[BOOK & TV SPOILERS] The Expanse on SyFy

[Arkash]

I'm bummed the spy (Khenzo) apparently is gone, I really liked the actor and character.

Or perhaps he's not and he'll be the embodiment of the protomolecule's consciousness, but that seems unlikely since I seem to understand from bookreaders comments that he's not a character in the novels (or perhaps a more minor one).

But it was a perfect last scene to the season. 

[Jack Bauer 24]

2 hours ago, Pliskin said:

It's too slow and really confusing. I liked some parts of it (like episode 4 which was great), but overall quite disappointed.

The books are great though, you should try it out.

Speaking of the books, I'm really shocked that they'd reveal in the show Mao's being everything that soon. And since Errinwright is shown working with him, reveal therefore that the high command of Earth is behind everything. I mean we're only halfway through book 1, and this is normally addressed at the end of book 2 (even though it was quite straightforward). The whole unknown enemy face thing is gone. For season 2 (and 3 ?), we'll already know who are the conspirators. I don't understand their choice of adaptation here.

Ok, and let's say I'm really pissed not to see vomit zombies in the finale. It's like tuning in for The Walking Dead, and not seeing any zombies. Oh wait, they did it too with Fear The Walking Dead. But really, it's not an example to follow.

How faithful is it to the source material?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Jack Bauer 24 said:

How faithful is it to the source material?

It's about an 8.

[sifth]

I'm not very happy with the pacing of the first season. I felt like they could have covered the entire first book at the very least. I mean it wasn't a very long book from what I remember.

 

So how will they do season 2 now I wonder? There really isn't enough material in Leivathan Wakes to cover an entire season. So are we going to get more filler stories to fill in the space or will the climax of the first book be the middle of season 2?

[Relic]

17 minutes ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

How faithful is it to the source material?

Far more faithful than some other popular shows around these parts. and it's certainly one of the reasons I enjoy this so much. having the books come to life is a real treat. I can understand non-readers not enjoying it as much as I do, however. The show runners made a bit of a pacing error early on, and that is a problem in today's uber saturated television show market. 

[Relic]

Just now, sifth said:

So how will they do season 2 now I wonder? There really isn't enough material in Leivathan Wakes to cover an entire season. So are we going to get more filler stories to fill in the space or will the climax of the first book be the middle of season 2?

I'd say book 1 climax should happen by the end of episode 3, ideally. Unfortunately budget limitations might prevent that from being the case. Between the ending of book one, and Bobbie's first chapter in book two you have a whole lot of CGI. 

[Kalbear]

We know that they're looking to cast Bobbie for season 2, so we'll be getting into book 2 pretty soon.

My suspicion is that we're not going to get Ganymede exactly, and probably aren't going to get Prax. I think we'll get a combination of Dresden and the protogen resolution along with the Admiral/Errinwright resolution at the end of season 2. 

I guess another way to go is getting Dresden now and Errinwright later, but I suspect that wouldn't be that satisfying for Avasarala's storyline. 

[Xray the Enforcer]

13 minutes ago, sifth said:

I'm not very happy with the pacing of the first season. I felt like they could have covered the entire first book at the very least. I mean it wasn't a very long book from what I remember.

The original trade paperback is almost 600 pages. It's actually a long book and quite full of plot points/scenes -- I just did a re-read -- and I do not think they could have made the book into a single season without 13-15 episodes without cutting significant chunks and also glossing over the necessary explication of the politics of Mars-Earth-OPA + Protogen. Or simplifying it drastically.

[sifth]

1 minute ago, Xray the Enforcer said:

The original trade paperback is almost 600 pages. It's actually a long book and quite full of plot points/scenes -- I just did a re-read -- and I do not think they could have made the book into a single season without 13-15 episodes without cutting significant chunks and also glossing over the necessary explication of the politics of Mars-Earth-OPA + Protogen. Or simplifying it drastically.

I wasn't a huge fan of all the Earth scenes to be honest. I understand why they were there, but it felt like they were taking me away from the source materiel every time one came up. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for an adaptation doing it's own thing with it's characters and making changes when they're needed to fit the adaptation, but when you introduce characters who aren't even in the story in the first place and create story arcs with them that go nowhere................well then I sort of have issue.

 

Don't get me wrong I love all of the stuff that followed the books source material, Earth really was my only issue with the show.

[Martini Sigil]

I haven't --and probably won't-- read these books.... but I love everything about this show... I'm glad that book readers --for the most part-- like it.... but I don't understand what there is to not like.... no cliché's or plot holes --to my knowledge-- and the dialogue and character development is much better than average... The story telling has been coherent,,,, hard to follow sometimes, but a lot of good stories are...

[Steinman]

1 hour ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

How faithful is it to the source material?

Not as faithful as GoT season 1, but still pretty faithful.

I for one am glad they skipped the walking sick people vomiting stuff and stopped the transit tube scene where they did. I have seen many people who have been expecting zombies developing from an infection and most have not wanted that with this show. Seeing as the books leave that behind quickly having the proto-people act more as zombies would have turned some people off and for those who like zombies it would have led to false expectations.

I've at times not been overly fond of the story on Earth but I think they finished it nicely and have set up Avasarala for a good season 2 and the Chrissie we love.

I think one of the biggest problems they'll have with season 2 is the time between events. From Eros to Ganymede it's about 18 months used for R&D, right? They might handwave some of the science and introduce something else for them to do between, but I really think there needs to be some time between the two events for it to be plausible.

[Dr. Pepper]

I loved this show, loved the finale, the final shot turned out to be pretty perfect.  I read all of the books right after the pilot so I've gone through most of the season knowing where things are leading through to book five.  It's a shame they were only give 10 episodes for the first season when they really needed about 13, and that led to some pacing issues that have been mentioned across the internetz.  But they were smart with their time and there is a lot of set up and groundwork laid for future seasons leaving more room for the meat of the plots.  I also like that they've streamlined a lot of plot elements.  It gives the appearance that they have a really clear vision for this show and have already tentatively mapped up several seasons and won't be flying by the seat of their pants.  People who haven't read the books don't have this benefit so unfortunately problems that are seen in the 'pilot season' (as someone called it) might more disappointing than they would to book readers.  I think season two success will be on Syfy being able to get this to stream quickly, doing better with advertising, and hopefully building up excitement at comic cons and such.  It also seems like they didn't even send out many or any screeners for reviewers because this show is hardly written about at all.

I missed the brown vomit zombies.  I never thought that they were actually zombies or that they resembled zombies.  The shot of Julie stumbling and feverish and then puking is pretty much exactly what I imagined and calling them zombies was shorthand for being dead soon.  The reason I missed the vomit zombies is because the spread of the virus on the show was pretty lame.  It happened too quickly or something. Then there was the issue of Holden and Miller not really appearing to be in much danger from the virus itself.  In the book, my heart was pounding for pages because they were trying to get past security, deal with the radiation poisoning, and dodge people vomiting all over the place.  It was probably a bit of overkill, but at least Holden and Miller's interactions made up for it.

 

[karaddin]

I think the time between Eros and Ganymede is going to be dramatically compressed for the sake of the show, I just don't see how the time skip could be incorporated into season 2.  The data from Eros is going to let them leapfrog their protomolecule skills up in a hurry, that's what Dresden was basically saying, they need to let it learn so it can teach them.

The biggest variations* in the Earth story were in the episode written by Dan and Ty so I'm happy to take as functionally canon. I really do think Avasarala is faithful, of course she's being shaped by what she's going through prior to what we see in book 2.

I also felt like the climax of the escape didn't quite live up to my imagination of it from the book, but that's often the case with horrifying stuff.  I'm not sure this would leave Holden quite so traumatised with regards to the protomolecule as the sequence from the book does.  I think it's the double whammy of avoiding looking like a Zombie show and budget...they just couldn't have an enormous casino floor filled with people, with the security guarding the exit and the VZ's swarming in from the tube cars the way the book describes it.  Or at least not the way I imagined it.  The casino floor was meant to be truly enormous and it just couldn't be that.

[Jack Bauer 24]

15 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I think the time between Eros and Ganymede is going to be dramatically compressed for the sake of the show, I just don't see how the time skip could be incorporated into season 2.  The data from Eros is going to let them leapfrog their protomolecule skills up in a hurry, that's what Dresden was basically saying, they need to let it learn so it can teach them.

The biggest variations* in the Earth story were in the episode written by Dan and Ty so I'm happy to take as functionally canon. I really do think Avasarala is faithful, of course she's being shaped by what she's going through prior to what we see in book 2.

I also felt like the climax of the escape didn't quite live up to my imagination of it from the book, but that's often the case with horrifying stuff.  I'm not sure this would leave Holden quite so traumatised with regards to the protomolecule as the sequence from the book does.  I think it's the double whammy of avoiding looking like a Zombie show and budget...they just couldn't have an enormous casino floor filled with people, with the security guarding the exit and the VZ's swarming in from the tube cars the way the book describes it.  Or at least not the way I imagined it.  The casino floor was meant to be truly enormous and it just couldn't be that.

They could have just added a set extension with CGI.

[karaddin]

8 minutes ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

They could have just added a set extension with CGI.

I don't just mean the set though, my imagination of that scene from the book had at least 100k people jammed onto the casino floor. Having the riots go through it, clashes with the security and everything...it would have been out of their budget.

[SpaceChampion]

Without Avasarala this season, a lot of the backstory would have been awkwardly delivered.  Imagine Amos grabbing Holden and shouting at him "Tell us about your childhood!"   Now while that would have been hilarious, it wouldn't have been hilarious in the way Amos usually is.  Avasarala in conflict with others is a far more effective way to get that.

[Arkash]

As a non book-reader (yeah, I'm gonna say that as every opener of my posts here until I read them), I didnt have a problem with Avasarla... I mean, it was obvious to me her story wasnt the central one to the season, but it was as much obvious that all the setting up in her scenes will pay off later down the story, and even if we didnt get the most thrilling scenes with her, I really enjoyed the few I know of the character and the dynamics around her.

Frankly, the only thing I'm not sure about this season is Matteo abandoned in deep space by his uncle... will that be relevant later or was it just to show escalating tensions ? 

[Xray the Enforcer]

It hasn't come back in any of the books (as far as I can remember; and I believe that scene actually happened offscreen in the books), so I'm guessing it won't come back in the show either. It was just meant to show escalating tensions between the Belt & the planets.

I still have yet to see the final two episodes (Mr. X gave me the download on them tho); saving them for the weekend.

[red snow]

9 hours ago, karaddin said:

I don't just mean the set though, my imagination of that scene from the book had at least 100k people jammed onto the casino floor. Having the riots go through it, clashes with the security and everything...it would have been out of their budget.

A bit like how the Dorthraki were 12 people on horseback in season 1 of GOT and were in there thousands at the end of season 5. I agree there's only so much you can do with the budget and it's better to look good most of the time than to scarifice the nuts and bolts on one season. But it's a shame the escape wasn't as epic as it felt in the books.

Given that Walking Dead is the number one show in ratings I'm surprised they seem so wary of vomit zombies.

 

14 hours ago, Arkash said:

I'm bummed the spy (Khenzo) apparently is gone, I really liked the actor and character.

Or perhaps he's not and he'll be the embodiment of the protomolecule's consciousness, but that seems unlikely since I seem to understand from bookreaders comments that he's not a character in the novels (or perhaps a more minor one).

But it was a perfect last scene to the season. 

He's not in the books but I think you may be right in that he'll become an embodiment of the protomolecule in some way as it will be cheaper and clearer for the show. There are some hurdles regarding this in future regarding other characters having a similar role though.

Caliban's war had soldier protomolecules right? They could use this guy as a template for that as well. I agree the actor made an impression second only to the Martian interrogator. Real shame we lost him so early but hope the actor pops up elsewhere.

[Xray the Enforcer]

20 minutes ago, red snow said:

Caliban's war had soldier protomolecules right? They could use this guy as a template for that as well. I agree the actor made an impression second only to the Martian interrogator. Real shame we lost him so early but hope the actor pops up elsewhere.

Yes, although IIRC they were building those with the kids with the immune system disorder. (Could be wrong -- I found it difficult to pay close attention to parts of Caliban's War because Prax was so goddamned tedious.)