I've still been enjoying this season (mostly Amos' storyline) but I do agree that it has felt like most episodes have kind of been spinning their wheels since the big event in the first few episodes. I kind of feel like they could have trimmed this season down to, like, eight episodes and it would have felt a lot tighter. I don't really mind the slowness that much, though, if it means next season is going to be wild.
One big story line this season is Michio Pa. I know they have merged it with Drummer but Spoiler: Book Michios plot was a lot more political and she turns on slowly discovering that Marco is not a great leader and a bit crazy. With Drummer its all just personal and ties back to the kinda boring Naomi plot We are also not given much on Marcos tactics or his politics against the ring which were quite good in the books At least Avasarala is still amazing in every scene
Michio is one of Drummer's crew this season is she not? It make me wonder if Drummer is going to die turning on Marco, Michio will avenge her and take on a leadership position in the Belters. It would be difficult to follow the books more closely without the TV series having a lot more expository dialogue and probably less action. It was indicated that Marco's tactics, given the low level of military training of the Belter ships, will likely lead only to Pyrrhic victories.
I hate to say it, because I like Drummer, but I sort of feel like she's the Bronn of this series. That is to say, she was a relatively unimportant secondary character in the books, who was slightly jumped up by combining the stories of several characters for the sake of TV (which can never have quite as many characters as books) and then she got picked up as a fan favorite, which backed the writers into expanding her further and further. She was pregnant during the filming of this series - and must be heavily pregnant during the filming of these last few. It's interesting to see how they increasingly go out of their way to hide her torso so we don't see it.
Don't worry, she keeps track of each time she finishes it so all you need to do is press pause and you can count exactly how many times she's done it.
Michio is on the ship but they have given Drummer her POV plot probably because it's easier than introducing new characters or as mentioned above she is a Bronn
Deliberately introducing a character named Michio to interact with Drummer in this season suggests to me there must be a really good reason.
Or it's just easier to use the existing names of the crew. Another possibility is just to mention her as an Easter egg but Drummer has already taken her free navy and Bohemoth stories so I can't imagine it will change
"Show Drummer" has always been an amalgam of several book characters and not just "Book Drummer", most likely because it's better for the show to have a more consistent supporting cast than to have to keep cycling in major players for only one season. Plus of course it's easier to keep the actors available from other commitments season to season if you have more for them to do. Basically the same reason Bobby and Avasarala's roles in the show were greatly expanded at times, since there were some books in which they weren't even present. As for using still using Michio; they also had a version of Sam Rosenberg briefly in season 1, despite rolling most of both her and Michio's book 3 stuff into Drummer. So I'm not about to read anything into it.
I find it funny how they gave Drummer Bull's character arc in Season 3...and then introduced Bull this season anyway.
Ya Tycho station gang are probably the most changed and mixed around of anyone on the TV show. Not really sure what TV Bulls purpose is other than to turn and scowl at things
Was the character of Drummer on the show intended to take the path she has or was it case of Cara Gee doing so well with the role that that decided to expand it?
Maybe a little of both? I mean if she wasn't doing a good job it'd have been easy to drop her and bring in a new character the following season, so she's clearly doing something right. Given the choice it's doubtless preferable to keep an actor they like working with if at all possible. On the other hand, a bunch of other characters have also have their plots and character traits merged and/or switched around compared to the books. Ashford probably being the other big change as 'Book Ashford' was a vain, obsequious coward and a braggart to boot, who isn't heard from again after 'Abaddon's Gate'. 'Show Ashford' seems to have been completely overhauled with traits from the book version of Bull (who was the XO of the Behemoth, not Drummer) but also quite a bit that feels entirely new. I generally take this kind of thing as an extension of what I think I mentioned upthread: that because of the authors' close involvement, the show feels less like an adaptation and more like a series of revised drafts of the books. The story is still basically the same but he execution is generally much better.
While I like the books, one big issue I have with them is the antagonists are simply awful. They're not all pure mustache twirl, but they are all unlikable and/or horribly flawed, and show few to no redeeming qualities. The show is much, much better at portraying them as actual human beings, and less like the latest boss for Holden to defeat.
At a convention I went to, Shankar talked about the high degree of collaborating between the book authors and the show. Of course, they are on staff, but they've really taken it in stride and what you write fits right in with what Shankar said. In fact, Shankar said that the book authors took some of what they learned working on the show and applied it to the later books. I haven't read the books, so I can't comment on that. But, it sounds like the book authors are fully vested in the show and really strove to make changes to improve the the story, not just so it works for TV.