The Expanse

[shadowscast]

Happy New Year, everyone!

So, Mr. Shadowscast and I have been loyal and happy Netflix subscribers for many years, and that's been our only TV-ish thing. We're not "cord-cutters," we're "cord-nevers"—we never had cable in the first place, because we always thought it was too expensive for what it was. Now that the streaming services are multiplying, we're cautious that we don't want to end up piling a bunch of them on top of each other and suddenly find ourselves paying as much every month as we would have if we'd ever had cable.

But we decided to subscribe to Amazon Prime Video for January and February so that we could watch The Expanse!

We watched the previous seasons on DVD, but man we were not ready to wait that long to watch the new season. We love it so much; it's our favourite thing of the things that we currently watch together!

Mr. Shadowscast has read the books, and I have not. (Which is a reversal of our usual trend.) So he knows some things that I don't. He's trying to convince me to read the books so that he can talk about the things that have happened in the books but not yet in the TV series. I'm not opposed, but I have quite a to-read pile in front of me already.

Anyway, we finished season 4 today.

Omg cliffhanger, yikes. I'm not at all confident that this show is committed to not destroying Earth. None of the main characters will be on Earth when the rock hits it, anyway.

But also: wow, I just love the show so much. The characters are all so rich and distinct, and I don't agree with a lot of their choices but all of their choices make sense in their context, which is a thing I really respect. And the universe they live in feels so textured and complex and gritty and lived in, and all the little background details just build it up and up.

It's not a show I'm really interested in fanfic-ing, since it's an open canon with a complicated plot still in progress. But I do confess that every time I finish watching a season, I go to AO3 and read one or two short Alex/Amos stories, because I just plain need to.

Comments

[tabaqui]

Hoooooooooooooooooooooooomg, The Expanse!!!!

It is so *fucking good*!
I'm mid-season-three rewatching right now, since it's been ages (saw four already). I could not adore the cast/characters more, I don't think. One of those super-rare shows where you *actually like* everyone, and root for them, and enjoy them.

The women, especially, rock: Bobbie and Avasarala, Drummer and Naomi, Anna...all the different women Marines Belters and ship captains, *Julie*.....

I love the Belter creole, and how committed the show is to getting that in there in a natural way, and I love how good the science is.

The books *are* very awesome. I'm waiting on the last published book to come (Xmas pressie) in the mail so i can dig in, heh. They have done a *marvelous* job of compacting several huge books, with tons of story, into something very tight and consistent and true to the books.

I'm so pleased you're enjoying it! :D I won't spoil you for anything, if you comment about it, promise.

[shadowscast]

One of those super-rare shows where you *actually like* everyone, and root for them, and enjoy them.

I mean, I definitely never liked Murtry, though by the end I did at least get where he was coming from.

But yeah, this show has a gift of making me like bunches of characters who are working completely in opposition to each other. The show never lets it get down to "the good guys" and "the bad guys" in any simple way.

The women, especially, rock: Bobbie and Avasarala, Drummer and Naomi, Anna...all the different women Marines Belters and ship captains, *Julie*.....

Oh my gosh, yes. All of them, so much, but especially Avasarala.

I love the Belter creole, and how committed the show is to getting that in there in a natural way, and I love how good the science is.

Yes! Mr. Shadowscast and I often go into gleeful rants about how faithfully this show respects physics—the difference between getting g's from spin and getting them from thrust, in terms of what's going to be the floor of your ship; the speed of light, and what it means for communications lag, and how that affects a back-and-forth conversation with the moon; the way that being injured in zero-g can absolutely suck.

The books *are* very awesome.

Gah! Must tackle my to-read pile! (But writing fanfic slows down my reading something awful, and writing fanfic is so fun...)

[tabaqui]

Yes, and yes, and yes, and yes.
I love it when something I love makes other people squee, too. :D
*twirls you*

[avrelia]

We watched the first three seasons, hasn't gotten to the third yet, but Amos is my favorite character there. Then Naomi. then Bobbie, and Alex, and Avasarala and everyone else

[shadowscast]

Yeah, Amos fills the "heavy goon" archetype on the crew, but he's so fascinatingly not quite what you'd expect. I really like him.

I notice you didn't mention poor Holden on your top-5 list! Heh, me too. He suffers from main-character-itis, I think; he's just a little too bland, and surrounded by fascinatingly unique people. But he really means well, and I like that about him.

[avrelia]

we started the 4th season yesterday, and yes, Holden is a puppy, I want to pet him and say everything is going to be fine. I was incredibly excited to see everybody else. I like Holden, but although I tend to love main characters, here I seem to love everybody else.

[avrelia]

ok, we've finished it, and it was amazing! and felt so much better than the previous ones, very tight and suspenseful, and the best thing that all the suspense was EARNED, not just pulled out of nowhere.

Still stand by my character assessments ;) Want to hug Amos and Bobbie very badly.

Drapper and Ashford was my favorite duo. alas...

[shadowscast]

Drapper and Ashford was my favorite duo. alas...

Oh my gosh, yes. Every time they were on the screen together I declared out loud to Mr. Shadowscast how much I loved them! They're both wonderful characters, and they had developed such a great dynamic. Alas indeed.

all the suspense was EARNED, not just pulled out of nowhere

So much this!

[yourlibrarian]

Heh, we just finished The Expanse last night and I drafted a new blog entry including that. Also loved it.

Like you, we're only planning to stay with Amazon a few months (maybe not even that if I chug through my to-watch list there quickly). For all that one can get through Amazon, relatively little of it is included with Prime and I don't need their other services. So I may be back with CBS All Access in February to see Picard and catch up on a few of their shows.

But we've kept Netflix for years now, partly because we watch it intermittently enough that it's not worth stopping and starting and because it's relatively low cost (we have the $9 version). This week we were catching up on Patriot Act which I think has been stellar since it debuted. And we watched The Crown a few months ago, The Witcher while on vacation, and some random other things in between.

[shadowscast]

Heh, we just finished The Expanse last night and I drafted a new blog entry including that.

Have you not posted yet, or am I missing it somehow?

For all that one can get through Amazon, relatively little of it is included with Prime

Yeah, I noticed that search results for shows within Amazon Prime give me results for things that I would have to pay extra for, which did rather miff me.

This week we were catching up on Patriot Act which I think has been stellar since it debuted. And we watched The Crown a few months ago, The Witcher while on vacation, and some random other things in between.

I watched the first 2? 3? seasons of The Crown a while ago, and enjoyed it, but as it progressed through the timeline I decided to stop watching it because I was starting to feel weird about the fact that these are real people who are still in many cases alive and living their real lives. I mean, it's actually commercial RPF. Very, very pretty commercial RPF!

Mr. Shadowscast has been watching The Witcher, and likes it, which does make me curious, but I have too many other things on my list right now!

[yourlibrarian]

I was still working on the draft but have since sent out the post, so no, it wasn't hiding! The search function on Prime is frustrating.  For example, I wanted to be able to search Britbox for particular titles to see if it's something I might want to sign up for.  However the search feature would search everything Amazon offers -- not what I was after! It would have been the first 2 seasons as the third came out in November.  And yeah, absolutely RPF, especially since while these things are drawn from actual events there are composite or even made-up characters for certain episodes.  For the most part this doesn't bother me, largely because these are historical events that were all publicly known already (even the soapier sections) or which give us a lot more insight into the Crown's role with the government.  For example, I found a good deal of Margaret's storyline in the first two seasons to be what I might term the most gratuitous, and that was also true in this latest season.  Yet even there I was fascinated to learn about an important visit she made to LBJ for a critical issue on behalf of the UK, which I suspect was not known about at the time. As Harold McMillan said this past season, who would have guessed him to be such a royalist softie.  I think that rather describes the series itself which I suspect is doing the monarchy a lot of good. Anyone watching the show would start realizing that the it is not simply a pointless ceremonial institution whose time has passed, but has had an important hand in both domestic and foreign events.  And many events that occur in The Crown are things I've learned about for the first time.  I suspect it's true even for Brits. I think The Witcher can wait.  I don't think there's much in it that can be considered a big twist and thus a major spoiler.  If there was I might say it needs to be seen soon, but you might even benefit by waiting until S2 to start watching. I'm afraid no relevant icon this time!  I'm having to reply from my email Inbox because I can't do it on the site right now.

[shadowscast]

And as always, your icon is gloriously appropriate.