The Expanse: Safe
February 1, 2017 9:34 PM - Season 2, Episode 1 - Subscribe

The crew of the Rocinante uncover more about the conspiracy to release the protomolecule on Eros station.
posted by fimbulvetr (27 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Without wanting to give away any book spoilers, I've been impressed by how closely this series is hewing to its source material, right down to little details like the cheese cartel.
posted by whir at 10:51 PM on February 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Yes, I burst out screaming when we got the DRAPER/suit reveal in ep1. Watching the crew bond over Alex's lasagna and Amos Vs. Miller go from murderbros to actual bros made me a little weepy.

I missed you so bad, Spaceship Show. Welcome back!
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 9:17 AM on February 2, 2017 [4 favorites]


Two notes:
1. I don't think they should put the "disable airlock camera" button next to the "purge airlock" button.

2. Yay for turning off your mike and touching helmets! God, I love this show.
posted by Mogur at 4:05 PM on February 2, 2017 [13 favorites]


I will never get over the rebranding to the SyFy channel. No right-thinking person can accept that monstrosity of a name. However, I must admit they are really putting out some high quality television these days. Sure they had BSG and, before that, Farscape and the like but never have they come close to putting out so much good stuff at once. Expanse and The Magicians are top quality.

Even their B-team of series are mostly done really well.
posted by Justinian at 5:42 PM on February 2, 2017 [4 favorites]


bobbie
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:23 PM on February 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


Bobbie
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:23 PM on February 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


______  _________________ _____ _____ _ 
| ___ \|  _  | ___ \ ___ \_   _|  ___| |
| |_/ /| | | | |_/ / |_/ / | | | |__ | |
| ___ \| | | | ___ \ ___ \ | | |  __|| |
| |_/ /\ \_/ / |_/ / |_/ /_| |_| |___|_|
\____/  \___/\____/\____/ \___/\____/(_)
                                        
 

posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:25 PM on February 2, 2017 [7 favorites]


danger zone
posted by jason_steakums at 7:55 PM on February 2, 2017 [9 favorites]


Xenophobe perhaps you could clarify which bit makes you the happiest? I'm still unclear.
posted by Justinian at 8:39 PM on February 2, 2017 [5 favorites]


Power armour is a lot (!) slimmer than in my mind. People in armour get stuck in places where people with just armoured suits get by just fine. Still not the first show to do differential gravity effects well and consistently.

Yes massive space colonies!

Yes imperfect multiple planet syzygy!
posted by porpoise at 9:48 PM on February 2, 2017


Cas Anvar is a terrific actor. The bar...rant...was the worst piece of direction/writing I've seen on the show.

Other than that, great show.
posted by Thistledown at 4:12 AM on February 3, 2017


I enjoyed the bar rant -- I saw the punchline coming, and accepted it as a little treat for me before stuff got real again. A chance to catch my breath. Okay, maybe the milked it about 20% too long.
posted by Mogur at 4:19 AM on February 3, 2017


They get a lot of science right but goll dern it, a warrior space suit with a huge glass faceplate and light shining in the eyes, I know, I know, it's a show, just makes me nuts. And love the demonstration that you need contact to talk suit to suit but I bet there's a jumper cable that'd be more effective, just kinda doubt a full conversation would work.

Otherwise I liked that the suits were more like a diving dry suit, I just suspect when we get manufacturing ability and inventors/tinkerers off planet and away from the obsessiveness obsessiveness NASA scheduling every minute, new effective designs for spacesuits will be very different than the bubbles that are in use on the ISS.

Love Bobby, wish they'd written a subtler way to show she's really tough and strong.

Something about the writing, a lot is good, but I've read the books and am SF conversant with all the ideas but have a bit of a hard time following what's going on, non-SF-folks just may not get the themes.
posted by sammyo at 7:18 AM on February 3, 2017


They get a lot of science right but goll dern it, a warrior space suit with a huge glass faceplate and light shining in the eyes, I know, I know, it's a show, just makes me nuts

Look at it this way -- people on tv and in movies already spend their entire "lives" with absolutely blinding lights shining right onto their faces every moment of every day, *even when it's dark*. If it were real life, they would constantly be putting their hands over their faces or squinting or just saying "TURN THAT FUCKING LIGHT OFF." Having done the odd tv interview, the levels of light they need even for a pretty casual interview are really shockingly bright, and they shine right in your face, and they tell you to look almost directly at the light.

Because seeing people's faces matters, even when it's just my stupid mug.

So it's just more of the same. The lights in people's faces were always there and always utterly unrealistic; you just didn't notice it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:13 AM on February 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


Power armour is a lot (!) slimmer than in my mind.

I had the same thing. In a later book (teeny tiny spoiler), there's a spaceship that can't fit someone in power armor, so the character wearing it just reaches in, tears the crash couch out, and squats down in the back. The armor on the show doesn't seem like it'd be rated for that kind of thing.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:05 PM on February 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Something I noticed about Avasarala's television interview right before the assassination attempt: The very FIRST thing she says in her response is "I want your viewers to listen carefully." She then spouts a bunch of bullshit that she knows is untrue, and finishes up with "Don't listen to what people say, pay attention to what they do."
posted by Uncle Ira at 1:42 PM on February 3, 2017 [10 favorites]


Shoot, I remembered that wrong. Well, it was still a very cool line.
posted by Mogur at 2:46 PM on February 3, 2017


Avasarala is just a fucking gem! Watching her maneuver and manipulate is highly entertaining. She could give Petyr Baelish pause.
posted by Ber at 3:13 PM on February 3, 2017 [3 favorites]


The armor on the show doesn't seem like it'd be rated for that kind of thing.

I assume it's just that, what with it not being power armor and just being heavy slabs of stuff hanging off the actor, those suits are about as big as you might reasonably ask someone to wear for 14 hours or so. There's a recent Tested with asavage where he gets to play with Bobbie's suit.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:58 AM on February 4, 2017


In Book 2 when Bobbie's armor is introduced, they explain the power armor is deliberately designed to be not very bulky so that you can still fit in narrow crawlspaces, etc while armored up. No doubt it's made of Space Plastics that are super strong.
posted by Nelson at 4:43 PM on February 4, 2017


In the first episode of the podcast The Churn they explicitly discuss the matter of the armor with Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.

The TL;DR version: nobody involved with creating this show is making lazy, thoughtless, or careless decisions.
posted by Lexica at 9:07 PM on February 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Cas Anvar is a terrific actor. The bar...rant...was the worst piece of direction/writing I've seen on the show.

Having only just watched the episode... What bar rant ?
posted by Pendragon at 2:23 PM on February 9, 2017


Ok, I now watched the second episode which contains the bar rant.
posted by Pendragon at 3:05 PM on February 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


NICE! I am so glad this show is back on!

I watched season one and then read all.... five books?

When I started this episode, I thought "Who are these people? They don't look right!"

first two eps are amazing, excited for more
posted by rebent at 5:07 PM on February 10, 2017


I think I need a little help. As someone who hasn't read the books, I have no idea what's going on and no previous attachments to the characters. While I enjoyed the first season, it was mostly in spite of some of the main characters and because I wanted to see more of others. That said, here are my grievances so far.

The season begins with some military stuff happening on Mars. I can't understand a word of what's being said here. I had the same problem in the first episode of the first season. I don't know if it's just too much other noise or the music's too loud or it's just that it's supposed to be almost impossible to decipher what anyone's saying when they've got helmets on or maybe I'm just getting old and can't hear so well anymore. But I watched the scenes twice and still couldn't get anything meaningful out of them.

I really, really dislike Holden and Miller. Am I supposed to? While I can accept that maybe Miller is supposed to be an unlikable character, I have a hard time believing that we're supposed to hate the captain. And then when Holden and Naomi get together? Ick. I like her well enough. She's a complex character, and I want to know more about her. But the impression I got of her up until this point was that she didn't need this kind of blandness in her life. Nevermind that I detect no chemistry between them. Eh, whatever.

Lest you think it's all bad, my favorite part of the show is, by far, Avasarala. Everything about her is just so interesting - she dominates the screen. I love watching her facial expressions, the gorgeous things she wears, and her masterful navigation of political waters. I want a lot more of her.
posted by MsVader at 6:58 AM on March 4, 2017


This entire show should be watch with the captions on. I don't care about your complaints about captions. It adds a lot to the show.
posted by numaner at 6:43 PM on November 27, 2017


I spent most of the first season wondering when we were going to get a glimpse of Mars. Now we get to!
posted by medusa at 2:04 PM on December 25, 2020


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