SummaryBased on the book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S. A. Corey), Detective Miller (Thomas Jane) is given the assignment to find a missing heiress and meets Holden (Steven Strait), who works on a freighter called the Canterbury.
SummaryBased on the book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck (under the pen name James S. A. Corey), Detective Miller (Thomas Jane) is given the assignment to find a missing heiress and meets Holden (Steven Strait), who works on a freighter called the Canterbury.
The Expanse isn’t perfect television, but entering Season 3 it is confident in the story it’s telling and, more importantly, the kind of stories it wants to tell.
I love the Expanse so much and this season reminds me why. This was the first season I would give a 10/10 too. It's just perfect TV for me, the level of detail in the writing means that every action or event that happens never feels forced or out of place.
The time skip mid-season is fantastic and only elevates the plot further for me. I have a massive adoration for shows that are like complex puzzles - several moving parts that form a complete picture. The expanse is up there with early GoT for that for me. It's great to see intricately plotted, complex TV with believable arcs and fantastic characters. I'm just here for the ride.
I believe the Expanse will open the doors for a lot of smart space opera novels that think outside the box to work their way into tv. Although great for its time, the days of linear Star Trek/Star Wars type of space shows will become the minority.
I love the book series, and loved Season 1 on SyFy. But season 2 started to stray pretty far from the books, and season 3 is full of soapy drama and plot clichés. It's painful to watch something you love go senile.... Too bad. This kind of quality TV is hard to make, and expensive, but the producers and distributors should realise it will show and show and show for years.
The first two seasons of The Expanse are excellent. It's a 9/10 series for sure, and the end of season 2 does have some closure. Honestly, it's best to stop watching there.
Starting with season 3 we get a partial cast remix that loses Thomas Jane, who is easily the strongest and most experienced actor, and for whom the writers really put in their best effort. New cast editions are generally weak or flat out terrible, as in the case of Anna Hopkins. Her acting is whiny and her purpose is to provide a cheap moral foil that is tiresome and predictable. Talk about low effort.
Season 3 gets extremely repetitive in its use of dialog. Every conflict between cast members is resolved the same way - with an impassioned speech or memory that's actually some sort of moral tale. It's a fine device used sparingly but nearly every conflict between the characters boils down to these mini speeches. The worst offender by far is Shohreh Aghdashloo. "You know, I knew your father and... and you're just like him, because like him you're (insert negative trait) but, also like him you're (insert positive trait), and..."
Also disappointing is Steven Strait apparently forgot how to act. He just mopes around with drooped head and every dramatic closeup is the same squinty eyes and furrowed brow. Half the time he looks like he's on the verge of crying. He's a barely passable leader in the first two seasons, but in season 3, you wonder why anyone follows him.
What made the first two seasons work was Thomas Jane's character and storylines. They really put a close, intimate human feeling on a stage that traverses billions of miles. You don't realize how important that is until you get to the generic sci-fi writing of season 3 where it's absent or replaced by one-dimensional characters we simply don't care about. A father pursuing his daughter that just fails to land, but there's an implication that of course any loving father would cross the universe for his daughter. Expanse doesn't show us this, it just expect our parental notions and "every child is sacred" culture to pick up the slack. You don't even feel there's a real connection between parent and child, just the usual "I want my daddy" kind of stuff.
Now Expanse just feels like any other generic space show going through formulaic motions, bombastic sounds and what feels like avoidance of the series conclusion because the writers aren't sure how to end it. We still don't know much more about the alien presence, but it's now a mcguffin that's 3 seasons old and one wonders how they'll wrap it up in a satisfying way after all this buildup.
To sum up, it's no surprise that SyFy chose to drop the series at the end of this season. They realized they had a bloated, unlikable cast going through a pile of formulaic scripts and it was just a matter of time before the audience figured it out.
Loved the first season, liked second one, but can't force myself to watch third one to the end. Too much politics and personal drama. Too much annoying fighting between main characters, and too many stupid decisions they make. I'll rather give books a try, hoping they are not full of usual tv show soap opera drama and other BS.