakness. In adapting a series of novels to television, the show’s writers have a tremendous amount of material to draw from, including character histories, a fleshed-out universe, and a narrative arc they can tweak and reshape as they see fit. But each individual novel rarely fits within the confines of a single season of television, and books don’t have the same demands as television shows; characters can disappear for long periods of time without authors having to worry about actor contracts or audience investment. In its fourth season, The Expanse focused on Cibola Burn, the fourth novel in the series. Since that book’s plot stuck to a limited number of locations and a smaller cast, the show added in scenes and subplots following other characters who would be important for later entries. It made for a good season overall, but one that still felt essentially diluted.
Fortunately, the show’s fifth season does not suffer from a similar concern. Once again, the writers are focused on a single novel—here, it’s Nemesis Games. But thanks to some setup in season four and the scope of Games’s plot, every storyline feels like an equally important piece of the whole. This is critical, because the season also takes the risky move of separating its core ensemble for the bulk of its episodes. The chemistry and interplay among the crew of the Rocinante has always been a major draw, and here, it’s more or less a moot point, with each one stranded from the rest, isolated in part by the massive crisis that serves as the season’s main threat. The fact that this works as well as it does is both a testament to the quality of the source material, and proof positive of how much time the show has put in making sure all of its core cast is worth watching.
The fourth season ended on a major cliffhanger, with the Belter terrorist Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) launching eight asteroids cloaked with Martian stealth technology at Earth’s blind side. When season five begins, the asteroids are in play, but none of them have struck the planet, which gives some breathing room to establish the new status quo and set storylines in motion. James Holden (Steven Strait) and Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) are on Tycho Station, waiting for the Rocinante to be repaired; Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) is heading to Earth to take care of some personal business, while Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar) is off to Mars to do much of the same. Meanwhile Chrisjen Avasrala (Shoreh Aghdashloo) has been relegated to a meaningless position on the moon after losing an election last season, and Bobbi Draper (Frankie Adams) is deep undercover, investigating Martian arms-dealing to the Belt.
It takes a few episodes for Marco’s plot to take off, and that breathing room allows other threads to develop naturally, ensuring that individual storylines never come off as rushed or forced. The Expanse is at its best when it presents multiple different perspectives and victims of a central crisis, and the main threat in season five is deadly enough, and far-reaching enough, to affect all of the show’s major players in distinct ways. It helps that Marco makes for an effectively loathsome main villain, a Belter alternative to the corporate Machiavellis that dominated much of the show’s previous seasons. Charismatic, driven, and ruthless, his arrogance serves to underline one of the series’ ongoing concerns: the ways in which ambitious individuals can serve to shape the course of events, even as that shape spirals out in ways beyond their control or understanding.
To that point, it’s worth noting the alien mysteries that have long served as The Expanse’s counterpart to its more human threats are largely sidelined this season, relegated to subplot status that may disappoint fans hoping for more development in the show’s macro-narrative. At least one early scene suggests that the writers are playing the long game, focusing on an immediate catastrophe while other, more existential dangers lurk in the wings. Presumably this will pay off in the show’s sixth, and final season, but that does mean that this stretch of episodes (excluding the finale, which was not available for pre-air review) is focused on more practical concerns.
But then, practical concerns have always been an important part of The Expanse. Of the individual storylines, Amos’ and Naomi’s are the most immediately striking. The chance to learn more about Amos’ hellish backstory is more than welcome, and seeing him on his home turf is satisfying enough to have supported an entire season on its own. That his return also ends up bringing back a familiar and unexpected face is just a bonus. Naomi has long been the most underserved member of the core cast, and here, she goes on an arguably misguided rescue mission to save her son from his father’s clutches. Since said father is Marco himself, that both puts her at closest proximity to the season’s central storyline and does the necessary work digging into her own past. Being alone in hostile territory brings out a resourcefulness and determination in a character too often pushed to the sidelines.
Other threads succeed to varying degrees. Avasarala finds herself locked into her usual political machinations, albeit with less power than ever before, and with the family support that kept her grounded in earlier seasons. It’s a relief to see those machinations so immediately and absolutely relevant, and fans of Battlestar Galactica might recognize the back-and-forth struggles of an unstable government negotiating the tensions between deliberation and immediate response. Alex and Bobbie team up to uncover a conspiracy, the actors’ natural chemistry helping to enliven solid material. With Miller gone, Holden is left on clean-up duty, watching from the sidelines as people continue to ignore his warnings, but fans of him begrudgingly white knighting his way through a catastrophe will not be disappointed.
None of these storylines are duds, and the ways in which they all interact with one another to varying degrees remains one of the show’s greatest accomplishments. Late in the season, two characters discuss whether it’s worth it to try and help as many people as possible during a crisis: Do you reach out to others, or close ranks and protect your own? The main argument of The Expanse since the very beginning has been that such a debate misses the point: Everything is connected. Everyone is involved, and the more individuals fight for supremacy at the expense of others, the more the whole will suffer. In a cold and hostile universe, there’s no such thing as strangers.
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pssst, it’s Nemesis Games. Babylon’s Ashes is book 6. Unless this is a subtle hint that they’re combining books 5 and 6 into a single volume for the show…
I’ve long thought they could easily combine 5&6, but alas there’s little indication (and many contra-indications) that they’re gonna take that approach.
Season 4 wasn’t bad, exactly. But in the past year I’ve realized just how much it damped my overall interest in the show. It was just so small (or un-expansive): 10 episodes mostly on one planet, a bunch of it spent in caves, and stuck with a really dull and obvious villain.So it’s nice to hear that season 5 is a return to form.
Making Cibola Burn a full season was a mistake (and especially now that it seems the series is going to end without actually addressing all the alien stuff).
I’d bet good money that post covid they’re going to either make streaming movies that adapt the final three books OR announce a new season. There is NO WAY they can film the expanse the right way under covid restrictions and they definitely can not film any adaptation of books 7-9 properly with them in it. This is just a pause.
I really hope you’re right. They’ll have to eat the cost of keeping the Roci as a standing set while not actually in production, but with TV production wonky currently anyways maybe that’s more tenable . . .
Or they can start 3D scanning the sets and license the Lucasfilm volume technology. ST Discovery, which films in the same Toronto studio, has reportedly licensed the tech for season 4 filming.
I dunno, so much of what has made The Expanse great to look at has been the extensive practical sets. I can see that tech working for selling Laconia—you can build the palace interior sets and then use those screens for selling the cityscape around it—but it’s no replacement for ship interiors.On the plus side, the Roci set is the only one you really need to keep, every other set from the next three books can be entirely fresh. Relatedly, more than anything else I desperately want us to get to The Tempest firing its weapon in Sol; the glimpse of it at the end of the season would weirdly seem to provide some evidence that they’ll somehow fit it into season 6, but yeah, I can’t see how it could feel satisfying to squash all that into S6 story-wise, or as you point out just from a sheer practical perspective how they could actually sell that with COVID filming restrictions.I hope they just finish up Book 6 == Season 6, but then give us a real tease at the end. My dream is that tease is a bonus episode that adapts Strange Dogs . . .
Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) is heading to Earth to take care of some personal businessSPOILERS FROM NEMESIS GAMES AND BABYLON”S ASHES INCOMING!
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There’s a reason why last season they had Amos talking to Julie’s sister and making it explicitly clear she wasn’t killed in season three…Also, are they gonna fix how Marco and his OPA faction are defeated? Because in the book they are killed off anticlimactically.
I thought that the final defeat of Marco and the Free Navy was actually very cool and very climactic, and tied back well into the overarching Big Dumb Object storyline
Still hoping season 6 is going to be 40 episodes.
I have a feeling that they’re going to wrap it up at the end of book 6 – I think those ones were the arc that they already had planned, and the last 3 are just because someone offered them a massive advance. Which sort of shows, to be honest – the writing and characterisation is as good as it ever was but in 7 and 8 it felt a lot more like they were winging it plotwiseThat said, 6 is mostly a drag. The other option is to ditch nearly all of it, start the final season more or less with the SPOILERS********Laconia invasion and conclude from there.
The authors have said several times since the announcement that just because season 6 is the last season doesn’t mean that the Expanse is exactly “done.” What that means precisely is anyone’s guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they take some time off and then come back and make some movies or something.
They could certainly make a sequel show with********older cast members to portray the main characters 30 years down the line.
“Laconia” is literally in the opening credits, so make of that what you will.
But that means they’ll leave unanswered a lot of the plot points that they’ve brought up/foreshadowed. I mean, I’m don’t necessarily need everything sewed up in a bow and all mysteries solved in order to enjoy a show. It will just be weird if the final book resolves things and the series never does. But here’s hoping they do wrap things up in a way that is satisfactory even if different from the books. I really love this show.
Season 6 is just Cara Gee’s excellent Camina Drummer and Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Chrisjen Avasarala continuing to chew scenery and be awesome. Sad this show isn’t getting more than six seasons since its consistently proven itself one of the best modern sci-fi shows around (including last season which was fine overall and mostly mirrored the books in being one of the less interesting story lines), but between being cancelled once already and Cas Anvar turning out to be garbage, its a small miracle we’re getting 6 seasons at all.
I want Drummer to be the pilot of the Rociante. I kind of hate Holden. Even in the books he was a whiny indecisive captain. Fuck it I want a whole show based Drummer.
Yeah, Holden is hard. I think a part of it is just that he’s written intentionally that way, like his perpetual optimism and need do what’s right, core parts of his character, have the side effect of making him too afraid to make a decision that could be the wrong one. Its good for plot and story development but also frustrates me as a reader and makes me understand why everyone is always mad at him for some reason or another.
That said, I’m all in for a DS9/Battlestar Galactica style show with Camina Drummer as head of Tycho or Medina station
Oh please enough with the Holden haters. There’s some really good Reddit threads going into depth on Holden and why he’s one of the great protagonists in science fiction. The fact that he isn’t universally loved speaks to the strength of the writing and character development. He learns as he goes and always tries to do the right thing, puts others before himself at every turn, what’s to hate? Sure, he can be righteous, is naive, but his character isn’t static, he reacts to his failures. Lay off cap or I might have to let Amos have a word with you…
To that point, it’s worth noting the alien mysteries that have long served as The Expanse’s counterpart to its more human threats are largely sidelined this season, relegated to subplot status that may disappoint fans hoping for more development in the show’s macro-narrative. At least one early scene suggests that the writers are playing the long game, focusing on an immediate catastrophe while other, more existential dangers lurk in the wings. Presumably this will pay off in the show’s sixth, and final season,Oh I wish. I remember with the novels, many people disliked book 4 and then loved 5 & 6, whereas I somewhat had the opposite reaction. I did enjoy 5 & 6 but felt it could really have been compressed into a single novel and I was anxious to get back to the bigger-picture plotline. As things eventually played out in the novels we got a largely balanced tale (and I’ve got my fingers crossed for the final book) but barring future releases of some kind we’re never going to get to most of the advancement of the alien mysteries plot (nor a couple of great setpieces, but I’ll avoid wallowing in spoilers before we’ve even enjoyed this fresh season!).
Same, 5 and 6 felt like extended piece-shuffling to get the board set for the much more interesting Laconia plot to me.
I honestly think that they might have wanted to end at 6. It was originally a D&D campaign setting – the idea might have been to get us to the point where humanity is more or less out of the immediate crisis engendered by the stargates turning up and is learning to live with them long term, and meanwhile there’s a sinister human threat out there and some wierd alien mysteries and tech to fiddle about with. The human adventure continues…’ sort of thing.
Which…I’m not sure I altogether mind. Or at least, having all those wierd alien mysteries explained and sewed up with nowhere else to go but ‘realist industrial Star Trek forever’ would feel equally disappointing.
Yeah, I get that, but it’s also the case that some of the most interesting (to me at least) human-vs-human parts happen after, shall we say, Laconia makes its play. And I think some of the crisis the mere existence of the gates have created inandof themselves for humanity aren’t really fully explored or resolved by the end of 6. We do get a fairly satisfying (or at least thematically complete) conclusion for the Belt and Earth, but IMHO at the end of book 6 we’re still very much up in the air with Mars. I won’t go on too much more since it’d be spoilers aplenty if I said anything more, but with one book left in the novel series I think they’ve shown remarkable restraint with really addressing the alien mysteries, sometimes still too much restraint for me but with some great alien megastructure setpieces that salve that wound. So I really hope after season 6 we get some eventual followup that adapts the later books and short stories (I will be over the moon if they epilogue season 6 with the novella “Strange Dogs”; I’ll settle for the Laconia Gate broadcast).I’ll definitely grant that, just like if SyFy was gonna cancel The Expanse at the end of S3, Amazon calling it quits on The Expanse at the end of S6 is at least a very natural endpoint!
Same. I liked book 6 a lot better than 5, which was my least favorite. I always felt it would make good TV, but everyone so split up and so long between each plot line made it hard for me to stay focused, I think. I loved 7 and 8 and spent the whole time reading being so excited to see some of those things on screen. 🙁
When The Tempest first fires its main weapon in Sol . . . goddamn! Or that diamond? Or the neutron star?! I really hope the hints the producers and writers have been dropping about S6 nonetheless not being the end of The Expanse mean something, because I will be choked if we never get to see any of that.
P.S. Love your handle, it will forever be a bit baffling to me that the fools at Disney didn’t steal liberally from Zahn’s books. Making a sequel trilogy without Thrawn pained me dearly but was understandable since that might not be the type of story they want to sell (a foolish choice still, but I can see why sane people might mistakenly end up making such judgements). But not adapting Mara Jade!? Like, geez, it’s not like Disney, of all companies, to leave money on the table like that.
Thanks! Yeah, I wasn’t shocked they went a completely different direction, but when they started pulling characters from the old EU, I’d hoped they’d get Mara Jade in there somewhere, even if she wasn’t exactly the same. She was an insanely popular character, so I agree they were probably leaving money on the table.
I liked 5, but I had so much trouble getting through 6. I think the fact that there were like 20 different POV characters, several of which I didn’t care about, killed a lot of the momentum.
My wife and I are in it for the aliens, not the political drama. We both feel that books five and six are the worst of them (not bad, just not what we want). While it was obvious the show was pointing towards Duarte last season with Bobbie (his name was even on a screen at some point), this season it’s 100% clear. Between that and needing to provide answers to the aliens (which was brought to the forefront again with Holden explaining his ring crossing this season)… I just don’t see how non-book readers get a satisfying ending next season, if it’s just book 6.
I can’t think of a more 2020 way to end 2020 than to watch Nemesis Games play out on screen. For anyone who hasn’t read the book this season is based on… hold onto your butts.
Very much looking forward to this, though it’s a bit disappointing to learn that Marcos is the main antagonist.
It would be an absolutely wild departure from the books if he wasn’t for at least some of the show.
My big concern about this season is that this particular book contains numerous scenes that , even with Bezos money, it’s going to be pretty darn hard to translate on anything close to the scale they require.
They def upped theit vfx budget so far. They’re clearly going big.
Yea frankly I was blown away with the VFX in the first three episodes and they haven’t even gotten to any battle scenes yet.
The establishing shots of Tycho and Baltimore were breathtaking.
Baltimore? Breathtaking? Okay now I HAVE to watch this.
And after you do, head to the expanse social media pages for some really cool behind the scenes footage of the said establishing shot.
Apparently they didn’t actually up the VFX budget for this year compared to last year, which makes it all the more impressive. Testament to how well the people behind the scenes have gotten at their jobs and working together, and/or the extra time and stability that the early pickup gave.
I had this concern too… but then I watched the first three eps last night and HOLY CRAP man.. they are not sparing any expense. The VFX for Tycho and Lovell City look just incredible, Mars looks more flushed out and real than ever. My concerns regarding this matter have wholly evaporated.
I propose renaming the show “The Expense”.
It took me 5 minutes of episode 1 to say out loud to my wife – “this season looks expensive”. They got a lot of money
Cannot wait to watch this season…Naomi and Amos are my favorite characters and the development from this story is just awesome.
Would it be too much to ask for some basic factual information? Is the season airing Netflix-style all at once or is it going to be doing weekly drops? I appreciate that I can just google this information, but this seems like basic stuff that should just be dumped into the introduction (or the tail end).
“Besides, it never felt as though Eros would actually hit Earth. It would’ve been too much, the sort of thing that’s difficult, if not impossible, for a series to recover from.”Been waiting 3 years for you to get to this season just so I could pull this quote out of the Season 2 reviews 🙂
Yay, more Expanse! It’s been consistent enough that I don’t need much more than that. But I’m glad that it exceeds season 4, which was still solid. It had a good amount of Drummer screentime, for instance.
Been rereading the books, and I had forgotten that Drummer was a TV series invention who was basically retconned in when she became a fan favourite. I’m wondering if she’s going to get the Michio Pa storyline (if they bother with that – it’s eminently excisable and largely seems to exist to give us a reason to occasionally cut back to Holden).
Indications are that she will – she’s got the family (one of whom is even called Michio!), the profession, and the ships.
She’s definitely taking at least some of the Michio PA storyline because she’s in a polycule and one of her girlfriends is…. Michio Pa!
Yay, more Expanse! It’s been consistent enough that I don’t need much more than that. But I’m glad that it exceeds season 4, which was still solid. It had a good amount of Drummer screentime, for instance.
Assuming it sticks to the books, we should get a LOT more of her. She’s taken over the storyline of one Michio Pa, who is a viewpoint character in the corresponding books and is our view into a lot of big events.
Not a single mention of the show’s best character: Cara Gee’s Camina Drummer!!!
For shame.
She’s so delightful in interviews.
It was disappointing the first episode had…*puts on sunglasses*
…zero Gee.
I mean. Episode 3 gave us the Full Gee. So. Well maybe, I swear she was pregnant when this was filming
Is Alex going to be recast or written out?
So…addressing the elephant in the room, Zack, have the Alex scenes been edited or altered due to Anvar’s actions?
Also how close to the book is THAT moment?
Alex was creeping on that Red-headed lady in the first 3 episodes so my guess is nothing has changed and he will be out going forward with season 6.
BOOK SPOILERS…———-
If they’re going to try and cram the last four books into season 6 (which I’m honestly not convinced they are) they’ve got a rather neat ‘out’ – they can just do the big time jump and recast everyone including Alex. I was sort of wondering how they would do this anyway – age-ing up the original cast with makeup feels like it would be immensely distracting.
I think there’s virtually no chance that they try to stuff books 6-9 into season 6.
Much as I like the books, I don’t think it would take as much stuffing as you think. There’s a lot of wheel spinning in the later books – 8 in particular could be done in a double episode, more or less.
this season could have been done in 2 episodes!
I get what you mean (suddenly-20%-nicer-Amos and Peaches was something of a drag), but I sort of liked that they gave Naomi as much space to be properly put through the wringer – and to come out the other side stronger and truly free of her past – as she gets in the book. If she’d been in and out in three or four episodes it would have less impact.
They are apparently completely dropping the Laconia stuff.
Given there is a 20-30 year gap between books 6 and 7, it’s likely that they’ll just end it there, giving them the option bring the show back in the future to cover Laconia if it looks financially feasible.
Better yet, just recast Alex and do whatever they’d planned to do all along for the rest.I mean, he’s literally the least important main cast member. I don’t get why anyone would care or even notice much if he was recast. Get a better actor who looks similar, and that’s more than enough to forget him, for me.
They wrapped production back in February, and were probably pretty far into post by June/July. My guess would be that they’re following their original plans, and whatever changes they make will be for season 6.
Nah season 5 has Alex as normal. Cas Anvar won’t be back for six, whatever that means. And as of the three released episodes, we haven’t really gotten into things yet. What you see in the trailer is all we have seen
Aaaand it turns out they finessed Alex away with just a couple of extra shots. Relatively graceful, for something so tacked-on.
Non book readers, prepare yourself. This season is going to be VERY intense.
SPOILERS*******I’m kinda mad that they told us what Marco was doing with the stealth coating at the end of season 4. In the books, we get Filip’s raid in the book 5 prologue, and then we hear nothing else about it until suddenly WHAM! In the show, it seems like they’re going for a “oh no, will the heroes stop the asteroids in time?” thing, which… is certainly an approach, but I think it would have been much more impactful (heh) to do what the book did.
We’ll have to see how it plays out in the next couple of weeks, but I feel the change has worked so far. Something about a ticking clock aspect works well in a weekly tv show format.
Sure, but tension can be provided in lots of other ways. In fact I’d have loved it if they’d ginned up a ticking clock that turned out to be a total red herring.
I love your username.
Season five is here! Go get ‘em, guys!
Give us full reviews for each episode damnit!
ROFL at this exchange when Amos calls her “Chrissie”
Avasarala – “Don’t call me that, I’m a member of parliament, not your favorite stripper”Amos – “You could be both”
Straight from the book.
Do we not get episode reviews for this?
Not anymore.
Spoiler “Besides, it never felt as though Eros would actually hit Earth. It would’ve been too much, the sort of thing that’s difficult, if not impossible, for a series to recover from.”-Zach Handlen, 2017
Ugh I hate this weekly release schedule. Already watched the first three.
in a pre pandemic world I’d agree, but now I have something to look forward to until Feb.
Screw that I could be dead by Feb. I would have much preferred the 10 hour binge and the immediate regret afterwards.
We were able to restrain ourselves and have only watched ep 1 so far. We’ll watch 2 in a few days, then 3 a few days after that, then we’ll settle into the weekly schedule. But yeah, it’s hard. 😉
Does that country themed bar in mars mentioned in the books? Because if not I’m pretty sure it’s a nod to Cowboy Bebop where Mars was basically Texas
No regular coverage? Awwwwww*kicks dirt*
Amos’ bag in episode 1 is the most Amos thing that ever did Amos and I am here for it!
I literally laughed out loud when I saw that. Had to rewind for the wife who glanced away right then and missed it.
Yeah, my wife was the one who thought she spotted it which earned the rare “Well, now we have to go back and check right now” during a first-watch… and then we spent about 2 minutes laughing.
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This show is basically Game of Thrones in space, except with better writing. I’m a little baffled as to why it’s not more popular, or why AV club does not do episode by episode recaps.
Are we not getting weeklies?
Four and Five were SO GOOD: we must discuss!
This is season is sooooooooooooo boring!
Right? I was going to ask around what has been so good about it. THe beginning was great, but then the set up stretched for several episodes, mostly the middle “Kramer Vs Kramer… in Space!” episodes.- I love you- But you left me- But I love you- But you left meThere is a lot of crying that tries to replace the writing. Because the writing is AWFUL this season, absolutely awful. It all feels like filler. All but episode 8.
Was not expecting the solution to The Cas Anvar Problem to be them giving him Fred’s fate in the books, although I guess I should have seen that coming when they surprisingly killed Fred off so early in the season.