Expanse #5 Game done changed.

[HexMachina]

Caught up after a hissy fit earlier because the episode hadn’t dropped on Amazon (it had, i wasn’t connected to the internet so it hadn’t refreshed, luckily i live alone so minimum embarassment). 

Really loved the episode, especially the Earth scenes (though I agree Clarissa’s scene wasn’t too well done). I love the interactions between Clarissa and Amos, and i feel i’m getting more and more insight into the characters, especially Amos. I’ve also been in lockdown too long because Amos in his underwear had me thinking things.

Mars stuff, good scene, Bobby continues to be incredible. If they planned to kill off Alex i feel this was an ideal place to do so. If there are plot reasons this wouldnt be feasible please don’t tell me yet. But if not it wouldnt have been too hard to re edit the scene and film a quick reaction of Bobby realising he didnt make it back.

I think the Free Navy stuff is really interesting and all of the scenes are well done. Loved Drummer’s confrontation with Marcos. I need to have her and Naomi reunite though.

I could have done with more Avasarala but what we did get was good.

Damn but Holden barely exists on this show anymore  

[karaddin]

So Ty confirmed on twitter that

Spoiler

The discrepancy between the reported impact size and what we're being shown is intentional so I'm happy to hear that

 

As for this

5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I’ve also been in lockdown too long because Amos in his underwear had me thinking things.

I've seen WAY too much of this already to give it a "lockdown excuse" pass  

[ithanos]

This season has been fire. Love the time being spent with Amos and Clarissa at 1G.

And I like the nod to Bobby's Polynesian heritage when she gave out the Chehooo!

 

[HexMachina]

11 hours ago, karaddin said:

So Ty confirmed on twitter that

  Reveal hidden contents

The discrepancy between the reported impact size and what we're being shown is intentional so I'm happy to hear that

 

As for this

I've seen WAY too much of this already to give it a "lockdown excuse" pass  

You know people have being talking about reduced alcohol tolerance after a period of not drinking in the sober thread? Well...

[karaddin]

5 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

You know people have being talking about reduced alcohol tolerance after a period of not drinking in the sober thread? Well...

Just a whole lot of thirst for Amos, no causes seem to be necessary

[Corvinus85]

I liked question of the food supply for the Belt with Earth fucked. That was mentioned in the book, too.

Spoiler

And if they follow the book, Marco just served Drummer's people a platter of bullshit.

 

[karaddin]

3 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I liked question of the food supply for the Belt with Earth fucked. That was mentioned in the book, too.

  Hide contents

And if they follow the book, Marco just served Drummer's people a platter of bullshit.

 

Its been a few years now but I thought

Spoiler

that the scientist he name dropped did believe the projections that Marco was sharing this episode, but that after 6-12 months it was becoming obvious that the projections were way off. Isn't he the one that raises the alarm that gets Pa to turn on Marco? Or was it someone else pointing out the projections were bunk?

 

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Its been a few years now but I thought

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that the scientist he name dropped did believe the projections that Marco was sharing this episode, but that after 6-12 months it was becoming obvious that the projections were way off. Isn't he the one that raises the alarm that gets Pa to turn on Marco? Or was it someone else pointing out the projections were bunk?

 

Yeah, that's basically correct. 

[Sharpes]

So an addendum to the easter egg on Avararala's contact list: all of the names are characters that were recast: Dr Who, Gregor Clegane, Darrin Stevens (Bewitched), Becky Conner (Roseanne), Vivian Banks (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), and Arjun.

[Free Northman Reborn]

So I finally got Amazon prime and was able to catch up on the remainder of the series from where Netflix left off.

I found the first 3.5 Seasons amazing, culminating in the opening of the ring gates. But it’s as if the story took a massive step down after that, in terms of the stakes at play.
 

It went from all out interplanetary war, stopping an alien protomolecule from wiping out humanity and eventually opening up the galaxy to human exploration, to suddenly shifting 5 gears down to focusing on a low level corporate security guy wanting to steal the lithium of a few dozen poor belters, to finally settling on the soap opera-ish exploration of Amos’s Baltimore gangland backstory and Naomi having an emotionally conflicting reunification with her long lost son.

When does the focus shift back to grand sci-fi again? At least we had the asteroid impacts to add some gravity to the otherwise trivial storyline, but I sure hope this “interlude” ends soon and we get back to a grander scale drama.

The personal backstory arcs suck balls.

EDIT

Come to think of it, it feels familiar. Much like Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons, where the original story goes to pot as it branches out to previously insignificant side characters and melodrama.

I guess Marko Inaros is this story’s version of Euron Greyjoy, with Mourtry being Ramsay or the Tattered Prince or some other low level previously insignificant character suddenly shoved down our throats as a big bad threat.

[Corvinus85]

I guess it's not for everyone.

[Heartofice]

Yeah that shift from the high stakes of seasons 2 and 3 to what amounted to low level personal drama was probably my biggest issues with season 4, especially as that personal drama was rarely compelling.  Good to know I wasn’t alone in thinking that.

[Poobah]

I did feel that season 4 was a step down (the stuff back in Sol with Avasarala, Ashford, Bobbie, Drummer, and Marcos was fine but I really didn't enjoy the Ilus stuff very much) but season 5 is a fine return to form in my opinion.

[Mr Fixit]

To each his own, but I found the low-key nature of Season 4 very compelling to watch. It was almost a throwback to a kind of mystery-based worldbuilding of Season 1 where it takes a while to get going. I enjoyed Ilus storyline as a cool slice of some solid old school sci-fi, not to mention that cinematography was spectacular and was worth the price of admission all by itself. Bobbie's storyline is a critical component going forward, showing us the changing sociopolitical climate on Mars. Avasarala's election is probably the weakest of the threads, but by no means bad and also has relevance in depicting just how far reaching the discovery of the ring gates is. And of course, Drummer and Ashford are Drummer and Ashford: always a joy to watch. 

If accepted for what it is, Season 4 is some damn fine TV. 

[Heartofice]

Bobbies storyline kind of paid off by the end of season 4, hinting at its reason for existing, but the problem with it was that for 2/3rds of the season it felt like an unnecessary distraction.

It didn’t really seem to tie into anything else or give you the feeling it was going somewhere, it just felt like it was following a character you already knew for the sake of some background filler ( See Brienne in Feast for Crows)

[Heartofice]

Bobbies storyline kind of paid off by the end of season 4, hinting at its reason for existing, but the problem with it was that for 2/3rds of the season it felt like an unnecessary distraction.

It didn’t really seem to tie into anything else or give you the feeling it was going somewhere, it just felt like it was following a character you already knew for the sake of some background filler ( See Brienne in Feast for Crows)

[Mr Fixit]

22 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Bobbies storyline kind of paid off by the end of season 4, hinting at its reason for existing, but the problem with it was that for 2/3rds of the season it felt like an unnecessary distraction. 

Distraction from what? Again YMMV, but I thought it was an interesting peek into the daily functioning of Martian society, the way Bobbie adapted -- or didn't -- to civilian life, and the underlying feeling of things falling apart not only because of the ring gates but also because the regular people themselves lost faith in the dream of Mars. I thought it was a compelling storyline to follow and is even more important as a prologue to political upheavals yet to come.

Sure, it's not what one would expect after the first three seasons. Typical TV conventions prime us to expect the ever-continuing escalation from season to season and they also very rarely allow for changing subgenres and storytelling approaches between seasons, which is something The Expanse does all the time, and even more so the books where this narrative shift is clearer due to how the show didn't adapt the books in a 1-for-1 fashion. 

I am in no way insinuating that my interpretation is the only valid one or that people shouldn't have legitimate criticisms of Season 4, but I still do think that at least a part of those criticisms were the result of The Expanse not meeting narrative expectations or not going along expected narrative lines. 

[Heartofice]

4 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

Distraction from what? Again YMMV, but I thought it was an interesting peek into the daily functioning of Martian society, the way Bobbie adapted -- or didn't -- to civilian life, and the underlying feeling of things falling apart not only because of the ring gates but also because the regular people themselves lost faith in the dream of Mars. I thought it was a compelling storyline to follow and is even more important as a prologue to political upheavals yet to come.

IMO it was a distraction from what I thought was the potentially interesting element of the story. The end of season 3 introduced the new worlds through the rings, which I thought opened up a whole range of potential storylines and directions. So I wanted to see more of Ilus, even if I found that plotline a bit of a letdown as well. So when he show kept jumping back to Bobbie, without even establishing why I was doing that, it was pretty frustrating. Her plot was really not very interesting for most of the season, it was a bit tired and predictable which is hard to get on board with when there seems to little connection to the big picture.

And sure, that criticism is that the show doesn't meet my expectations, but I don't think it's too out there to expect the show to carry on in the same theme that it had previously, rather than stepping back a few gears. I know two of my friends who I recommended the show has since dropped out after becoming bored of season 4. I've so far not mustered the energy to watch season 5 yet though I'm sure I'll get round it.

[Caligula_K3]

I'm finally caught up. I enjoyed episodes 4-5 a lot. Episode 4 was especially fantastic, adrenaline filled episode, and a much better way of showing the attack than what we get in the book. In general I've enjoyed everything having to do with Naomi, Marco, and Filip.

The last episode was more frustrating for me. I found the decision in the book to focus on Amos and Clarissa trekking through the wilderness to be an odd choice to show the ramifications of what it supposed to be a huge, game-changing, and traumatic event, and I found it just as odd in the show. That Avasarala scene at the beginning of the episode has to do a lot of heavy lifting to lay out the emotional stakes.

The showrunners are also starting to run into the same problem Game of Thrones dealt with in seasons 2-3, when they weren't sure how to handle having so many disparate plotlines, and the solution they chose was to give everyone 5 minutes an episode. D&D eventually figured out that it's better to give a few characters extended screentime in an individual episode than everybody always appearing, and I wish the Expanse would learn this lesson too. The Mars plotline in particular has really stalled; it's so weird that this unexciting tailing mission and chase scene has been happening for three episodes.

I don't agree with Freenorthmanreborn's opinion of the season as a whole; I think it's pretty important for characters like Amos and Naomi to get major character development (though it was much more necessary in the books, because they were pretty flat characters until book 5). I think the season has been better than season 4, which I also enjoyed. But it's pretty clear now that they wrote and filmed this season not knowing that season 6 would be the last, and that does make me worried for the show's final episodes; there's too much that they're going to have to wrap up.

[Werthead]

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The showrunners are also starting to run into the same problem Game of Thrones dealt with in seasons 2-3, when they weren't sure how to handle having so many disparate plotlines, and the solution they chose was to give everyone 5 minutes an episode. D&D eventually figured out that it's better to give a few characters extended screentime in an individual episode than everybody always appearing, and I wish the Expanse would learn this lesson too. The Mars plotline in particular has really stalled; it's so weird that this unexciting tailing mission and chase scene has been happening for three episodes.

The Expanse has started doing that as well. Amos was cut from one episode so they could focus elsewhere and I believe Avasarala skipped an episode as well.

Quote

I don't agree with Freenorthmanreborn's opinion of the season as a whole; I think it's pretty important for characters like Amos and Naomi to get major character development (though it was much more necessary in the books, because they were pretty flat characters until book 5). I think the season has been better than season 4, which I also enjoyed. But it's pretty clear now that they wrote and filmed this season not knowing that season 6 would be the last, and that does make me worried for the show's final episodes; there's too much that they're going to have to wrap up.

According to Ty on Twitter, they started planning for six seasons when they got the Amazon rescue package, and have been working towards that ever since.