The Expanse season 2

[The Wormhole]

Everything but the F-word, these days. That's still the big no-no. But it wasn't that long ago that the S-word was bleeped on cable too, and these days it isn't. I expect the censors will just give up trying before much longer.

Weird. In Canada, we had the show Trailer Park Boys on TV over a decade ago, which had copious profanity throughout, and nothing got censored, and it was broadcast at an earlier time than The Expanse (TPB aired 9PM Eastern, as opposed to The Expanse's 10PM).

Interestingly enough, when Trailer Park Boys eventually got aired in the afternoons, the only words that were censored were fuck and cock. Which on that show is still something like 25% of the dialogue.

 

[Christopher]

Weird. In Canada, we had the show Trailer Park Boys on TV over a decade ago, which had copious profanity throughout, and nothing got censored, and it was broadcast at an earlier time than The Expanse (TPB aired 9PM Eastern, as opposed to The Expanse's 10PM).

That figures, since the shows on Syfy that do have that word used and bleeped tend to be Canadian productions or co-productions. But of course America is usually more prudish than most of the Western world.

 

[chrisspringob]

AV Club is going to start reviewing the show again, after people complained about them dropping it:

http://www.avclub.com/article/voices-legions-head-told-it-premiere-tonight-249838

 

[Hyperspace05]

AV Club is going to start reviewing the show again, after people complained about them dropping it:

http://www.avclub.com/article/voices-legions-head-told-it-premiere-tonight-249838

Good!

Episode 203 was a great one, IMO. Lots of fascinating background and information on the protomolecule & Millers actions, which should clarify a lot of things for non-readers.

Season 2 is moving at a great pace... My only major complaint about season 1 would probably have been pacing. But they hitting their stride now, it seems.

 

[Pingfah]

I loved S1 of this show, but it was hard to follow leaving a week between watching each episode. I'm going to wait for the whole season to hit Netflix UK this time.

 

[The Wormhole]

Ooh, this week the Canadian broadcast didn't bother censoring Avasarala saying "fuck." That is literally the highlight for me.

 

[EmoBorg]

i just saw episode 3. I did not like the scenes where the Martians Marines were picking on the Earh Born Marine. It felt contrived. But overall I liked the episode.

I started to like Fred Johnson's assistant. She is a tough Belter and knows when to have fun when needed. Her accent is awesome as well.

BTW seeing how the UN is so corrupted, they were willing to allow Mao industries to murder all those people on Eros for some experiment, I am hoping Mars kicks Earth's butt.

 

[Mr Awe]

Mostly a great episode even though is mainly dealing with the aftermath of the previous one. The developed some of the mystery behind what the protomolecule is building on Eros. And, developing a plan for dealing with Eros.

I'm not digging the Martian marines storyline. The one note tenor of the group is getting old quick. Hopefully, this changes quick or they drop them.

Mr Awe

 

[Nerys Myk]

Dropped like a rock from orbit?

 

[Mr Awe]

^ Exactly!

 

[The Wormhole]

i just saw episode 3. I did not like the scenes where the Martians Marines were picking on the Earh Born Marine. It felt contrived.

That really didn't seem to go anywhere. The guy gets picked on because his family is from Earth, gets pissed off over it, gets his ass kicked, then everyone likes him.

I started to like Fred Johnson's assistant. She is a tough Belter and knows when to have fun when needed. Her accent is awesome as well.

Does she have a name? IMDB literally just lists her as "Colonel Johnson's Second in Command." She kind of seems to be filling the role of Sam Rosenberg in the novels, except they already introduced a character named Sam Rosenberg in the first season, who truth be told, aside from being employed at Tycho station is nothing like the Sam of the novels.

BTW seeing how the UN is so corrupted, they were willing to allow Mao industries to murder all those people on Eros for some experiment,

The only one who seems to know what Mao Industries is doing is Avasarala's rival. Granted, he is very high up in the UN, but that still doesn't mean Mao has official UN backing..

 

[chrisspringob]

I have what is essentially a non-spoiler question for those who've read the books:

Do the writers appear to pay attention to the fact that the geography of the solar system isn't fixed? That is, the planets are all in orbit around the Sun. So sometimes if you're traveling from one asteroid to another in the asteroid belt, you would be crossing the orbit of Mars or Earth, and sometimes you wouldn't. Seems like this could be an issue, when Earth and Mars are ruled by different entities. Does this ever come up in the story, as something that the writers are actually paying attention to?

 

[Christopher]

Ooh, this week the Canadian broadcast didn't bother censoring Avasarala saying "fuck." That is literally the highlight for me.

On the US broadcast, they blanked out maybe the last 80% of the K sound, enough that I only belatedly realized there'd been any censoring at all.

BTW seeing how the UN is so corrupted, they were willing to allow Mao industries to murder all those people on Eros for some experiment, I am hoping Mars kicks Earth's butt.

Except that that would kill a lot of Earth civilians and soldiers who are not responsible for the corruption of the small number of people who lead them. That's why war is such a monumentally stupid exercise. It's just one more way in which a few rich and powerful people make everyone else suffer for their own gain.

Do the writers appear to pay attention to the fact that the geography of the solar system isn't fixed? That is, the planets are all in orbit around the Sun. So sometimes if you're traveling from one asteroid to another in the asteroid belt, you would be crossing the orbit of Mars or Earth, and sometimes you wouldn't. Seems like this could be an issue, when Earth and Mars are ruled by different entities. Does this ever come up in the story, as something that the writers are actually paying attention to?

The geography of the Solar System is not flat, either. The orbits of the planets and asteroids don't all line up in a 2-dimensional plane, but are all tilted at various angles relative to each other. So yes, you'd have to pass "over" or "under" the orbital path of a given planet in order to cross the system, but your odds of intersecting it directly would be low.

Besides, I don't think it would make much sense to treat a planet's entire orbit as part of its territory. What would be the point? Most of it is empty space. It'd be important to control the orbital space around your planet itself, i.e. the space occupied by things that are in orbit of your planet, as well as the Lagrangian points of things that are orbiting in sync with your planet, because those are territories that would be useful for you and that you'd want to keep rival nations from encroaching on; but a ship just passing through a part of empty space that just happens to intersect briefly with a path your planet has previously followed? No, that doesn't make sense.

 

[sojourner]

Except that that would kill a lot of Earth civilians and soldiers who are not responsible for the corruption of the small number of people who lead them. That's why war is such a monumentally stupid exercise. It's just one more way in which a few rich and powerful people make everyone else suffer for their own gain.

Are you actually protesting war in a work of fiction over worries about the death of fictional lives?

 

[chrisspringob]

The geography of the Solar System is not flat, either. The orbits of the planets and asteroids don't all line up in a 2-dimensional plane, but are all tilted at various angles relative to each other. So yes, you'd have to pass "over" or "under" the orbital path of a given planet in order to cross the system, but your odds of intersecting it directly would be low.

Besides, I don't think it would make much sense to treat a planet's entire orbit as part of its territory. What would be the point? Most of it is empty space. It'd be important to control the orbital space around your planet itself, i.e. the space occupied by things that are in orbit of your planet, as well as the Lagrangian points of things that are orbiting in sync with your planet, because those are territories that would be useful for you and that you'd want to keep rival nations from encroaching on; but a ship just passing through a part of empty space that just happens to intersect briefly with a path your planet has previously followed? No, that doesn't make sense.

In Season 1, wasn't there an issue whereby the Roci had to "pass through Martian patrols" to get to Eros? I assume that the location of such patrols has something to do with the location of Mars. There are, I would guess, more Martian forces near Mars than there are in other parts of the solar system? So I'm just noting that because the planets' locations aren't fixed, getting from Point A to Point B might involve going through space more or less likely to be populated by Earth or Mars ships depending on where the planets are in their orbits at any particular time, and was curious as to whether this ever comes up in the books.

 

[Christopher]

In Season 1, wasn't there an issue whereby the Roci had to "pass through Martian patrols" to get to Eros? I assume that the location of such patrols has something to do with the location of Mars. There are, I would guess, more Martian forces near Mars than there are in other parts of the solar system?

Maybe. But on the other hand, the whole point of ships is to travel to other places. Those patrols could be for protecting Martian civilian shipping routes in the Belt or something.

As a rule, though, space is so enormous and empty that the odds of any two ships coming close to each other by accident are infinitesimal.

 

[The Wormhole]

I have what is essentially a non-spoiler question for those who've read the books:

Do the writers appear to pay attention to the fact that the geography of the solar system isn't fixed? That is, the planets are all in orbit around the Sun. So sometimes if you're traveling from one asteroid to another in the asteroid belt, you would be crossing the orbit of Mars or Earth, and sometimes you wouldn't. Seems like this could be an issue, when Earth and Mars are ruled by different entities. Does this ever come up in the story, as something that the writers are actually paying attention to?

Sometimes, though usually only in the sense of "it'll take a bit longer to send a transmission to Earth or Mars from Ceres or Tycho because of the orbit." I don't think it's ever been a serious plot point.

 

[Forbin]

Maybe. But on the other hand, the whole point of ships is to travel to other places. Those patrols could be for protecting Martian civilian shipping routes in the Belt or something.

As a rule, though, space is so enormous and empty that the odds of any two ships coming close to each other by accident are infinitesimal.

...unless you're Katherine Janeway!

 

[crookeddy]

I don't see any way that this show can avoid cancellation... It got 0.7 million for the season premiere and fell to 0.587 for the second week. There is just no way this is enough to justify the budget. This will be the last season of the Expanse. Don't get too invested.

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't see any way that this show can avoid cancellation... It got 0.7 million for the season premiere and fell to 0.587 for the second week. There is just no way this is enough to justify the budget. This will be the last season of the Expanse. Don't get too invested.

Season 1 didn't do much better in the rating, but then half those episodes were released through streaming before they aired.

Regardless, we should only get invested in a show because it gets good ratings? You do realize one of the most popular cult TV shows today, Firefly is one that did poor ratings when it first aired on TV? To say nothing of the fact that this BBS is centred on a TV franchise that started with a show which was cancelled twice due to low ratings.

Besides, even if your doomsday prediction does pan out, there's six novels this show is based on which fans of the show who want to further explore the world can always check out. "Don't get too invested" is just a weird thing to say.