The Expanse loves nothing as much as it loves building tension. Seriously, I’ve never watched a show that was this consistent in tone. Every fucking second is spent building up to the next revelation. The shows build and builds, but there’s never any pay off. The revelation is never a revelation, as the actual twist is always revealed two episodes beforehand through another character. Then, when the main characters finally catch up, they just use the revelation as a jumping off point to build more tension for the next not-a-revelation.
The first season was really slow, but I stuck with it. I thought, there’s a lot of background going on here, can’t begrudge them for setting the scene properly. Then, season 2 seemed like the plot was going to ramp up and it just… didn’t? The revelations started building but they never went anywhere. Season 3 they must’ve ceremonially sacrificed the one writer holding them back to the god of revelation building and things just got worse.
I made it to about mid-season 3 and just fucking gave up. I didn’t really know what was going on. The show had gone from being about the ‘Belters’, a group of space miners, to being about a ‘proto-molecule’ (3 seasons and I don’t know what the fuck a proto-molecule is) alien that was attacking moon farms, and I couldn’t tell you where any significant changes had occurred in the plot.
I look back over my time with the Expanse and I’m genuinely left feeling confused. The whole time I saw sure the show was going somewhere, I was sure that the next episode would reveal everything, and the show would really get going. Now I realise that we were already there. The revelation build wasn’t a climb to a peak, but an endless plateau so long it warps the mind.
I think the show really lost me when my favourite character, Joe Miller, died. Now, admittedly he was the most incel man to ever incel. If he opened an excel spreadsheet the universe would end in a matter anti-matter reaction reminiscent of the Big Bang. However, he’s also the only character who seemed to realise they were in a TV show and that their character had to put some fucking work in.
He starts out as a police detective in the belt tracking down a missing girl and training up his new partner. Then his partner gets killed by a just of Belter nationalists, he’s fired, he talks his way into joining up with the main team. And really, he’s the only character whose personality I cared about, he was more complex, darker, and he drives the plot to as near to revelations as the Expanse can get. He kills the scientist who’s performing experiments on people, risks his life to save everyone in space, and dies kissing his resurrected alien space girlfriend on an asteroid that crashes into Venus.
They did introduce a Martian marine character in the second season who I liked a lot too. But she was just used to build another revelation that never went anywhere and I couldn’t take anymore! I had to get out! I’m done, the Expanse wore me down and I don’t recommend anyone watch it. Maybe the books are better, but I’m not going to read them to find out. If your favourite part of rollercoasters is the slow climb before the drop and you wish that would go on forever then this is the show for you.
Adam Loves SciFi 