Really enjoyed the first three. Spoiler: Spoiler I'm glad that they've continued to substitute Drummer for Michio Pa's role, despite it feeling a little disjointed early on. More Cara Gee on screen is no bad thing but I'm curious as to how this plays out, considering Pa's role in Nemesis Games.
OK so without having read the books, and coming at it from a general sci-fi TV direction, but, I found series 5 somewhat underwhelming
Season 5 was very much a character development and build up plot to the next season, from what I've read online. I think knowing season 6 was coming, and likely to be the last gave them some leeway with a less action heavy season.
The Expanse? Pfft... more like The Expense! just kidding I had to say that for some reason. No idea why. The show seems pretty good, but I'd like to see more of what happens on the planets that the ships got through to via those big blue portals. Also is anyone starting to get a somewhat lovecraftian vibe from the whole thing? Those gaseous aliens are kinda like the things that fought "The old ones" in "At the mountains of Madness". I haven't watched since about episode 5 (waiting for them to finish) but thus far their story seemed to follow lovecraft's weird gas-like flying aliens.
After rewatching season for a second time - it started off strong but became pretty meh by the middle (series/book spoilers bellow) Spoiler The bad: * way too much time focusing on Naomi in Chetzemoka * Monika (the reporter) just feels out of place/ exposition character after the Tycho station, should have left her there. * Temp sec general arc felt like padding for the sake of padding * Final episode with whole killing of Alex, yeh he got fired, but if cant get other actors for reshoots to do it properly, just kill the character offscreen between seasons. * IMO, while handling very well in previous seasons, in this one they gone overboard with SJW messaging/"Strong female characters". The good: * Amos arc * Marco Inaros * Battles, both in space and on planet * Death of Fred was handled quite well considering actors other obligations, but spoiled by the mess that was last episode. * Getting quite fond of Bull, if he'll be a replacement for Alex then fair enough. I'm still on a fence about the changes they made to Pa's/Drummers arc from the books
Gonna be watching the first season later after work. I hope this is as awesome as this thread describes it to be.
Ok, unpopular opinion time - I found the series finale quite disappointing. What was with the whole strange dogs Laconia arc? Especially if they weren't going to do anything with it?! Yeah, I've read the books and I know all about that side of things, but the TV show had no intentions of going beyond Babylon's Ashes, so why bother? It really felt like they just grabbed something off the cutting room floor in order to introduce Duarte, so he wasn't a total stranger when he cut off support for Marco. Maybe I'm being picky, but it really took the shine off it.
Is it true that Amazon aren't making any more seasons owing to low ratings? I haven't read the books and I have SO MANY QUESTIONS.
The issue is three fold. 1) The Expanse is an extremely expensive show to make. Every shot is filled with post production effects and obviously each space scene is entirely animated. 2) The story is about to take a veer into Warhammer 40k territory, which will make it even more expensive. 3) Bezos has lost interest, in that way that Bezos does. Read the books!
They only commissioned it for six seasons total and, as book readers know, book six offers a very convenient way out/happily ever after opportunity.
This is not such an unpopular opinion. Personally, I would have preferred that they leave Laconia out of it altogether. Let's end it on a high note - without spoiling it, book/season 6 is the perfect place to stop, we don't need Strange Dogs/Laconia muddying it. However. The main rationale for doing the Strange Dogs story is probably that it leaves open the possibility of someone else picking up the TV show and carrying on. I would rather that didn't happen, if I'm honest - the longer it goes on the greater the risk of turning The Expanse into Game of Thrones. The Expanse was a brilliant TV show - we don't need twelvty-bajillion seasons of The Expanse, we need other TV shows that are just as good as The Expanse - preferably ones that aren't poor adaptations (lookin' at you, Altered Carbon.... *glares*). The last 5-10 years or so has seen some amazing science fiction in both cinema and on TV, long may it continue.
Coming at it from a no-read of the books perspective, this sounds entirely reasonable as an explanation, but it still feels front-filled and end-rushed and at just six episodes too. Laconia felt like a waste of screen time and although I realise there's a cost involved, going out spectacularly with more space battles would have been nice. Spoiler Especially since I accidentally ended up doing some wiki-reading around and so now know about the stealth ship(s) that were supposed to have been delivered More so, given the last battle was a bit weak; can't even remember Earth's/Mars' contribution (but I was getting a bit bored with both Marco and Filip to be honest - much preferred the old Earth/Mars/Belt politicking). Can someone do me one favour though and explain what the books make of filling out the "repair dogs" arc? Just to satisfy my sense of completeness. And PDCs unloading. Also agree that if we are stopping at a decent point then it should stay stopped and we should have something new (unless they do want to go all 40K, in which case they have my permission); there's no shortage of stuff to discover these days either. Maybe we need a suggestion thread...
Strange dogs is from a novella based the whole Laconia thing, which gets a lot of attention in the later books i.e. after Babylon's Ashes.
