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The Expanse |S2| You guys look like shit - Wednesdays on Syfy

L

lt519

Member
epGP1Bl.jpg


OT will contain a recap with spoilers from Season 1

Where to watch:
Live TV Airings: Syfy (US), Space (CA), Wednesdays 10:00PM ET (2 episode premiere on February 1st!)
Streaming: Netflix (International)
Other options: Purchase on iTunes, Google Play, Youtube, or free on Syfy.com with ISP login
13 Episode Season

Season 1 Subscription Streaming Options
Amazon Prime (US)
Netflix (International)
Other options: Purchase on iTunes, Google Play, Youtube, or free on Syfy.com with ISP login

What is The Expanse?

Syfy intro said:
Hundreds of years in the future, humans have colonized the solar system. The U.N. controls Earth. Mars is an independent military power. The planets rely on the resources of the Asteroid Belt, where air and water are more precious than gold. For decades, tensions have been rising between these three places. Earth, Mars and the Belt are now on the brink of war. And all it will take is a single spark.
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Courtesy of io9 (Gizmodo), which declared The Expanse the #1 show of 2016.
Executive Producer said:
We've said this many times: we like to make space a character in the show. The hardships of it, it's a hostile environment, life doesn't exist in it, and life probably shouldn't exist in it. We re-emphasize that quite often. I think it's one of the unique features of the show. When I was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, a show that I loved, you couldn't get away from the fact that the ship looked like a floating hotel. [On The Expanse], our environment is tin cans in space. They do not look comfortable, and they are harsh and uninviting because they need to be strong. That's part of the design of the show, and we're not changing that.
Click to expand...

Executive Producer said:
We've seen the show where technology leads to utopia. We've seen the show where technology rises up and eats us and destroys everything. We've never seen the show where technology is in the background, where it belongs. It is a tool, and we wanted it to be a part of a real world. It's not as interesting as the people we're [focusing] on.
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Syfy often teams up with NASA for videos on the science behind the scenes.

lt519&#8217 said:
This is sci-fi at its best. Characters are at the forefront but their interactions are bound by the realities of science. Space travel is still hard, there is no faster than light travel. Space is overwhelmingly massive, cold, maddening, and dangerous. The Expanse takes some liberties, but the writers and showrunners stick closely to hard sci-fi; ships need to turn and burn to stop, gravity is respected, and missile battles in space often result in hours of waiting for seconds of intense action. But in close quarters, it can get messy fast.
Click to expand...

What about the books?
The show is based on the novels by James S.A. Corey (pen name for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). Six books, starting with Leviathan Wakes, have been released along with several novellas and free prequels. Season 1 covered part of Leviathan Wakes and pulled in characters from the second book Caliban's War. Season 2 will finish off Leviatian Wakes and dip more into the rest of the series. They promise a 10 book series with a yearly release which they've been on track for. There shouldn't be Game of Thrones situation here, although George is close friends with the writers.

Season 2 Preview
Season 2's themes are based on the three factions that have formed due to space travel; Earthers, Martians, and Belters (OPA). The crew of the Rocinante made up of all of the above find themselves in the middle of it all. While the focus on the first season was between the Earthers and Belters, Season 2 will shift some of its focus to Martians and their marines.

XhWx7Eo.gif


Season 2 is going to dive right into what Season 1 has set up. We'll learn about the protomolecule, Julie Mao's father's intentions, the role each faction has to play in the fate of the system, and maybe we'll even learn about what those crazy Mormons are up to.

Executive Producer said:
Season one was a lot of mystery and shadow play. It was conspiracies about who was behind what, what are they hiding, who's involved? We answered a lot of those questions at the end of season one, and what that enables us to do in season two is really play the story in forward momentum. Season two is largely about understanding this protomolecule [infection]: what it's doing, the direction it wants to move in, and why people are after it. Season one was ‘What's going on?' and this season is ‘What's gonna happen next?' Now we know the pieces, we know the players. We set up season one so that we could do that in season two; now we can drill in on all those promises that we made to the audience in season one.
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In other words get ready for some intense action:
dkc5yhg.gif


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Season 1 Recap spoilers!
The crew of the ice hauler the Canterbury respond to a distress signal and send a boarding ship Knight to investigate. While investigating the distressed ship the Canterbury is destroyed by missiles from an unknown ship, leaving Knight stranded. The crew of Knight consisting of Holden (Earther), Naomi (Belter), Alex (Martian), Amos (Earther), and Shed (now, oh so gruesomely, deceased) send out a distress signal and get picked up by the Donnager, a Martian war class ship. The Martians interrogate the crew about events that have occurred on Phoebe. Not being able to avoid trouble, the crew then finds themselves on the Donnager when it is attacked by mercenaries. The Donnager is overtaken, and dumps core (self detonates), but not before the crew sneaks off on a stolen Martian fighter ship, later renamed Rocinante by the crew.

The destruction of the Canterbury and the Donnager leave the solar system in disarray. Earthers blame Martians, Martians blame Earthers, Belters blame Holden and continue to be persecuted by Earthers and Martians. All the while the crew bonds:

t09eVD2.gif


Meanwhile on Ceres, our favorite haircut (Detective Miller)

7YtXycm.gif


is chasing down the disappearance of rich play-girl Julie Mao. Keeping the story short, he digs up leads throughout the season that point to her being on Eros, and heads there. Millers point of view also gives us insight into the Belters (OPA) perspective of the events occurring and their subsequent rioting at the hands of Ceres' OPA leader Anderson Dawes.

Now in control of their newly stolen ship, the crew receives a tightbeam message from Fred Johnson (The Butcher of Anderson Station), Earther turned Belter supporter, to head to Tycho station where a generational ship is being built to ship Mormons off into space. Fred Johnson claimed leader of the OPA, sends them on an errand to Eros to meet with a contact who has information about the events on Phoebe. The crew picks up an Earther spy sent by U.N. politician Avasarala, who is investigating the destruction of the ships and curious behavior by the Martians. She uncovers Mars has had some of its stealth tech stolen and soon uncovers the involvement of Julie Mao's father's business in the middle of all this.

On Eros, the crew and Detective Miller collide and uncover a nasty science experiment being conducted by Julie Mao's father (and subsequently conducted on Julie Mao's now deformed body). The entire station is infected by a blue substance (that is seemingly sentient) and the crew barely escapes, although not unscathed.

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Or just watch the re-cat:
Season 1 Recat
Or read some recaps:
Read episode Re-caps on syfy.com

Season 2 Hype
Trailer #1
Trailer #2
Trailer #3
Choose a Side Trailer

Adam Savage's look at the Expanse and the crew's ship the Rocinante
The Expanse, Expanded

Season 1 Reviews

TV.com -- Into the Unknown
All of it—the cast, the mood, the visuals—added up to one incredibly impressive first season of hard science-fiction.
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A.V Club
Going forward, I'm crossing my fingers that The Expanse will find a way to augment its beauty and melancholy with some bigger narrative risks. There are signs of the writers getting more adventurous in the season's latter half; here's hoping the trend continues.
Click to expand...
TV Fanatic
That was one hell of a finale, wasn't it? What a terrific season of television!...We've been asking for less ghost shows, wrestling and more sci-fi for years now. It's safe to say Syfy has delivered big time with The Expanse. Let's show them we're grateful by supporting the network and introducing new fans to the series. This incredible story simply has to continue.
Click to expand...

io9/Gizmodo: How The Expanse Pulled Off Two Miracles at the Same Time
The Expanse just finished its first season—leaving us with ten episodes of a show which beat all our highest expectations and made Syfy a destination in a way that it hasn't been since Battlestar Galactica. How?
Click to expand...

IndieWire: 'The Expanse' Season 1 Has Totally Changed the Game for Sci-Fi on TV
If you let yourself sink into this complex sci-fi drama that transcends genre, you'll be happier for it...."The Expanse" is something new, and it's worth watching. Get caught up. Get engrossed. It's worthy of that.
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Aired TV content does not need spoiler tags. Un-aired book content requires spoiler tags. Please tag spoilers with the book name so people know what they are clicking on, many are still reading the series.

Credit to Funky Papa for the GIFs and Cornballer for gathering all the links to the trailers/articles.
 
K

Krakn3Dfx

Member
So it's back tonight?

Guess I'll be putting my Dark Matter S2 marathon on hold for now.

Edit: Oh wait, next Wednesday. Back to Dark Matter.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Thanks for the thread, lt519 - looks great!

Just a reminder for everyone - this premieres with a double episode next week on February 1st.
 
L

lt519

Member
Only thing I've quite haven't figured out is when Netflix will be airing episodes internationally. If anyone has info on that I'd be glad to put that in the OT. From what I understand they bought the rights and will be "airing" Season 2.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
Btw, this came in 18th on GAF's 2016 TV Show of the Year voting. Here are some nice things people said about it:


The Expanse

Cornballer said:
SyFy's recent foray into adapting popular source material has paid good dividends with The Expanse (and The Magicians.) While it takes a few episodes to get going, the amusing characters and large scale action turned this into one of last year's biggest suprises for me. It'll scratch your space opera itch.
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Htown said:
Basically it's the space show I've been waiting for all my life.
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Ducarmel said:
I cant believe SyFy did not mess this one up. I admit it probably isnt the best show of 2015/2016 but dammit its the best thing to a hard sci-fi tv show. While not all the way hard sci-fi I do appreciate the details and consequences of long space flight and weaker then earth gravity has on our society. The premise is nothing new to sci-fi secrete conspiracy, colonist wanting to secede, two powers skating around war, old school politics clutching to the power it has, blah blah blah, but the plot and characters I actually found engaging between the hard sci-fi moments the show dishes out. Season 2 has already been announced and I cant wait.
Click to expand...
 
Jag

Jag

Member
Cannot wait. Reading the latest book, Babylon's Ashes, right now.

Also OP:
What about the books?
The show is based on the novels by James S.A. Corey (pen name for Daniel Abrams and Ty Franck).
Click to expand...

His name is Daniel Abraham. One of my current fav authors.

Edit: Also
Fred Johnson (The Butcher of Anderson Bay)
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It's Anderson Station. There is a good short story about it The Butcher of Anderson Station

Otherwise great OT!!!
 
T

tearsintherain

Member
can't wait, gotta rewatch season 1 of this and Black Sails, as both start airing in the next few days.

Book six came out on December by the way, Babylon's Ashes and its $14 on amazon for the e-book. The series is definitely worth a read if you love the show, 10 books I believe are planned and they are releasing one book every year like clockwork.

I hope the show does better this year than last in ratings, SyFy released it really as a huge mess. They aired like 2-3 episodes only on the internet first, then the show aired for a week or two and then went on a 4-6 week break or something. It was crazy. This year though with Game of Thrones pushed back hopefully a lot of people tune in to check it out.
 
C

Cornballer

Member
lt519 said:
Only thing I've quite haven't figured out is when Netflix will be airing episodes internationally. If anyone has info on that I'd be glad to put that in the OT. From what I understand they bought the rights and will be "airing" Season 2.
Click to expand...
Rumor is it'll be up for Netflix outside the US the day after airing on Syfy, but I don't have any confirmation on that.
 
S

spekkeh

Banned
Cornballer said:
Rumor is it'll be up for Netflix outside the US the day after airing on Syfy, but I don't have any confirmation on that.
Click to expand...
That would be fantastic, though I hope I can wait until they're all up so I can binge the series again. Don't know if I'll be strong enough though. This was one of my favorite series of last year.
 
Mossybrew

Mossybrew

Gold Member
Just binged the first season on Prime about a week ago, was actually super impressed, the books I found quite dry and lost interest after the second one, but I find this story works much better as a show. Now since I don't have cable, the long wait until S2 shows up on a streaming sevice.
 
G

GeeTeeCee

Member
I'm really looking forward to this; season 1 was a way better adaptation than I was expecting.

I'm guessing as it's branded as a Netflix Original that Netflix UK will hopefully be streaming the new episodes asap, same as they do with pretty much all of the other "Original" shows they've acquired.
 
muzzymate

muzzymate

Member
Excellent OT, OP!

Can't believe we're here already. It seems like yesterday I was watching the Season 1 finale. Excited!
 
C

Caddywompus

Member
I hate how this show is buried on Amazon Prime. Expanse should be on their front page banner but instead the only way I found out it's streaming there was from a comment in the Canceled TV Thread here. They treated Batman TAS the same way for a long time.
 
C

Crispy75

Member
Just started rewatching S1 in preparation :)
(I really hope the sound mix is improved in S2. It's impossible to hear them talk sometimes...)
 
G

Grazzt

Member
GeeTeeCee said:
I'm guessing as it's branded as a Netflix Original that Netflix UK will hopefully be streaming the new episodes asap, same as they do with pretty much all of the other "Original" shows they've acquired.
Click to expand...

I certainly hope so. I love this show too much.
 
L

lt519

Member
Crispy75 said:
Just started rewatching S1 in preparation :)
(I really hope the sound mix is improved in S2. It's impossible to hear them talk sometimes...)
Click to expand...

They admitted to the problem so I hope they cleared it up too, was the only issue I had with the show as well.

RS4- said:
Fuck waiting a week. Goddamnit.
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Excellent avatar. To bad we've lost avatar gifs, I've made it into twitchy crazy Amos:

JXGmAjI.gif
 
D

Drazgul

Member
First season took me by surprise, didn't honestly expect much but I really liked it.

Now, please tell me Thomas Jane got a haircut for S2.
 
P

Paganmoon

Member
Can't wait to see Bobbie, actress looks the part, but no clue about the actual acting bit.

Also, Remember the (hair)cut!
 
R

RS4-

Member
You know what, aside from Expanse, the only other scifi show I've actually looked forward to was that rumored Spartacus in space thing 🤤

Someone make it happen.
 
W

WascallyWabbit

Member
I enjoyed S1 quite a bit, I like that it's different enough from the source material to keep me on my toes but keeps the overall plot of the books.

And god I love Thomas Jane
 
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