Expanse #5 Game done changed.

[SpaceChampion]

6 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

I've heard that Ty and That Guy are doing a rewatch podcast I think.  Should probably hunt for that before I get too far along.

Dude.  The post right before yours is it.  It's not a strict rewatch where they totally focus on just the episode, but talk a lot about influences especially Blade Runner and Alien.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

And one more thing, Admiral Souther talked about his "soldiers".  That's not really a navy thing though is it?  That one kind of stuck out, fwiw.

Correct. He should refer to them as... Guardians.

[mcbigski]

On 3/3/2021 at 11:20 PM, Corvinus85 said:

Correct. He should refer to them as... Guardians.

Yao on the Donnager said the same thing about the MCRN people.  I guess other than the Martian marines, it's unified commands all around?  (Forgot that Fred was UN Marine).

I still think of Robotech when I hear Guardian, but I'm a boy from a certain era.

[mcbigski]

So I'm somewhere early into S2 E2.  

Best lines of S1,

M: What does rain taste like?

H:  I never thought about it.

M:  How could you leave a place like Earth?

H:  Everything I loved was dying.

So far best line of season 2 is another Holden/Miller exchange.  "Thanks for the lift, and the cancer."

 

I'm moving on from Shed.  About 2 seconds into S2 I was all like "It's Bobby time".  And then episode 2 started and I was all "wait, it's Drummer time".  They're going to compete for the top spot with me until show Ashford starts differentiating from book Ashford.  

Oddly I have a pullover that is eerily close to what Fred is wearing at the start of Ep2, but I have to wonder why you need a windbreaker on a space station...

 

[Starkess]

On 3/3/2021 at 9:01 PM, mcbigski said:

Also, I think Shed is going to die in the next 10 minutes, and he's actually the funniest of the five by far.  Might have been nice to keep around a less super competent guy for comic relief.  But what do I know?  As good as that actor was, Sean Bean would have been better.

I wish we had gotten more Shed! Funnily enough, I think the original impetus behind his death was because the person who played that character was moving away (back when this story was developing as a tabletop roleplay, IIRC).

[mcbigski]

Hadn't heard that about Shed, didn't know the seed for all this was a role playing campaign.  Curious what system they used.

Finished rewatching season 3 and best line had to be Amos to Prax :"You and I had very different childhoods".

Got a bunch of questions about the gates and such that would be non spoiler in the book thread so going to write that up there.

[Rippounet]

I just finished a rewatch (all 5 seasons) and I feel like sharing a few thoughts.
It's really one of the best science-fiction shows I've ever watched. I'd like to be more nuanced, but I just can't think of any other science-fiction show that really competes. It manages to hit all the right spots for me. The balance between the overall plot and character development. The balance between the greater geopolitical picture and political movements and the choices of individuals. The balance between the human elements and the supernatural. The balance between action and reflection, between violence and humor... etc. The world-building is good enough that even the slower episodes feel deeply immersive and fascinating. And the whole thing is somehow believable, at least in the way people act and react. And the fact that it is believable is what gives it depth, because it raises so many questions about human nature, tribalism, competition vs cooperation, good and evil... etc.
I think it's not often that a visual adaptation magnifies the source material (best example I can think of would be Silence of the Lambs). In this case the source material was good, but the show is what really gave life to that universe, by adding so many little details to its appearance. And the show continually weaves together the different threads of the story and adds levels of character development slightly better than the books do (in fact, there is more character development on the show).
I'd rate the first three seasons the highest, in large part because of Thomas Jane as Miller. I didn't really take to Miller in the books, and was a bit skeptical of using noir elements in science-fiction. But on a rewatch, Miller somehow stands out as one of the characters that is both more relatable in so many small ways and completely unpredictable and alien in others. Many of his lines in season 3 are gold nuggets. Making the anti-hero into the deus ex machina (almost literally) borders on breaking the 4th wall, and yet somehow it works. I somehow miss his perspective in seasons 4 and 5.
I tend to forget that the beginning of the story is quite dark, both in terms of what happens (experiments on kids, executions), and the way it's shown (the consequences of violence are well written), because once the ring opens, the main characters are firmly established as heroes, and the narration feels safer somehow. Even the attack on Earth doesn't quite succeed in providing the same darkness once we are confident that the main cast will always pull through.
Season 4 feels like a transition, and it stands apart because of how self-contained the plot is (Belter politics and Mars aside, which start building the plot of the next season). It's a great piece of science-fiction, but it's also the choice of a classic plot (in its evolution and resolution).
Which leads me to season 5, which is the only one I can't be perfectly satisfied with. Of course, that's probably because it can only be completed by season 6, but I also think it's the one season that isn't as well balanced as the others. It has the best battles and the best villain, but the story revolves just a bit too much around a few individuals. Even without dwelling on Alex's death, there's a lot of character development and some of it isn't as convincing as it should be. I've yet to truly warm up to Filip for instance, though his character works much better upon a rewatch (his inner turmoil makes more sense when you watch him closely).
Season 6 has the potential to balance season 5's focus on individuals. I'm hoping to see something closer to the end of the Martian dream in season 4 (through Bobbie's eyes), this time for Earth and the Belt.

Here there be spoilers from the books (big ones):

Through Anna and Nono we'll get to see Earth, Holden will start his broadcasts from the belt (though I wonder if they'll include that...) while Prax repairs is in charge of Ganymede. If those are done right, we should progressively see how humanity evolves into an inter-galactic civilisation, and the season ending with the creation of the Space Guild.

There's a lot to fit in just 10 episodes though (I assume it's 10, perhaps up to 13), and the show should be significantly different from the book (Fred and Alex are dead, not to mention Souther, Drummer's story has moved faster than Pa's...). Nathan Smith hasn't been introduced, and without Alex we lose the priceless exchanges they had, so perhaps he'll be less important. We should still get quite a few political meetings (perhaps with Drummer taking Fred Johnson's role of a moderate leader for the Belt), the taking of Ceres, and the battle between the Roci and the Pella. I hope we'll see the attack of the coalition fleet before the Roci takes Medina. I like that Naren Shankar promised that the show's series finale is going to be huge. ( "We ain't going out small," he teased).

 

[mcbigski]

So I'm at S5E7 in my rewatch.  And that flashback...I get the big hair Naomi as a signifier that This Is A Flashback.  But did they really need the man bun for Marco?  It's so Johnny Snow.  

As for Rip's spoilers, (do we still need spoiler tags? regardless...)

Spoiler

Wasn't book Fred already dead by the time the Roci crew reunites at Luna? Was a lot more impactful when it came as a surprise though, and didn't shift the larger story that much in the long term, so great choice there.  I straight up don't remember Nathan Smith, and thought Souther died where he did in the show, but naval officer is a pretty fungible resource, great men aside perhaps.  I assume Drummer takes the Michio Pa role.  IIRC she eventually takes over for Pa with the trade union or whatever it's called but the timeline gets compressed somewhat in the non book form.

Either way, Leviathan Falls is I think tops on my most anticipated list as of  now.  Winds and Dream up there sure, but whatever is next..

[karaddin]

@mcbigski Babylon's Ashes spoiler so sticking to tags

Spoiler

Fred dies in the fight with Marco in Babylon's Ashes, so assuming this regrouping at Luna happened at the show at the same time as it did in the book then no - Fred is still alive at this point. I think they're taking Fred from Luna back to Tycho when the fight happens? Its an awesome sequence of Bobby being a badass gunner firing the rail gun as Alex temporarily cuts thrust and spins the ship to fire, Bobby notices the Pella is predictable in its dodging pattern and takes advantage. It turns out to be that Filip was the pilot and its his fault it was predictable and they get hit, then the Roci gets away and Fred is dead.

 

[3CityApache]

Spoiler

I was wondering why they would show us a glimpse of Laconia at the end of season 5, if they weren't going to use it full time in the 6th and final season. So perhaps the idea is to mix book 6 with 7 or even 7 and 8? It would be a tough job to compress it all into just one season though.

 

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, mcbigski said:

As for Rip's spoilers, (do we still need spoiler tags? regardless...)

It's a show thread, so I assume stuff from the books must not be visible.

@3CityApache I wondered about that too...

... but in the end I think they're just betting they can actually finish the show (i.e. adapt the final books too) in a few years from now.

It's a risky bet... But they seem to know what they're doing.

In other news, I discovered yesterday some friends of mine didn't like The Expanse. Until then I'd assumed there was only two types of people in the world: those who liked The Expanse and those who hadn't seen it yet.

[Argonath Diver]

I am not up to date on the books, and decided to catch up on the series first since I'm through the fifth book anyways. 

Hot damn, what a show. Intense when it needs to be, compelling, well paced, even genuinely funny sometimes. 

Season three has been absolutely fantastic and I'm not through it yet. I sure hope Amazon nails the 6th and final season. Since that'll be new territory for me, I have no clue how they'll wrap it up (I'm sure that's been discussed,  I've avoided spoilers other than knowing the Cas Anvar drama).

[Winterfell is Burning]

I binge-watched the show in the last couple of weeks, which was really worthwhile. I never really got into the big sci-fi franchises in general- never saw much or cared for Star Trek, definitively not a Star Wars fan, etc, but this one caught me.

Seasons 1-3 are as good and entertaining as pretty much anything on TV- I'm not saying it's in the BB/The Wire/Mad Men tier, but it's probably in the one right below it, Manages to make a great balance of addressing all the aspects possible, as Rippounet said- world-building with action, character, humor, and it feels overall like a realistic take on how people and the world would react to the challenges and ideas presented by the new technological possibilities (although I have a problem with the nation-state essentially disappearing on Earth in 200-300 years, but perhaps that's explained better by the books). They also manage make to make the VFX budget of the show worth every penny, particularly impressive considering they probably didn't have that much compared to a big movie.

Season 4 is a step below the first three, probably because the focus is too narrow (everyone on the planet, with Bobbie and Avasarala's plots mostly being filler), and too much focus on one annoying villain, in the case Mutry. Still pretty good.

Season 5 has a big dip on quality tough, and that's because it doubles down on the mistakes of season 4- too much focus on one annoying one-dimensional villain like Inaros (in the first three seasons, no villain got that much spotlight, and the ones that had more like Mao and Errinwright had more depth) and the stupid psychodrama with Naomi and their son, as well as keeping the entire crew apart the entire season wasn't a good move.  That said, there's potential for a great season 6.

Also, I understand they were in a bad situation with Alex, but they dealt with it very clumsily.

  

On 3/4/2021 at 12:01 AM, mcbigski said:

.

TBH I didn't notice when they replaced Arjun, but the unreplacing stood out.  It's not like he's The Mountain, could they have gotten a guy about the same size at least? 

Also, the guy they got is obviously 20 years younger. I actually though she had married someone else for a few episodes.

 

[Corvinus85]

It's interesting how a many of the book readers consider the 5th book to be the best, while I see many of the show viewers who haven't read the books to consider season 5 the worst, though the show largely still follows the book plot. I'm guessing it has to do with the limited number of POVs in the books. 

Spoiler

Naomi, Alex, and Amos only become POV characters in book 5, and up until then we mainly knew these characters through Holden's eyes.

 

[3CityApache]

I watched the show before I read the books, and I consider both season 5 and book 5 to be the best, actually. But that's just me.

[Winterfell is Burning]

If you loved s05, more power to you, but it's a very distinct season from the others, and for me it's because it forgets the best things from the previous ones. I really didn't need most of a season being about Naomi crying and trying to win back her son from his evil dad or Amos running through Earth for the sole purpose of rescuing Clarissa Mao from prison (a character book readers seem to love, but who was never compelling in the show, to me at least).

[divica]

19 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

It's interesting how a many of the book readers consider the 5th book to be the best, while I see many of the show viewers who haven't read the books to consider season 5 the worst, though the show largely still follows the book plot. I'm guessing it has to do with the limited number of POVs in the books. 

  Hide contents

Naomi, Alex, and Amos only become POV characters in book 5, and up until then we mainly knew these characters through Holden's eyes.

 

I think you are completly wrong. This season was just really badly planned.

For show viewers only amos story looks like a huge filler because they didn t have the earth government discussing a caring about what was happening on earth. That was a huge mistake and I don t care that book readers can find litle clues that we are seeing more than we think. For show viewers only amos story was completly separated from the other characters and looked like amos little adventure.

Then the showrunners decided to focus 50% of the second half of the season on naomi being repetetive with a cliche story making the rest of the characters move at a snails pace. The last 3 eps were basically naomi being boring, amos being cool in a filler arc and the rest of the characters doing nothing...

[divica]

19 minutes ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

If you loved s05, more power to you, but it's a very distinct season from the others, and for me it's because it forgets the best things from the previous ones. I really didn't need most of a season being about Naomi crying and trying to win back her son from his evil dad or Amos running through Earth for the sole purpose of rescuing Clarissa Mao from prison (a character book readers seem to love, but who was never compelling in the show, to me at least).

I agree completly.

[Corvinus85]

43 minutes ago, divica said:

I think you are completly wrong. This season was just really badly planned.

For show viewers only amos story looks like a huge filler because they didn t have the earth government discussing a caring about what was happening on earth. That was a huge mistake and I don t care that book readers can find litle clues that we are seeing more than we think. For show viewers only amos story was completly separated from the other characters and looked like amos little adventure.

Then the showrunners decided to focus 50% of the second half of the season on naomi being repetetive with a cliche story making the rest of the characters move at a snails pace. The last 3 eps were basically naomi being boring, amos being cool in a filler arc and the rest of the characters doing nothing...

Have you read the books?

[divica]

32 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Have you read the books?

No. But acording to what everyone says in the books it is pretty clear that what amos is facing is a global problem. The shows fails miserably in that regard by having the worl government never discussing the planet's situation.

in regards to naomi it is more a problem of pacing and focus that the story.