The Expanse Catch-All

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Oh you bad man, its not out yet for me.

Wha? I just watched the first two episodes, and I'm in your time zone.

Rat Boy wrote:
Baron Of Hell wrote:

Oh you bad man, its not out yet for me.

Wha? I just watched the first two episodes, and I'm in your time zone.

Oh crap, it was because I had my VPN on. Ok sorry for calling you a bad person. I'm the real bad person. Bad old Baron.

Halfway into episode 2! So good!

Only one episode in and it is great. Be honest I'm a little lost. I remember the big stuff and they kind of went over some missing details like what happen to Bobby and her situation. I'm going to find a recap to watch before going into episode 2.

I'm still in love with all the women. ALL THE WOMEN, ALL OF THEM. And some of the dudes.

Just thinking about some stuff from ep 1

Spoiler:

So the government is trying to keep people from traveling the gate. They say it is for their own protection but they probably want to keep whatever they find for themselves. We have gate runners trying to get through to find planets they can live on. If I heard correctly all of these runner shipshave been killed by the government or just lost in the network of planets.

At first I thought the science ship got taken out by a railgun but maybe it was the weird flying mass. And the mass I thought was alive until Holden picked one up. I guess it is some type of weapon or heck it could be alive and a weapon, aliens.

Oh man the sci fi in this show is epic. I just love the science. People born in space can't just go down to a planet willy nilly. Ships move like they are in space. I love it.

So amazon has a season 1 to 3 recap but it is at the bottom of the page after the last episode of season 4. The recap was pretty good.

ep2

Spoiler:

Bobby, oh my god Bobby. The lady of the hour kicking ass and taking names. She doesn't need a power suit.

The activation of the alien thingy reminded me of mass effect. I think it might have the same effect. I think it is a device to change the planet into livable space for the aliens.

The episode was fantastic.

ep3 was more of a joiner episode but still a good episode.

Spoiler:

Amos was the vip of this episode. His deadpan attitude gives him a badass style. He just doesn't give a F but really cares for his crew.

Love Bobby but she seems to be on her own unrelated show.

I'm thinking nuking the alien device was a bad idea. We shall see. And where is ghost dad?

Baron Of Hell wrote:

ep3 was more of a joiner episode but still a good episode.

Spoiler:

Amos was the vip of this episode. His deadpan attitude gives him a badass style. He just doesn't give a F but really cares for his crew.

Love Bobby but she seems to be on her own unrelated show.

I'm thinking nuking the alien device was a bad idea. We shall see. And where is ghost dad?

I'm only two episodes in but i've read the books half a dozen times without spoilers further on in the story to address your bobby statement:

Spoiler:

The reason bobby's story seems disconnected is because they are telling the story from one of the novellas so it IS disconnected from the main storyline. That said i am getting chills at how well they are doing it, her badassness but also her vulnerability and frustration re her situation. Frankie Adams is really killing it this season

Now that this is on prime, Avassarala has become the queen of expletives. "Don't put your dick in it. It's already f*cked as it is." Got to love it.

slazev wrote:

Now that this is on prime, Avassarala has become the queen of expletives. "Don't put your dick in it. It's already f*cked as it is." Got to love it.

Shes finally her true self and Shohreh Aghdashloo really sells it.

Took nearly two episodes before Holden abs. Seems obligatory in this series.

Amos gets to cuss more, too.

Ep4 had me confused. I had to watch it twice to get it but still might have missed something.

Spoiler:

How did soldier boy find out that the doctor caused the death of his crew? I missed something. For me it was he just started chasing her at random.

Am I suppose to know who the captured guy was? Isn't this the first time he has shown up? I get his position but the show made it seem like he had history on the show.

Another joiner type episode that doesn't stand on its own. This isn't a bad thing. This works well for the binge format.

I’m enjoying the new season but it looks like they decided to leave out the most interesting idea from the book, that life on an alien world is so fundamentally different from terrestrial biology that it isn’t even toxic, it’s just treated as functionally inert. The settlers have to import most of their food because they can’t digest any local plants/animals and farming earth plants is largely unsuccessful because they have difficulty extracting nutrients from the alien soil.
I imagine it was left out due to budget, but it’s something so rarely touched upon in sci-fi, especially sci-fi tv/films, I’m disappointed they appear to have dropped it.

ruhk wrote:

I’m enjoying the new season but it looks like they decided to leave out the most interesting idea from the book, that life on an alien world is so fundamentally different from terrestrial biology that it isn’t even toxic, it’s just treated as functionally inert. The settlers have to import most of their food because they can’t digest any local plants/animals and farming earth plants is largely unsuccessful because they have difficulty extracting nutrients from the alien soil.
I imagine it was left out due to budget, but it’s something so rarely touched upon in sci-fi, especially sci-fi tv/films, I’m disappointed they appear to have dropped it.

Oh! That's a bummer.

slazev wrote:

Now that this is on prime, Avassarala has become the queen of expletives. "Don't put your dick in it. It's already f*cked as it is." Got to love it.

I'm still on season two, but started out watching on Prime. I'm not sure if there was some cleaning up where ever it was broadcast originally, but she has been no slouch in these first two seasons when it comes to colorful language.

I vaguely remember there being some wonky censoring with SyFy on broadcast vs streaming.

Is there anything out there about why the aspect ratio changes from letterbox on and around Ilus to fullscreen everywhere else?

Rat Boy wrote:

Is there anything out there about why the aspect ratio changes from letterbox on and around Ilus to fullscreen everywhere else?

Unless I hadn't noticed this hasn't happen for me. I'll keep it in mind when I watch the next episode.

I guess whether or not it is full screen depends upon your screen, but this season they are using 21:9 for scenes on Ilus and the more standard 16:9 for everything else. The showrunners said it was an intentional choice to accentuate the alien nature of the world.

Season 4 ep 6 "Displacement" was great. This is why The Expanse is one of the best shows out.

Spoiler:

Here we are dealing with the aftermath of one of the alien machines blowing up and taking out an entire island from the last episode. This causes multiple major disasters that all are capable of killing everyone one the planet.

Holden comes up with a idea to move everyone to one of the alien machines that hadn't woken up. This seems to work for the most part but the episode ends with Holden getting hit by a giant wave while trying to seal the machine off with everyone inside. I'm guessing the water pressure was enough to close the door. If not then Holden, Amos and everyone else on the planet are dead.

While things are going to hell on Ilus Bobby proves herself useful working for the bad guys. Funny thing about Bobby, she always politely introduces herself to new people. However, most of the people just blow her off like the guy did in this episode. It says a lot about her character that she continues to be polite even when most people are jerks.

ruhk wrote:

I guess whether or not it is full screen depends upon your screen, but this season they are using 21:9 for scenes on Ilus and the more standard 16:9 for everything else. The showrunners said it was an intentional choice to accentuate the alien nature of the world.

It reminded me of The Dark Knight whenever they switched from standard cameras to the IMAX ones. Or Doctor Who or Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Season 7 episode 7 "A Shot in the Dark"

Another great episode. No real surprises. Moves are being made.

Spoiler:

Most of this episode had to do with the election. The story is interesting but there isn't much to talk about with it.

Two new things come to light on Ilus. One microbes have infected the eyes of everyone except Holden and in a day they will all be blind. Two slugs have made their way into the alien machine and they have killed two people so far. These problems on top of the food and water problem means they are F. However, I'm guessing the ghost in the machine will help them.

Only on episode one but it feels good to have the show back.

Episode 6 was definitely one of the tensest hours of TV I've seen in a while.

I feel they took what was probably one of the weakest books in the series (or at least most different from typical space opera fare) and turned it into the strongest season of the TV show.

The pacing was perfect--not too slow and not the firehose that the first season was. And I think they very successfully used that pacing to give a lot of the characters room to breath and to flesh themselves out, even the new ones, who were all pretty amazing.

My only issue, if you can even call it that, was

Spoiler:

the recasting of Arjun. While I love they had Arjun doing more than previous seasons, I think they lost more than a bit of the kind grandfather vibe Brian George filled the role with. But I expect that was a very conscious choice.

Finished. No complaints except that I don't have 3 more seasons confirmed. Fantastic season.

Rat Boy wrote:

Is there anything out there about why the aspect ratio changes from letterbox on and around Ilus to fullscreen everywhere else?

My suspicion, and I didn't try to confirm this at all, is that everything set in the alien solar system is in CinemaScope while the rest is "normal".

Rat Boy wrote:

Is there anything out there about why the aspect ratio changes from letterbox on and around Ilus to fullscreen everywhere else?

Yup.

Newsweek wrote:

The new, planetary focus will be marked by a stylistic change proposed by The Expanse cinematographer Jeremy Benning. "We chose to shoot all of the stuff on Ilus in anamorphic, 2.39 to 1 — it's a very wide aspect ratio," Shankar said. "So every time you're on the planet, it actually opens up, so you feel the vista is much larger. You watch the show and it seamlessly switches back and forth from 16:9 and 2.39." A widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 has become high definition standard, while the wider 2.39:1 anamorphic format is more commonly reserved for theatrical movies.

Rat Boy wrote:

Is there anything out there about why the aspect ratio changes from letterbox on and around Ilus to fullscreen everywhere else?

I don;t know about aspect ratios, but i know they deliberately used a different kind of lens to film on ilus vs filming everywhere else to set it apart. I don;t actually know much about how film lenses work but could that be what leads to the difference?

edit: thats what i get for not reading far enough before posting. it was the anamorphic lenses i'd heard about.

At my house, we finished Season 4 last night.

Spoiler:

The ships seem so very Homeworld, that I can't help but love the ship scenes.

We think the split of the Rossy's crew hurt the banter and camaraderie we love so much.
However, we liked Robbie's story.
Avi's new husband seems... quite young. I had a hard time not thinking he was her son.

The "hat - no hat" visual flag made me think of the "In Character" sign that the cast gave to Seinfeld.

Last episode:
That bloody smile will haunt us... "Thank you," he grated.
And... my favorite character is dead.

Now that's a cliffhanger.