Brace yourself, folks. I’m about to gushing about The Expanse. But before I do that, here are some things that aren’t so great about The Expanse.
Whenever I go all out trying to convince someone to watch The Expanse, I like to get this list out of the way. I want people to know right from the start: This TV show isn’t perfect. In fact, depending on what you appreciate in your television, you might even call The Expanse ‘bad’.
I don’t think The Expanse is bad.
On the contrary, I think The Expanse is very good. Often it is good despite its flaws. Sometimes it’s amplified by those flaws.
Set hundreds of years in the future as humans spread across the solar system, The Expanse is based on a series of hard sci-fi novels written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pseudonym James S.A. Corey. It’s dense with peerless universe build. It’s a show about the very real dangers of space travel and colonization, but also a surprisingly nuanced show that deals with interplanetary politics and class struggle.
In one corner we have the earth and all its citizens. In the other, Mars. The people who colonized Mars are a military-oriented, tough group of people who tend to resolve conflicts with violence. Those left on Earth are the smoothing, politically savvy elite.
The wildcards are the Belters, inhabitants of outer planets and asteroid belts who have developed their own Creole language and also a culture completely separate from the people on Earth and Mars. The Belters are tired of being trampled by the “Earthers” and threatening them with a revolution, but they lack the power or resources to really beat back their oppressors.
Everything that happens in The Expanse stems from the tensions between these three discrete groups.
The tight-knit crew of the Rocinante.
The magic of The Expanse is how effortlessly the show flutters between genres. It’s always hard sci-fi, but for the first few seasons, The Expanse plays out like a murder mystery. Later, it’s a show about alien technology and the arms race that goes with it. Then it becomes a show about exploring strange new planets. Ultimately, The Expanse is a show about all of these things, but puts the uniquely crafted universe at its core, giving it a continuous line that lesser sci-fi shows don’t have.
The show’s aesthetic plays a similar trick. Not everyone likes the metallic, video game-esque color scheme, but I like video games, so I’m a fan. The Expanse feels like what I think a Mass Effect show could feel like, if that ever comes to fruition and is somehow decent. The Expanse is cool, clinical and smart — and sometimes the wooden versions enhance that in ways that should be bad, but often feel good? In a universe without heat, called back, minimalist performances make sense.
Yes, I’m confused too. But it works.
Ultimately, The Expanse is a show that will never disappoint you. Like Dark — the best show on Netflix for my money — The Expanse is now fully complete and, unlike most sci-fi shows, it defied all odds and ended well. Some of the six seasons are better than others, but The Expanse is incredibly consistent. You’ll be shocked at how much ground it covers and how seamlessly it moves from one civilization-altering crisis to another.
It’s funny, but almost everyone I know who watches The Expanse, myself included, loves to complain about it. They’ll complain about the clunky dialogues and the weird performances, but nothing beats. It is a show that is stubbornly carried by its strengths, to a level of quality that it is not allowed to reach. You owe it to yourself to watch, if only to make your own list of things in The Expanse that annoy you.
Make sure that list includes Thomas Jane’s hat. Unforgivable.
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