I’m going to keep this mostly spoiler-free because you just need to experience this as it is meant to be experienced.
The Expanse on Amazon Prime Video
The Book Series
Primary Factions and Overview
Earth has a unified government, the United Nations. Earth is crowded and the majority of the citizenry are on a subsistence-level universal basic income with better opportunities being doled via a series of Lotteries and internships.
Mars, a former Earth colony, comprises of citizens organized around terraforming and spreading the Martian work ethic and ideal. Their culture is marshal and collectively focused. Martians, in this case, aren’t little green men, simply 3rd and 4th generation of humans that colonized Mars.
The Belt is comprised of humans that have grown up outside of a planetary gravity well. These humans subsist as miners and engineers and their cultural touchstones are forged through experiences surviving in the vacuum of space. They settle asteroids and low-gravity moon bases, their language is a polyglot creole english-mashup with numerous cultural influences. Their physiology, living in low-G environments tends to make them taller and less muscular than their inner-planet counterparts but they tend to be scrappy and cunning warriors nonetheless.
The Inner Planets: Earth’s space-navy is dated but large. Mars space-navy is modern but smaller.
The Outer Planets and Belt lack a formal navy.
Story Overview
The First 3 Seasons (and Books) introduces us to a future (around 2350) where mankind has begun to exploit our solar system for natural resources. This first portion of the story uses a number of potentially interconnected mysteries to introduce the factions and setup tensions between those factions.
The story establishes and follows the Crew of the Rocinante, a Corvette-Frigate-Gunship and her unlikely crew as they coalesce and they unravel a series of mysteries in a politically charged, cold-war scenario. In addition to the crew of the Roci we are introduced to a slew of well-written characters to follow the perspective of the superpowers, the downtrodden and shadowy power-players with opaque motives and interesting pathos.
The storytelling here is fantastic with a great balance of political intrigue buffeted by impressive character work. The writers handle multiple POV characters with confidence and the characters feel realistic, aided by dense dialog and smart interactions. New viewers might find the Belter language difficult at first but it gets easier as the actors find their voice and the Belter Creole is well-justified through the in-universe cultural mechanics of the story.
As the mysteries of the first three installments unfold, the middle portion of the story shifts focus to a interplanetary gold-rush of sorts and all of the interesting things that happen when evolved chimps are given an unexpected boost in technical capabilities.
The last portion of the story explores the culmination and resolutions of the tensions of established factions, emerging powers as demagog leaders co-opt exploited populaces in an all-too-familiar power gambit.
Space is Brutal
One thing that makes The Expanse stand out from other sci-fi offerings is that the story tries to stay grounded when possible in physics. This isn’t a pew-pew-pew space-wizards sort of show. Space wants to kill you.
Critical Analysis
I’ve read the series twice (once in print and once on Audible), including the available novellas with their in-universe character gardening. I’ve also watched the series twice. The series has a lot of the same first-season challenges as the actors learn to inhabit the characters but also does impressively subtle foreshadowing of future events.
The series was on Sci-Fi through Season 3 and was sold to Amazon starting on Season 4. There are some mild location / set continuity shortfalls in the Amazon produced episodes but that is largely a nitpick. Probably some of the shooting locations were not available post-sale or potentially the practical sets didn’t convey to the new production.
The show is dense and demands your attention, you will become lost quickly in a background-watch scenario. Blink and you may miss it.
The effects work is really good throughout the series, lending towards realism with a few exceptions. The cast and crew really work their asses off and their love and dedication to the work shines through.
Themes, Concluding Thoughts
It is rare to find a Sci-fi series that competently juggles heady themes and even more rare to find a series with complex politics and a webwork of characters that sticks the landing. The Expanse does both. The writing duo got their start through affiliation with George RR Martin but haven written 9 books and stewarded their show to a satisfying conclusion, I wish George would tap them to help finish TSoIaF / Game of Thrones.
The Expanse TV Series effectively stops at the conclusion of book 6. Books 7, 8 and 9 cover the state of affairs after a significant time jump (~30 years) after the events of book 6. That said, the TV Series does find a satisfying conclusion despite the material left for future storytelling.
The Expanse explores themes of found family, prejudice, humanism, exploitation, radicalization, colonialism, acceptance, human suffering and grace; just to name a few. The show does a fantastic job of showcasing a diverse talent pool in a believable way with in-universe rationale. It does all this without coming across as preachy, hostile, or forced. The writers shine a light on the human condition and if you are uncomfortable with this reflection, then perhaps that’s the first step towards a better tomorrow.
More important that someone else's life gets better than for you to feel good about yourself. You never know the effect you might have on someone, not really. Maybe one core thing you said haunts them forever. Maybe one moment of kindness gives them comfort or courage. Maybe you said the one thing they needed to hear. It doesn't matter if you ever know. You just have to try.
-Naomi Negata
Further Analysis & Commentary
One half of the “James SA Corey” writing duo: Ty Frank & Wes Chatham: the actor that plays Amos have a great podcast:
Ty and That Guy
The duo has good friend chemistry, they spend about half of most episodes covering background detail about the episodes and production and the other half exploring their mutual love of cinema or storytelling, like hilarious recollections of trying to buy recreational drugs while on vacation in Costa Rica.
I give The Expanse 5 out of 5 Quarters.
