A while back Chris and Mike started watching “The Expanse”. Being the dork that I am, I casually watched the show from afar, but there was a husky voiced woman swearing like a sailor with all sorts of swagger that got my attention. When I saw her move across the screen she had a regality that I adored. After watching a few episodes in the middle of the run I felt in love with Shohreh Aghdashloo’s portrayal of Chrisjen Avasarala.
Earl and I started watching from episode one this past weekend. Science fiction is really not Earl’s cup of tea, but he enjoys sitting on the couch watching television together and he is most tolerant of my selection of television. Since Chris and Mike are in season four and we’ve just started season one, I can safely say the production quality of season four is much better than what we’re seeing. As I understand it, Syfy cancelled the series after season three and then Amazon Prime picked it up. Apparently the Amazon Prime episodes have a bigger budget.
I’ve never read the novels, but the reality of this science fiction series is intriguing. It’s the 24th century, humans have colonized the Solar System, Earth is run by the U.N., Mars is its own thing (and in a cold war with Earth) and precious commodities are mined and collected by the “Belters”, folks that live in the Asteroid Belt. The tech is most intriguing. The physics are well done; the tech of the 24th century makes sense. And the human attitude pretty much adheres to where we’re probably headed: while tech has evolved, humans have repeated history and the same mistakes over and over. The far future feels (too?) familiar.
I’m looking forward to watching this series over the next few months. And as Chrisjen Avasarala would probably say, “I fucking love it”.
