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The Expanse digital premiere is available NOW!

Saw this mentioned at several places and now having some time decided to check it out.

The first episode didn't really grab me but i stuck around and now i'm finally starting to get interested. I love the extrapolated tech they use 200 years into the future without going all Star Trek technobabbly and handwave physics away for ease of TV production.

I also have to comment on Christopher's point about lack of racial diversity.. heck, i see the opposite. Indians, Blacks, Caucasians, Asians.. what more is there? All mixed around at various levels of society and importance without them trying to shine a spotlight on how an Asian woman commands a flagship.. it's just a fact and not dwelled on because it's not important to the story (something i sometimes feel very annoyed about expecially if a show has a gay character and they go out of their way to concentrate on his/her sexual orientation as a means to show how progressive they are).

I'm starting to really like it and bonus is that come January 5th they will resume and air it weekly without any more interruptions.
 
Yes bigger pix please :rommie: , I want massive pictures taking over my screen :ouch: make them even BIGGER :guffaw:



I have tried this show, some of it is good but I might give it up. Have many here read the books and how are they? Do the stories and characters of the books get any better? I also see some newpaper critics blogs don't think it is great and some high profile reviewers are lukewarm.

There is something funny about these broadcasts, maybe the editing is wrong or the sound is off...I have tried using different software and different hardware to play this show but I can't get the sound quality right. There story doesn't seem to flow as smooth as it could, maybe the storyline is a bit jumpy? Something makes me feel as if there have been errors in the casting. I also struggle with watching some of the dialogue and performances, the actors playing Alex, Amos? and the space police the kid, Octavia and Miller are very good and work well enough. On the plus side I think some of the fx and sets are fantastic and I think the story has very good potential but I don't see this show as being better than Dark Matter or any of the ton of other scifi out there.

I might give this show a go again in the near future but there is already a ton of good tv out there, Daredevil, Game of Thrones, Into the Badlands, Firefly, Dr Who, Mr.Robot just to name a few


Hope it gets better, is the story worth investing in and how do the Expanse books rank against other classic scifi books?
 
atlantalliance said:
Hope it gets better, is the story worth investing in and how do the Expanse books rank against other classic scifi books?
Click to expand...

IMO, the world created in The Expanse novels was always more interesting than the actual stories, which are at times derivative of common sci-fi tropes, just handled in a more "realistic" manner. The novels do feature some very memorable and fun characters, which I have to admit the show has so far been watering down. Sometimes this is by necessity, there's no way SyFy is going to allow a character with dialogue as colourful as Avasarala's is in the novels. Others I'm not so sure about, Amos doesn't come off as anywhere near the tough guy in the show as he is in the novels. Alex is less annoying to the other characters in the show as he is in the novels. Although this might have been done to make Holden's crew look less like Serenity's crew.
 
Episode 4 was the first episode to hold my interest thanks to the space battle. God, I miss space battles. And this was an interesting, more realistic take on it, where ships launch missiles at extreme range then calmly sit around for five minutes waiting for them to hit :lol: Obviously it's less dramatic, but it's nice to have something different.
 
Mr Light said:
Obviously it's less dramatic, but it's nice to have something different.
Click to expand...

Different for TV and movies, maybe. But a lot of sci-fi literature these days depicts their space battles in this manner. In fact, I'm so use to reading about battles done like this, I pretty much blanked out the fact that this was probably the first time such a battle has been shown on TV.
 
I wish they'd quit using that South African-esque language they keep using for the Ceres natives. It's very irritating and annoying. Otherwise I didn't think it was too bad. A little too dry and boring, but not bad by any means. At least they're trying for once.

That said, I really like that Mars is the quasi-utopian location in the solar system. Makes a lot of sense since we would have only sent our brightest and healthiest there to colonize it.
 
Arrrrgggh said:
I wish they'd quit using that South African-esque language they keep using for the Ceres natives. It's very irritating and annoying. Otherwise I didn't think it was too bad. A little too dry and boring, but not bad by any means. At least they're trying for once.

That said, I really like that Mars is the quasi-utopian location in the solar system. Makes a lot of sense since we would have only sent our brightest and healthiest there to colonize it.
Click to expand...

The language is a big part of the books too - it's no different to watching a movie and two characters speaking French, so I'm not sure it's a big deal.

You don't understand what they're saying? In this case, that's very much the point - although Miller is our audience viewpoint on Ceres, we're still very much like Havelock in that we're an outsider to this world.
 
Arrrrgggh said:
That said, I really like that Mars is the quasi-utopian location in the solar system. Makes a lot of sense since we would have only sent our brightest and healthiest there to colonize it.
Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean when you say Mars is a "quasi-utopia?" While it's true Mars has the most advanced technology, it's still a hard life on Mars in which everyone must contribute to society with no place for slackers. If anything, Earth is more utopian. In the novels, employment is an option, not a requirement, as the Earth government guarantees the necessities of life to everyone for free. People only get jobs if they want extra spending money. Given references to "government hand-outs" in the show, the implication is that's how it works in the show as well.
 
Cleaner air, healthier food, better society, better technology, longer lifespans, etc. The only thing they're lacking is an open environment, based upon all the descriptions given on the show so far.
 
The space battles reminded me of the first season of Andromeda when they tried to make them more realistic until Tribune decided to eff the series up.

I'm finally on board as a fan of the show after finding the first two episodes slow and boring. I almost gave up on the show and didn't watch last weeks episode until last night. Episode three was so good that I had to watch episode four right after it.
 
For me a show show first and foremost be character driven, the Batman and the Joker talking in the Nolan films or like the Lannister family talk to each other in the tv series Game of Thrones how Patrick Stewart, William Shatner, Malcolm McDowell interact in Generations or how Captain America, Black Widow and Bucky or Winter Soldier talk to each other. What worries me about shows like this is the lack of character and the lack of chemistry, sure the book might have something interesting to say after 200 pages but if I had not read these books then I'm not so interested in the books. As a tv viewer I'm watching actors and costumes and script writing on tv and I want to know is it worth my while going to the tv or buying the DVDs of such a show? I think the two actors playing Alex, Amos? are good enough, I like the Miller viewpoint, its a written stereotype this detective but the actor does a good job playing a Detective like Harrison Ford's Deckard in the classic movie, there is also good chemistry with the actors and actress onscreen alongside Miller's character. The main cast are kinda weaker or for some reason I care less about other actors or maybe the roles have not be wrote for them? I don't really care for people running from one space explosion to the next or one space disaster to the next, for me if the show is about outer space wars the series will then become too much of a playstation or Xbox video game. I liked the pill-actor maybe Lopez? Supporting cast is fantastic, the interrogation scenes as they captured the people on the ship...really good moments. The Lopez character with his pill grabs these scenes and provides valuable insights as to why they worry these people might be part of a spies network, network of thieves or terrorists. I think the show is good for the most part, anyway, but hopefully it will pick up if they get a second season.
 
Just finished the 4th ep and I think its strong, a really strong episode. Loved that whole precarious dodgy Ledge/Walkway I was wondering if they were going to end it there!? people hanging off a cliff in a Literal Cliffhanger. Really liked the idea of putting the ledge in scifi like something out of Indiana Jones or Star Wars you just know someone is going to die....yikes! The series might work best if you binge watch it all, just watch all this Expanse like a big movie, I think I stopped and started too many eps...if you look at episodes alone like ep 2 it doesn't look so great and it loses momentum. It's perhaps better to watch it all through, still not sure about all the cast in the Expanse or the ideas like Mormons in Space, ep 4 is worth it, a great finish to a good series.
 
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