Have people actually managed to watch this show? - The Expanse (2015) Discussion

[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

It's very good once you get oriented as to what is going on. Most people who watch SciFi seem to think this is the new standard of excellence in SciFi series.

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[–] Kazak (2190) 4 years ago

Cool, thanks, I guess I should press on.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

The first few episodes are very confusing. There will be a payoff. Hang in there.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

Come back here and ask questions if you lose track of what is going on.
It I recall it starts with showing the Belter ( those who live in space beyond the orbit of Mars in the Asteroid Belt ) life on a mining ship called the Canterbury, and the things that can happen while mining ice from comets to supply the bases and Mars with water. Then they get a distress signal, and like in Alien, they have to investigate, but they don't want to since it cuts into their profits so they tinker with comms to delete the incident. But James Holden, the temporary exec officer hears the signal and it is a woman, so he pulls it up, undeletes it and registers it. Holden and a small crew go out to investigate and while they are out there a cloaked ship with stealth tech shows up. Holden and crew try to make it back to the Canterbury but the stealth ship fires missiles and blows up the "Cant" and Holden's friends and girlfriend.

There are a lot of explanations and discussion videos on just about every season and episode of The Expanse on YouTube that will explain a given chapter with spoilers.

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[–] Kazak (2190) 4 years ago

This is what is thought among millennial circles? 😉

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

I am hardly a millennial ... more of a boomer

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[–] Kazak (2190) 4 years ago

Just playin’. Solid GenX here.

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[–] moviechatterer (15796) 4 years ago

I doubt millenials have got the attention span :P

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[–] [email protected] (2019) 2 years ago

You guys realize millenials were born on the 80s and 90s right? So they're 30-40s. Some even place their birth as early as 1977.

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[–] moviechatterer (15796) 2 years ago

you are correct

I was thinking of todays 20 year olds which a huge amount of people incorrectly think "milennials" refers to .

Its one of those words thats in danger of having its definition changed due to mass misuse, especially as the definition is a little vague to start with

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[–] [email protected] (2019) 2 years ago

My brother's girlfriend called her 8 and 9 year olds millenials disparagingly. I told her they're actually gen z or something newer, but she and my brother are the millenials. Lols. But I don't think these labels fit perfectly with non americans, I'm from SE Asia btw.

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[–] TrentnQuarantino (9227) 3 years ago

I watched, or tried to watch the first episode a few times, and just could not get into it. Eventually I got used to the pace and got the gist of what was going on, now it is one of my favorites.

Are you watching season 6?

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[–] asom (6865) 4 years ago

Took me a while to get hooked. Almost the whole first season ...

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[–] moviechatterer (15796) 4 years ago

me too , I enjoyed s1 but forgot about it , then a few years later S2,3,4 had appeared!
mega binge! hooked hard again on S5 , blew all 3 free samples last night
now longing for next tiny 1 ep fix next week !

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

Episode 4 of Season 5 is amazing, best SF episode of an episodic series ever.

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[–] moviechatterer (15796) 4 years ago

Thats quite an accolade!
Better than that BSG episode where Adama made that speach and they dun that rescue from that planet!?
better that the "Jubal Early" firefly episode?
:)

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

I'd say the difference is that, though I liked Battlestar Galactica, it was all over the place and you never really had an idea of what was going on, it was too removed from reality. Who was a Cylon, what the point was.

With Firefly it was kind of a comedy cartoonish version of action adventure. I was great for the camaraderie and adventures, but thin on anything real or relatable.

The Expanse is pretty cool extrapolation of what could conceivably happen, or something like it, when our local space starts to get inhabited and exploited, not to mention this episode has been building for 4 years, or more. TE is not perfect, like any science fiction, but really good, and this was the best of it.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

BSG, to me, really changed Sci Fi by allowing events to have consequences instead of pressing a magic reset button at the end of each episode. I don't think BSG could have been done before the advent of the internet, because the result of events having consequences is that it was so heavily serialized and if you weren't watching things in order you would have no idea what was going on. It was such a big step forward to just make that one change and allowed them to tell a new kind of story.

But, I agree with you that in the end the BSG story was all over the place. I think they took some big risks, and some of the risks paid off, and others didn't. I was ok with the outcome, because I felt like BSG reached an endpoint and was a complete story, and getting to the end was a lot of fun. It was Sci Fi for smart people who really like Sci Fi, and being able to watch it and discuss it along with so many people who also loved all the same things about it (and had problems with all the same things about it) as I did, was just a really rewarding experience.

I really like The Expanse. I'm not sure if I like it as much as BSG although it's pretty close. I think it's on a more solid story foundation because of having come from a book series. If they stick to the books I think it will work out. If it goes off in its own direction (the way The 100 did) then I'm not so sure. I think the basic conflict in TE is really cool, the idea that if we colonized other worlds it would end up in political infighting and oppressed subgroups and so on. I think all of that is really good and relevant to our world even though the world of The Expanse is a Sci Fi world.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

It was pretty awesome! I don't know, though, from Battlestar Galactica, I think 33 is probably stiff competition, as well as the episode where they cross the huge radiation field.

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[–] TrentnQuarantino (9227) 3 years ago

Oh God, I hate Hollywoods take on radiation in movies.
No wonder people are scared to death of radiation, and against nuclear power
which could save the world from global warming - and is going to happen sooner
or later.

Here is a really excellent 18 minute quick lecture about radiation that everyone should watch.
ABCs of Radiation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjkTzk8NAxM&t=108s

I enjoy watching "Fear The Walking Dead", and this season it is all in a radiation saturated wasteland. I don't know why but I like the show, but I can hardly watch this without getting overcome with disgust at how they talk about radiation.

That guy does a lot of very good physics lecture videos that are easy to comprehend.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 3 years ago

lol, no argument from me here, among all the other science stuff Hollywood gets wrong, but I think we need to focus on the story purposes here. I loved the radiation field episode because it created a "point of no return" for them. Once they had crossed it, they were either going to find Earth or run out of supplies and die. I loved how they couldn't see anything while they were crossing it, and the necessity for the escort flights to cross repeatedly, some of them sacrificing themselves in the process. One of the most poignant deaths in the show. The whole episode was just lovely.

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[–] TrentnQuarantino (9227) 3 years ago

Are we talking about the same show?

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[–] Volley (3433) 4 years ago

For me it took a few episodes before I got into it, but the whole Eros setting later in the season pulled me right in.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

Episode 4 of Season 5 as I am watching it is turning out to be the best science fiction episode of any science fiction show I've ever seen.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Good episode. Finally they paid off all the buildup with Avasarola.

Really sad we're only getting six seasons, hint hint Amazon.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

I've heard there may be more. They said that season 6 was a good break point, and that maybe sometime in the future they will either continue of pick it back up. The only problem I had with this episode is that Camina Drummer was not even in it ... I think. I don't remember seeing here. But more Bobby Draper is good.

Now we have to wait a week before every show.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Drummer and Bobby are my favorite characters.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Maybe after this they could build a whole show around Bobby Draper and Camina Drummer.

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[–] thingmakersback (1383) 4 years ago

I'm going to try again sometime. I watched the first season and by the time the next came up I had lost interest. I think the main problem is that it is based on a series of novels but the whole first season didn't manage to cover one novel. I had the sense that not much had happened and and I just didn't remember anything that made me want to come back.
I would prefer more quasi-hard SF, but if this is the best I can expect, it will be a while before I am sold.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

You can look on Wikipedia or elsewhere where they talk about the episodes and what happens during the. I was a huge science fiction fan as a kid, but over the years just lost interest in sci-fi. The Expanse is the only show I have enjoyed with a very long time. It was a bit hard to get into for me because of all the weird talk, and it moved pretty fast, but once I understand the general orientation of the story it was not to confusing. I probably would not have watched it if I did not have Amazon Prime and could watch binge watch then all at once. Same with the Walking Dead.

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[–] Roguemail (1614) 4 years ago

Like ST:TNG first two seasons and season 1 of Babylon 5, it takes a while to hit its stride but once it does its compelling

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

I never got into Star Trek after the original, or Babylon 5. Maybe I have something to look forward to in the future, but with Star Trek I found Picard annoying, and it almost immediately started putting that Q character into everything for comic relief. Some of the Star Trek tribute series on YouTube are fun, just about as good as the original series.

I tried watching Discovery, and Picard. I somewhat enjoyed Enterprise the series, but it was more of the same. The best were the Youtube series, especially Star Trek Continues.

That might be why I found The Expanse such a relief. I heard about it being described on NPR, and as I had heard about Breaking Bad the same way I found it online and thought it was pretty interesting with some really good characters and a fairly plausible premise.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

I agree re Star Trek, I was never able to get into it. It always seemed too "pat" to me, and every problem seemed to be fixed by a temporal anomaly. Q was annoying.

I have never tried Babylon 5, it seems like a show you have to watch in a linear fashion and when it was first airing I didn't have the career flexibility to do that. I tried one episode and had no idea what was going on so I gave up.

One of the things I love about The Expanse is the opening theme.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

It's not to so bad, but I seem to grow to dislike almost every opening theme. Enterprise's opening theme was particularly grating to a lot of people it seemed.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Opening themes are, like, my favorite part of the show. I know how shallow this is. Sometimes I just put the opening theme of Game of Thrones up on youtube just because 'why not.'

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[–] thingmakersback (1383) 4 years ago

Good thought. Maybe I will probably look up episode summaries so I don't have to go back over it all. I can watch a few highlights based on that, too... And then pick up season 2.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Have you read the books? I am finding that I'm motivated by wanting to know where all of this is going. Although I enjoyed the first season, I understood, when watching it, why the show did not quickly pick up a big audience. For most of the first season I could not figure out what was happening. I couldn't tell the spaceships apart, I couldn't keep the characters straight, there were so many plotlines in different places. The episodes just seemed like disconnected bits. I couldn't figure out if the show was supposed to be a political drama, a mystery story, a cop story, or what. It wasn't until the pieces began to coalesce (was that the end of the first season or the beginning of the second?) that I even knew what the show was about. After that I was completely hooked and now I love it and want it to never end.

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[–] thingmakersback (1383) 4 years ago

No, strange to say, I had been out of reading either hard SF or space opera for a few years when the series started up, although the books were on my shelf. Lately I have started again, with Alistair Reynolds and Adrian Tchaikovsky... Still, the only James S. A. Corey I have ever read is a story from the Old Mars collection.
With The Expanse, I figured, I would watch the first season, then read the first novel and keep on reading. But the first season seems, as best I can tell, to be only part of the first novel with interpolated elements from later ones.
I guess I'll put off reading any of it till I get enthusiastic about the series. There's too much other stuff to read.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

Way back in the last century I used to read a lot of classic Science-fiction. They I just fell out of it when I started going to college, and then I began reading strictly non-fiction. A few years back I thought it might be fun to see what the "new" science fiction was like. I started with "The Martian" which was pretty good, just like the movie, and very scientific and dry, a science fiction Robinson Crusoe. Then I went back to the classic Phillip k. Dick before Amazon came out with "The Man In The High Castle". For some reason I tried to read that three or four times and just could not get interested in it. But on walks with my audiobook I finally got through it. The series was different. Interesting, but not as good.

Finally I read John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" which was hilarious with a serious plot line too, and satirical in way Starship Troopers the movie was. That was a very creative and different story, in the way say Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction was.

I am holding off reading any of the novel because for one thing they were written by the producers of the show, so the show is as close to the books as possible with the most authenticate tradeoffs, but who want to keep in mind all the differences while reading or watching. Too much like work.

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[–] Iffy762 (1334) 4 years ago

Have you read any Vernor Vinge? It's wierd but also feels wierdly prescient.

I tried reading the first book in The Expanse and I wasn't able to stay with it. I really like the visual and sensory aspect of SciFi, so tv and movies work better for me for the whole genre. The computers going "boop beep" and all that.

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[–] brux (14730) 4 years ago

I had the same experience with the book form of The Expanse, thought it is on Youtube as a video-audiobook that makes it a bit easier to listen to.

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[–] PaladinNJ (21528) 4 years ago

I just saw this post. First time I've even heard of this show.

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[–] BourbonKing (5778) 4 years ago

It's a very intricate storyline involving multiple nations on Earth and in Space so its scope is wide reaching. If you look at it from that standpoint rather than just as singular or concentrated plot line involving a handful of characters then you can start watching it with a broad perspective.

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[–] Kazak (2190) 4 years ago

I’ve managed to get 8 eps in, further than before. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about other than it looks nice. 🤷🏻‍♂️