The Expanse Catch-All

For those interested in reading the books before watching the show, I'd suggest reading the first two before this season. The show seems to be blending a couple of the timelines a bit.

Yeah, they brought in Avasarala early, probably because they needed an Earth-centric character to somewhat balance things out, but that's about all I've really noted. A few things have changed a bit (I think Holden was a bit faster to broadcast about Mars destroying the Canterbury for example) but so far they're being pretty faithful to things. (Overlooking the fact that no casting ever exactly matches how you pictured the characters yourself.)

All caught up and damn, think we might have the next BSG on our hands.

I binge watched episodes 1-4 Tuesday while working from home on a snow day. Episode 1 was kinda hard for me to get into until towards the end. I'll watch episode 5 this weekend in readiness for the next episode to come out.

I'll have to check into the books, how many are there and who is the author? Are they just called The Expanse?

Rainsmercy wrote:

I'll have to check into the books, how many are there and who is the author? Are they just called The Expanse?

There are currently 5 books by James S A Corey (which is actually a 2 author team):
Leviathan Wakes
Caliban's War
Abaddon's Gate
Cibola Burn
Nemesis Games

The 6th book is due to come out next summer. There are also 3 novellas in the same universe that I haven't read. I've really enjoyed listening to this series on audiobook.

I'm loving the show so far, but maybe I just have a lot of background noise when I'm watching - I've been having a tough time hearing the dialogue on this show. Rather than blasting the speakers to hear it, I just put subtitles on, which actually kind of helps when they start speaking Belter patois, sasa?

chixor7 wrote:

There are also 3 novellas in the same universe that I haven't read.

There's four. The Butcher of Anderson Station, The Churn, God of Risk, and Vital Abyss. They're good-to-fine but are largely tangential to the main series, featuring supporting characters and background events. They can safely be skipped unless you're really into the series.

Woohoo!

Ok, guess I have to wait till Tuesday for episode 5.

Didn't realize this was based on a book series. Just finished ep 4, and man, this is real good. Amusingly, I just checked my Kindle books, and apparently I actually already own the first book in the series. Hooray?

I've read the first two books, and am looking forward to reading more. Through the first four episodes of the show, it's pretty good, but Holden's casting really bothers me. I think the actor is doing a fine job for the show, but I don't like the fact that they cast such a young-looking actor and gave him sort of a mini-demotion to boot (on the show, he's been acting XO for like 12 minutes before the inciting incident of the series, whereas in the books my understanding is he's been in that role much longer). I feel the role of Holden requires a certain amount of gravitas that it's hard to attribute to a boyish 20-something actor. I guess Holden is described as a bit of a pretty-boy in the books, but this actor just clashes very strongly with what I pictured in my head. Thomas Jane is better casting, although I hate his dumb outfit (even if the show acknowledges that it's dumb and everyone mocks it, which I do appreciate). Basically, I'd prefer if everyone in the cast were 5-10 years older than they are. And I'm not especially sold on Cutty from the Wire as Fred Johnson, although maybe my familiarity with him in other roles is the main issue.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear it's getting a second season, and I'll be curious to see how much of the first book they cover in season one. I'll be disappointed if we're not on to book two by season two, but I won't be surprised if they want to play it a little more slowly. Given some of the shuffling of events from book to show already, perhaps it will make sense to play out the book one beats a little more slowly.

I can see the reasoning for Holden's change. The actor is great for the role, but young. He *couldn't* have been XO for very long. So, they tweaked the story to explain his role, and that adds "reluctant guy thrown into role he didn't expect" to the themes. It gives him growth potential in proportion to his age.

I like the show. I just wish SyFy would ease up on the ads while showing it on their app. Total buzzkill.

I'm rereading all the books because of the show, and boy have they changed a lot of plot details. The skeleton is there, but nearly all of the little details have been modified or dejected for something entirely new. Which, sure, I can understand. Television is a different medium, you need to fit within the limitations that format brings. I guess I was just hoping the show would follow the books a bit more closely. Ah well. I'm still really enjoying the show! I'm just enjoying the books much more.

Also, what a waste of bringing in Jonathan Banks of Breaking Bad and Community. They gave him 40 seconds of screen time on a throw away role? That very much bummed me out. Despite that, I think the casting has been largely great, and as for the characters that have had a slow start I'm willing to give them time to breathe and settle in before I declare judgment.

I really hope this becomes SyFy's new BSG, and thank god they have enough source material to plot out many seasons for this show. BSG suffered a lot from lack of direction towards the end of the run, and the writer's strike didn't help. I got a feeling the show runners for this series have no real inclination to deviate greatly from the large plot of the books, which is fine by me because this series is fantastic as is.

Episode 5 slowed down a bit after the events of the last couple episodes and it's starting to feel like they are padding out Miller's storyline in order to let Holden and the crew of the Rocinante's plotline play out, but I still enjoyed it quite a bit.
They (sort of) folded one of the novellas into tonight's episode as well, which was unexpected.

Never read the books but watched the first 5 episodes in the last couple of day. It's the most enjoyable speculative fiction show I've seen in some time.
My only quibble would be the CGI. The space scenes are gorgeous but the interior ones need a little work. It's lightyears better than the B5 movies but still needs a little work.
Still, I loved it and ordered the season pass on Amazon.

Really enjoyed episode 5, I was starting to feel a bit of burnout with the constant ACTION! This one was much slower and allowed the Rocinante crew to just develop a bit. Also liked the Fred stuff as well. I plan on recommending this to all my friends who loved BSG, we used to have a very large crew that watched it regularly when it aired. I think we have a new show to watch together I also bit the bullet and bought the Amazon season pass. This is my first time buying a season through a streaming service and so far I have not been disappointed.

I'm just upset by two things. First, SyFy is no longer on Roku. WTF? And second, the damn commercials. I am paying for SyFy out of my (expensive) cable package; the least they could do is not run 6 commercials every 10 minutes or so...

I'm warming up to the actor playing Amos. He's a lot better now that he's got a little more to work with. He never felt dangerous in the previous episodes. But he's doing a good job of that "I might agree with you, I might snap your neck" aura that Amos should have.

kazooka wrote:

I'm warming up to the actor playing Amos. He's a lot better now that he's got a little more to work with. He never felt dangerous in the previous episodes. But he's doing a good job of that "I might agree with you, I might snap your neck" aura that Amos should have.

Same, but I'm still struggling with the fact that he's so tiny compared to the Amos I imagined from the book.

I am really enjoying this show, after catching up with the books (which are fantastic) in the last month or so.
I'm loving the casting for Miller a whole damn bunch, as well as Naomi (Dominque Tipper) and Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo).
I'm thrilled the show has already been picked up for a second season, and I can't wait to see who they cast as Bobbie Draper.

Elias Toufexis is on this show now? How long before someone says, "I never asked for this?"

Still loving the show and so much so, that like Game of Thrones, I'm glad I haven't read the books. I have NO IDEA where they're going or what will happen and totally love that.

Count me as on the "I have warmed up to the actor playing Amos" team. Was wary during the first couple episodes, but 4 through 6 the guy is killing it. Perfect. And Thomas Jane has nailed Miller. I can't even remember what my image of him from the books was. The floppy hair. The stupid hat. The swagger. Really good. Over on the Metafilter fanpage they've started referring to him as Hat Cop, which I find hilarious. Love this show.

I've seen the first five episodes so far, and yeah, a very good BSG-ish vibe going on. Haven't read the books, and I think I'll keep it that way while I'm enjoying the TV series.

Farscry wrote:

I've seen the first five episodes so far, and yeah, a very good BSG-ish vibe going on. Haven't read the books, and I think I'll keep it that way while I'm enjoying the TV series.

They're different enough. (Just finished 1, onto book 2)

Most recent episode...

Spoiler:

...Jensen should have unlocked the pheromone persuasion mod.

Just watched 5-7 on their site. Still very good.

OG_slinger wrote:
kazooka wrote:

I'm warming up to the actor playing Amos. He's a lot better now that he's got a little more to work with. He never felt dangerous in the previous episodes. But he's doing a good job of that "I might agree with you, I might snap your neck" aura that Amos should have.

Same, but I'm still struggling with the fact that he's so tiny compared to the Amos I imagined from the book.

Can't agree with you there. He looks pretty big to me. And as an Earther, Amos was always one of the shorter characters in the series. Remember, Naomi is supposed to be like seven feet tall.

THE CHURN.

After 6 episodes, I'm still not totally convinced, but it hasn't pushed me away.