The Expanse: Home
February 23, 2017 9:14 AM - Season 2, Episode 5 - Subscribe
i am gone and gone and gone and gone can't take the razorback
That was a pretty solid conclusion to the first big story. Miller's heroism was appropriately moving. The personification of the protomolecule in Julie Mao bugs me, and it bugged me in the book too, but it's the story they're telling so here we go. I liked that the human part of her seemed upset and afraid.
But I was pretty creeped out by the physical intimacy of the ending, specifically Miller kissing her. I mean her body is completely violated by the alien life, and then there's Miller sort of stripping down and cuddling up to her immobilized body. They show Julie having agency: she draws Miller in for the kiss. So OK. But I think the whole story would have played better though if his love for her was paternal, not romantic. It would play more to his White Knight complex (a dark mirror of Holden), and to her issues with her father, and then it would give Holden a way to show comfort and love to Julie in the end without being rapey.
Why does Avasarala not leave Earth to be with her husband on Luna? She says something about how she has to stay. But she's got nothing useful to do, it just seems cruel to her long suffering husband.
posted by Nelson at 9:34 AM on February 23, 2017 [15 favorites]
But I was pretty creeped out by the physical intimacy of the ending, specifically Miller kissing her. I mean her body is completely violated by the alien life, and then there's Miller sort of stripping down and cuddling up to her immobilized body. They show Julie having agency: she draws Miller in for the kiss. So OK. But I think the whole story would have played better though if his love for her was paternal, not romantic. It would play more to his White Knight complex (a dark mirror of Holden), and to her issues with her father, and then it would give Holden a way to show comfort and love to Julie in the end without being rapey.
Why does Avasarala not leave Earth to be with her husband on Luna? She says something about how she has to stay. But she's got nothing useful to do, it just seems cruel to her long suffering husband.
posted by Nelson at 9:34 AM on February 23, 2017 [15 favorites]
I agree that it would have been more palatable but, well, let's face facts: Miller is not a great guy and is from the Planet of the Creepy Stalker Dudes. I mean, we saw him creeping on Muss in S1 in ways she was recoiling from. Anyway, I was creeped out too but it fit with the character we've seen.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:09 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:09 AM on February 23, 2017 [4 favorites]
The impact when Eros hit Venus was a really nice bit of effects.
While the kiss was a bit squicky I see the how it fits with Miller's character and his unhealthy obsession. He's not a great guy but once in a while he does manage to do great things. He's a good counterpoint to Holden's righteousness.
And now...it's Draper time!
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on February 23, 2017
While the kiss was a bit squicky I see the how it fits with Miller's character and his unhealthy obsession. He's not a great guy but once in a while he does manage to do great things. He's a good counterpoint to Holden's righteousness.
And now...it's Draper time!
posted by Ber at 10:34 AM on February 23, 2017
Considering Hat Cop was already assumed to be a casualty of war (they were aiming the Earth nukes towards the ship), why didn't they try to trigger the other nukes they had already placed?
Also, Hat Cop is going to need a new nickname.
posted by bh at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
Also, Hat Cop is going to need a new nickname.
posted by bh at 11:01 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
I thought this was really great. Both Jane and Aghdashloo brought it.
I give them a pass on the high-G effects. Realistic looking high-G would be a real bear to do properly, requiring either extremely finicky CGI effects which are probably tough on a TV budget or... actually I'm not sure how you'd do it without CGI. Clearly you'd want to at least shoot the scene with completely on their backs rather than just sorta tilted but that wouldn't get close to the sort of physical distortion 15g would cause.
posted by Justinian at 12:20 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
I give them a pass on the high-G effects. Realistic looking high-G would be a real bear to do properly, requiring either extremely finicky CGI effects which are probably tough on a TV budget or... actually I'm not sure how you'd do it without CGI. Clearly you'd want to at least shoot the scene with completely on their backs rather than just sorta tilted but that wouldn't get close to the sort of physical distortion 15g would cause.
posted by Justinian at 12:20 PM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]
You could put the actors in some sort of spinning machine like they have at fairs sometimes (not sure how dangerous those things are or if their insurance would let them do that).
posted by dilaudid at 2:56 PM on February 23, 2017
posted by dilaudid at 2:56 PM on February 23, 2017
Considering Hat Cop was already assumed to be a casualty of war (they were aiming the Earth nukes towards the ship), why didn't they try to trigger the other nukes they had already placed?
There were intended to scorch the surface and destroy possible entrances, but leave Eros intact to keep the protomolecue contained. That wouldn't help Earth.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 3:04 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
There were intended to scorch the surface and destroy possible entrances, but leave Eros intact to keep the protomolecue contained. That wouldn't help Earth.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 3:04 PM on February 23, 2017 [2 favorites]
Why does Avasarala not leave Earth to be with her husband on Luna? She says something about how she has to stay. But she's got nothing useful to do, it just seems cruel to her long suffering husband.
The Captain goes down with the ship.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2017 [11 favorites]
The Captain goes down with the ship.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2017 [11 favorites]
Also, Hat Cop is going to need a new nickname.
NEVER
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:10 PM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
NEVER
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:10 PM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
Bit disappointed with Hat Cop's 'pet nuke' having weight (instead of just inertia) given that he's... mag booting... it?
Eros does accelerate after the dodge but Miller doesn't feel that force vector, especially one that's probably not in the same plane as the station is oriented (ah well, alien tech, Eros might have a inverse cube field of some sort surrounding it).
I know lightspeed lag is a bitch to do for television, but another mild disappointment that it wasn't done more consistently (the lightspeed delayed message from Fred Johnson in particular was done well, though) - along with the inconsistent passage of time. That was a mess.
All said though, fantastic episode!
Agreed, ROU_Xenophobe, the Miller/Eros/Julie was really very good.
Interesting point about the protomolecule structures resembling synapses: I spent 6 years looking (via various means) at mammalian synapses and didn't really recognize the CGI as such, but in retrospect, yeah, they totally resemble "artists conception of synapses." Especially the "blue monochrome light" thing. The commonest fluorescent proteins for visualizing mammalian synpases are green, red, and yellow. Blue photons are higher powered and tend to me much more destructive to what is being looked at (photobleaching).
It's really weird for me to see Byron Mann and Nick E. Tarabay as non-unambiguously bad people that I've been conditioned due to their previous typecasting. Especially in contrast with Francois Chau who does play a bad person.
Ber- kiss was a bit squicky
Hat Cop was comforting her non-sqickily (ok, maybe the hand kiss is), but Julie-construct initiated the actual lip-to-lip contact. I just loved the idea that Miller was able to suss that Julie (or what the protomolecule was able to reconstruct of Julie in order to understand the living/sentient organisms currently in Sol) was interfaced with whatever was 'in control' and figured out a way to convince that to do Venus instead of (populated) Earth.
In my mind's eye, the book did "can't have the razor back" [the Razorback] more intuitively and far more "feels"-ey. But that's maybe just me.
The Venus impact CGI pretty good - but since the went there, it really sets the bar really high for a (plotted) future event.
Nelson- But she's got nothing useful to do, it just seems cruel to her long suffering husband.
The issue does come up way in the future, but I think her reasoning is that if she was seen to leave Earth then there'd be even more panic. If she did leave Earth, anyone on Luna won't last long. Mars and the Outer Planets still need supplies from Earth to survive long term (more than a couple of years). Not sure if the show has clearly conveyed this point.
I wonder if the show's going to spend time examining how much information the general populace got and how they reacted to it - or how much of the events are going to be attempted at being covered up. The novels - at a future date from this point - does explore the social situation on Earth a little bit, and much later, spends a little more time on the theme.
dilaudid- spinning machine like they have at fairs
The set doesn't look like it can withstand 3 or 4 gravities, I suspect those chairs would collapse if even 450-600lbs were applied to them. It'd be really expensive to film inside a giant centrifuge.
15G is enormous. If you weigh 150lbs you'd feel like you weighed 2260 lbs - but you're still the same size/shape. Sustained 15g acceleration is going to snap bones, bruise muscle, pop vessels of the circulatory system (pooling, pressure gradients), and likely stop your heart and your ability to breath. But I guess this future has "juice." Current-day military jet pilots wear suits that ameliorate some of the effects of excessive G forces (acceleration) through compression. An untrained person in a proper suit can do transient 4-6g without blacking out (minutes), and trained professionals may sustain up to 9g for very limited amounts of time.
Pee and poop (urine and feces) would literally be sucked out of you beyond the gatekeepers of your puny muscle-based sphincters. Your heart is only so strong (but.. could high g exercises strengthen the heart - as a muscle - or is the heart limited on how much strength it can attain?) like other muscles? My initial reaction is no, but I think that there might be some room - but the upper limit might not be significantly larger than 1g without genetic selection (and amplification) of some few.
The crew did not celebrate around the table at the end of the episode did not look like they'd dealt with hours of very high g/acceleration exposure.
(and [in the novels] there are different grades of juice that have more/less side effects and more/less efficacy - of course, the military grade stuff is the best)
I wonder if they tried leaf-blowers-to-the-face but it didn't look convincing at all.
posted by porpoise at 7:31 PM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
Eros does accelerate after the dodge but Miller doesn't feel that force vector, especially one that's probably not in the same plane as the station is oriented (ah well, alien tech, Eros might have a inverse cube field of some sort surrounding it).
I know lightspeed lag is a bitch to do for television, but another mild disappointment that it wasn't done more consistently (the lightspeed delayed message from Fred Johnson in particular was done well, though) - along with the inconsistent passage of time. That was a mess.
All said though, fantastic episode!
Agreed, ROU_Xenophobe, the Miller/Eros/Julie was really very good.
Interesting point about the protomolecule structures resembling synapses: I spent 6 years looking (via various means) at mammalian synapses and didn't really recognize the CGI as such, but in retrospect, yeah, they totally resemble "artists conception of synapses." Especially the "blue monochrome light" thing. The commonest fluorescent proteins for visualizing mammalian synpases are green, red, and yellow. Blue photons are higher powered and tend to me much more destructive to what is being looked at (photobleaching).
It's really weird for me to see Byron Mann and Nick E. Tarabay as non-unambiguously bad people that I've been conditioned due to their previous typecasting. Especially in contrast with Francois Chau who does play a bad person.
Ber- kiss was a bit squicky
Hat Cop was comforting her non-sqickily (ok, maybe the hand kiss is), but Julie-construct initiated the actual lip-to-lip contact. I just loved the idea that Miller was able to suss that Julie (or what the protomolecule was able to reconstruct of Julie in order to understand the living/sentient organisms currently in Sol) was interfaced with whatever was 'in control' and figured out a way to convince that to do Venus instead of (populated) Earth.
In my mind's eye, the book did "can't have the razor back" [the Razorback] more intuitively and far more "feels"-ey. But that's maybe just me.
The Venus impact CGI pretty good - but since the went there, it really sets the bar really high for a (plotted) future event.
Nelson- But she's got nothing useful to do, it just seems cruel to her long suffering husband.
The issue does come up way in the future, but I think her reasoning is that if she was seen to leave Earth then there'd be even more panic. If she did leave Earth, anyone on Luna won't last long. Mars and the Outer Planets still need supplies from Earth to survive long term (more than a couple of years). Not sure if the show has clearly conveyed this point.
I wonder if the show's going to spend time examining how much information the general populace got and how they reacted to it - or how much of the events are going to be attempted at being covered up. The novels - at a future date from this point - does explore the social situation on Earth a little bit, and much later, spends a little more time on the theme.
dilaudid- spinning machine like they have at fairs
The set doesn't look like it can withstand 3 or 4 gravities, I suspect those chairs would collapse if even 450-600lbs were applied to them. It'd be really expensive to film inside a giant centrifuge.
15G is enormous. If you weigh 150lbs you'd feel like you weighed 2260 lbs - but you're still the same size/shape. Sustained 15g acceleration is going to snap bones, bruise muscle, pop vessels of the circulatory system (pooling, pressure gradients), and likely stop your heart and your ability to breath. But I guess this future has "juice." Current-day military jet pilots wear suits that ameliorate some of the effects of excessive G forces (acceleration) through compression. An untrained person in a proper suit can do transient 4-6g without blacking out (minutes), and trained professionals may sustain up to 9g for very limited amounts of time.
Pee and poop (urine and feces) would literally be sucked out of you beyond the gatekeepers of your puny muscle-based sphincters. Your heart is only so strong (but.. could high g exercises strengthen the heart - as a muscle - or is the heart limited on how much strength it can attain?) like other muscles? My initial reaction is no, but I think that there might be some room - but the upper limit might not be significantly larger than 1g without genetic selection (and amplification) of some few.
The crew did not celebrate around the table at the end of the episode did not look like they'd dealt with hours of very high g/acceleration exposure.
(and [in the novels] there are different grades of juice that have more/less side effects and more/less efficacy - of course, the military grade stuff is the best)
I wonder if they tried leaf-blowers-to-the-face but it didn't look convincing at all.
posted by porpoise at 7:31 PM on February 23, 2017 [5 favorites]
This was definitely one of the best episodes so far in terms of emotional impact. They did overdo the claimed acceleration a bit, but whatever. I'm not surprised that Miller felt like the nuke had weight once in the station. Ceres is spun up to low G, but he's a Belter and even small demolition nukes are 100-200 pounds at Earth gravity. I have no trouble believing that a Belter like Miller who isn't particularly physical would find it a struggle to deal with that kind of mass equivalent. I wouldn't be able to easily lift a demolition nuke here on Earth, either.
I liked the Venus CGI, but the timing was off enough to be really annoying. It should have taken much longer between entering the clouds, big boom, and then major effect on the clouds again from the surface impact. I'm operating under the assumption that they had to speed up the sequence for time since it is a basic cable show with strict limits on how long the episode can be. Even though it would only have been an extra 10-20 seconds, I can see how cutting that out elsewhere might have made the much more important Miller scenes less impactful or denied us the character development that showing Avasarala staying on Earth provided.
posted by wierdo at 9:43 PM on February 23, 2017
I liked the Venus CGI, but the timing was off enough to be really annoying. It should have taken much longer between entering the clouds, big boom, and then major effect on the clouds again from the surface impact. I'm operating under the assumption that they had to speed up the sequence for time since it is a basic cable show with strict limits on how long the episode can be. Even though it would only have been an extra 10-20 seconds, I can see how cutting that out elsewhere might have made the much more important Miller scenes less impactful or denied us the character development that showing Avasarala staying on Earth provided.
posted by wierdo at 9:43 PM on February 23, 2017
They handwaved the gravity thing; Miller commented that he didn't understand how Eros had gravity since it was not under spin. So the nuke having weight wasn't an error per se, it was a concession to the realities of filming papered over with Protomolecule Magic.
posted by Justinian at 10:00 PM on February 23, 2017 [13 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 10:00 PM on February 23, 2017 [13 favorites]
Both Jane and Aghdashloo brought it.
Er, no. Watched snoozy late at night but the editing seemed a bit to compressed and unclear. Avasarala is fine, she was on the roof of her house on Earth, Eros diverted to Venus. There could have been a shot of Eros passing and Avasarala making a call to announce "I'm still %&*! here". Not to mention that even at 15g constant acceleration it's many days between earth and venus, space is really big.
I'm having a love/hate experience with the show's writing, it does not do the scientist to scientist boring description of plot points, but a bit unclear sometimes. The war room seemed just a bit too calm, a major asteroid begins defying the laws of physics should have had a lot more emotion.
It would have been good if they had the effects budget to have the acceleration couches be more impressive, I think in the books they were more like an enclosure that completely pressurized the crew and were really invasive and unpleasant.
But I do hope it's getting great ratings, hoping for a season six, best space opera evah!
posted by sammyo at 8:03 AM on February 24, 2017
Er, no. Watched snoozy late at night but the editing seemed a bit to compressed and unclear. Avasarala is fine, she was on the roof of her house on Earth, Eros diverted to Venus. There could have been a shot of Eros passing and Avasarala making a call to announce "I'm still %&*! here". Not to mention that even at 15g constant acceleration it's many days between earth and venus, space is really big.
I'm having a love/hate experience with the show's writing, it does not do the scientist to scientist boring description of plot points, but a bit unclear sometimes. The war room seemed just a bit too calm, a major asteroid begins defying the laws of physics should have had a lot more emotion.
It would have been good if they had the effects budget to have the acceleration couches be more impressive, I think in the books they were more like an enclosure that completely pressurized the crew and were really invasive and unpleasant.
But I do hope it's getting great ratings, hoping for a season six, best space opera evah!
posted by sammyo at 8:03 AM on February 24, 2017
Which other sci-fi TV show would have a conversation about how Eros was putting out waste heat, so at least the laws of thermodynamics still hold? Naomi clinging to physics in the face of madness could only work because they'd spent a season and a half establishing that the laws of physics really do hold here. Eros moving like that (and I guess, having gravity) wouldn't have stuck out on Star Trek.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:38 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
sammyo, are you sure about that many days figure? A 15g constant acceleration trip between Earth and Venus, starting and stopping at rest with a flip in the middle, takes about 9 hours at closest approach according to this calculator.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:39 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:39 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Not to mention that even at 15g constant acceleration it's many days between earth and venus, space is really big.
By my calculations, I get 6.5-16.2 hours, depending on min/max separation of planets, at constant acceleration. It didn't look like they slowed to a stop before hitting Venus.
posted by cardboard at 8:42 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
By my calculations, I get 6.5-16.2 hours, depending on min/max separation of planets, at constant acceleration. It didn't look like they slowed to a stop before hitting Venus.
posted by cardboard at 8:42 AM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
Though, to be fair, if they're at max separation you'd have to detour a bit...
Yeah they didn't slow to a stop, but it also didn't look like they piled in at moderately relativistic speeds either. Either way, it's hours, not days. Even at 1g it looked to be a day and a half or so. Constant acceleration drives would be amazing.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:32 AM on February 24, 2017
Yeah they didn't slow to a stop, but it also didn't look like they piled in at moderately relativistic speeds either. Either way, it's hours, not days. Even at 1g it looked to be a day and a half or so. Constant acceleration drives would be amazing.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:32 AM on February 24, 2017
> didn't look like they piled in at moderately relativistic speeds either
It's a minor complaint, because everything looks so good, but nothing looks like it's going fast enough except the unmanned torpedoes, which are going just a fast-as-fuck as they ought to.
The Nauvoo should've gone screaming past Eros, though they did contract the time available for it to accelerate. Meanwhile Roci's approach to Tycho, at their visit before attacking Thoth, was crazy fast, and had Alex pointing the ship's main engine directly at the docking ring, followed by a 3-second 180-degree turn while on a collision course and switching to maneuvering thrusters for the final slowdown and dock. Too fast.
> I suspect those chairs would collapse if even 450-600lbs were applied to them.
The book describes the acceleration couches as being more like beds-- that is, everyone sleeps o nthem anyway, because bad shit can happen when you're sleeping. They have a high-speed gimbal system which is slaved to sensors on the ship, so the ship can gimbal them into the best position for protecting you, and it sounds like you sink into the thing, which suggest it's like a smart waterbed that uses fluid to buoy you and carry your weight.
The ones on the ship bridges have hand controls you don't have to reach too far to get too, and which allow text communication for when things are so heavy you can only move your fingers.
In the show.. I don't know where to start-- they aren't even facing in the direction of acceleration much of the time - room-upwards when thrusting, sure, but when they're whipping around a ring station, that's not the right direction. In this episode, they were pursuing at >1G for a while before Eros really started moving, and Jim is out of his chair, looking over Naomi's shoulder at the action. The reasons for framing the shot are obvious-- It's not traditional to have a show about 5 people in the same room who can't turn and look at each other, but, well, that would be realistic anyway. There are perfectly good ways to show people incapped by g-force and communicating by text, though, if they were willing.
I absolutely get the necessities: dramatic, televisual, and the limitations of propmasters and budget, for all this. Doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about it.
Mostly, though, I want one of those screens that keeps working great if you fire a tungsten round through it at relativistic velocity.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:55 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
It's a minor complaint, because everything looks so good, but nothing looks like it's going fast enough except the unmanned torpedoes, which are going just a fast-as-fuck as they ought to.
The Nauvoo should've gone screaming past Eros, though they did contract the time available for it to accelerate. Meanwhile Roci's approach to Tycho, at their visit before attacking Thoth, was crazy fast, and had Alex pointing the ship's main engine directly at the docking ring, followed by a 3-second 180-degree turn while on a collision course and switching to maneuvering thrusters for the final slowdown and dock. Too fast.
> I suspect those chairs would collapse if even 450-600lbs were applied to them.
The book describes the acceleration couches as being more like beds-- that is, everyone sleeps o nthem anyway, because bad shit can happen when you're sleeping. They have a high-speed gimbal system which is slaved to sensors on the ship, so the ship can gimbal them into the best position for protecting you, and it sounds like you sink into the thing, which suggest it's like a smart waterbed that uses fluid to buoy you and carry your weight.
The ones on the ship bridges have hand controls you don't have to reach too far to get too, and which allow text communication for when things are so heavy you can only move your fingers.
In the show.. I don't know where to start-- they aren't even facing in the direction of acceleration much of the time - room-upwards when thrusting, sure, but when they're whipping around a ring station, that's not the right direction. In this episode, they were pursuing at >1G for a while before Eros really started moving, and Jim is out of his chair, looking over Naomi's shoulder at the action. The reasons for framing the shot are obvious-- It's not traditional to have a show about 5 people in the same room who can't turn and look at each other, but, well, that would be realistic anyway. There are perfectly good ways to show people incapped by g-force and communicating by text, though, if they were willing.
I absolutely get the necessities: dramatic, televisual, and the limitations of propmasters and budget, for all this. Doesn't mean I'm not going to complain about it.
Mostly, though, I want one of those screens that keeps working great if you fire a tungsten round through it at relativistic velocity.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:55 AM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Guys Avasarala's not leaving Earth because then she can't report back to Fred and Holden about what's really going on or throw herself in front of the bro-magnon blow 'em all to hell club.
Also I myself was wondering at what point and how the show would make it clear that Hat Cop and Space Julie were actually, you know, connecting on an intellectual/almost telepathic level and he wasn't just hallucinating this whole time.
No matter how you slice it, there's no way to visually depict something like that unless you're Ridley Scott and have All the Budgets. They did the best they could with the source material and TV show budgetary restraints, so I'm not complaining. The key takeaway is that 1) Julie isn't dead, and 2) she really HAS been communicating with Miller this whole time.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
Also I myself was wondering at what point and how the show would make it clear that Hat Cop and Space Julie were actually, you know, connecting on an intellectual/almost telepathic level and he wasn't just hallucinating this whole time.
No matter how you slice it, there's no way to visually depict something like that unless you're Ridley Scott and have All the Budgets. They did the best they could with the source material and TV show budgetary restraints, so I'm not complaining. The key takeaway is that 1) Julie isn't dead, and 2) she really HAS been communicating with Miller this whole time.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:22 PM on February 24, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yeah, after Amos getting flung around during the space station assault the other week, the Roci's manoeuvering in this episode had lost a lot of its physicality. They can't do it the high budget way all the time (and the budget for this episode was very obviously spent elsewhere), but the fact that they do it at all puts them ahead of everyone else anyway.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:39 PM on February 24, 2017
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:39 PM on February 24, 2017
I recall from the books that Miller's hallucinations of Julie were a bit more interactive, but in this TV version they come off as basically TV language for "I'm grieving and have not yet accepted this person's dead." Grieving spouses on TV do this same "I thought I saw my dead lover's face in the crowd, but I was mistaken" all the time, but now the readers and less so the viewers of Expanse know that Julie was alive, in some form, was actually communicating with Miller, and not just a fixture of his obsession.
Hopefully they'll improve on this; the protomolecule is not yet done messing with the heads of the living.
I would add, finally, that the appearance of that iconic belter bird, which appears Earth-normal but is adapted to hover in low-G, was pretty great. It was the show's first "life's different here" icon of the life on Ceres and in the belt in general, and made a terrific callback.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:03 PM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Hopefully they'll improve on this; the protomolecule is not yet done messing with the heads of the living.
I would add, finally, that the appearance of that iconic belter bird, which appears Earth-normal but is adapted to hover in low-G, was pretty great. It was the show's first "life's different here" icon of the life on Ceres and in the belt in general, and made a terrific callback.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:03 PM on February 24, 2017 [4 favorites]
Oh yeah -- I forgot to mention how much I loved the protomolecule bird as evidence that Miller has been infected for a while now. Long enough for the protomolecule to figure him out, read his memories, and (after talking to Protomolecule Prime in Space Julie) send him a message he will understand and follow.
And while I'm sure I will complain about things more or less necessitated by the budget again, I want to say now that I'm just complaining about their budget, not how they're doing it. As far as generally giving a shit goes, this show isn't just good, it's downright heroic.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:16 PM on February 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
And while I'm sure I will complain about things more or less necessitated by the budget again, I want to say now that I'm just complaining about their budget, not how they're doing it. As far as generally giving a shit goes, this show isn't just good, it's downright heroic.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:16 PM on February 24, 2017 [10 favorites]
Is that Space Julie as opposed to Head Julie (cf Head 6 and Caprica 6)?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 4:09 PM on February 24, 2017
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 4:09 PM on February 24, 2017
I just meant not Flashback Julie
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:12 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:12 PM on February 24, 2017 [1 favorite]
I really like Johnson's second in command for the show, Drummer. They somehow manage to give her a very otherworldly belter look and feel despite the actress being neither of those things. And she does the accent and Belter patois very naturally.
posted by Justinian at 2:36 AM on February 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 2:36 AM on February 25, 2017 [4 favorites]
I really like Johnson's second in command for the show, Drummer.
Even though I saw it coming when she told him he was the most powerful man in the system, the coffee interchange made me laugh (and didn't last too long). I'm not good at the gesture.
posted by kingless at 6:21 AM on February 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Even though I saw it coming when she told him he was the most powerful man in the system, the coffee interchange made me laugh (and didn't last too long). I'm not good at the gesture.
posted by kingless at 6:21 AM on February 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
...Wait, that was Venus? I figured it was Mars. I blame KSP - Eve/Venus is purple to me now.
posted by Kyol at 12:10 PM on February 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Kyol at 12:10 PM on February 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
I really liked the suspenseful, 60-second finger-on-the-cutoff nuke travel through Eros that Hat Cop does, and the fact that it was solved by Julie Ma; the drag through the statement reminded me of Sorcerer / Wages of Fear
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:04 PM on February 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:04 PM on February 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ever since they did silly things like "rotate Ceres for gravity", "Ceres needs to mine asteroids for water", and "magical stealth paint", I just assume this show has Firefly/Battlestar Galactica levels of rubber science.
I should be happy that the writers at least understand planets are kinda in orbit around the sun, and that space has zero gravity.
posted by happyroach at 8:20 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
I should be happy that the writers at least understand planets are kinda in orbit around the sun, and that space has zero gravity.
posted by happyroach at 8:20 AM on February 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the water thing bugged me too. Where is all the waste water going? Do they not have water reclamation and recycling on Ceres? If so, there should be little need for continuous large inputs of water into a closed system unless there is a constant increase in demand.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:27 PM on February 27, 2017
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:27 PM on February 27, 2017
Water for Ceres: I assume a lot of it is used expended for reaction mass (for ships, tugs, etc.).
Also, electrolysis for O2 - yes, it's a 'closed system' but there has got to be leakage.
posted by porpoise at 1:36 PM on February 27, 2017
Also, electrolysis for O2 - yes, it's a 'closed system' but there has got to be leakage.
posted by porpoise at 1:36 PM on February 27, 2017
Well, and they keep throwing ugly bags of mostly water out of airlocks.
posted by Kyol at 1:40 PM on February 27, 2017 [14 favorites]
posted by Kyol at 1:40 PM on February 27, 2017 [14 favorites]
Is Mars still exporting water from the Belt for terraforming?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:53 AM on February 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 8:53 AM on February 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Is Mars still exporting water from the Belt for terraforming?
Yes, which is explicitly what happened to all of Ceres' water, to rebut an earlier gripe. It's a major point to underscore the grief of the Belters, that Ceres is reduced to shipping water in from Saturn's rings despite originally being water-rich.
For anyone griping about the softness of the science, I definitely recommend seeking out commentary by the book authors & the other showrunners. Usually when they have to bend things it's for specific storytelling (or now, filmmaking) reasons; they're not that science-illiterate.
@fimbulvetr - have you read Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson? It's a really interesting book to read while consuming The Expanse since it covers a lot of how difficult it is to create a truly closed system. (The Expanse books themselves explicitly cover the topic in the most recent novel, as well.)
I don't remember if the novels or show touched on exactly how Ceres is losing (potable) water, besides what @porpoise said re: reaction mass. (It would not, however, surprise me if the corporate interests using most of the reaction-mass water prioritize that over water for Ceres resident use...)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:42 PM on February 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Yes, which is explicitly what happened to all of Ceres' water, to rebut an earlier gripe. It's a major point to underscore the grief of the Belters, that Ceres is reduced to shipping water in from Saturn's rings despite originally being water-rich.
For anyone griping about the softness of the science, I definitely recommend seeking out commentary by the book authors & the other showrunners. Usually when they have to bend things it's for specific storytelling (or now, filmmaking) reasons; they're not that science-illiterate.
@fimbulvetr - have you read Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson? It's a really interesting book to read while consuming The Expanse since it covers a lot of how difficult it is to create a truly closed system. (The Expanse books themselves explicitly cover the topic in the most recent novel, as well.)
I don't remember if the novels or show touched on exactly how Ceres is losing (potable) water, besides what @porpoise said re: reaction mass. (It would not, however, surprise me if the corporate interests using most of the reaction-mass water prioritize that over water for Ceres resident use...)
posted by cyrusdogstar at 7:42 PM on February 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
The Mormon tour guide mentioned the difficulty of making a closed system as the main design challenge of the Nauvoo. They must have solved it, but I'm betting that it wasn't cheap. In-system, it's just so much easier to take the water you need. It's only a few Belters, after all....
posted by Mogur at 4:56 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Mogur at 4:56 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]
Ok, I really am getting into this Belter language thing. I composed a Reddit about grammatical aspect in Lang Belta. Aspect modifies the verb's relation to the passage of time. Belter has ongoing, habitual, and perfective/completed aspect. This is different from tense, which describes where in time the action takes place.
Mi ta vedi fo im, "I looked for her". Past tense.
Mi ta ando vedi fo im, "I was looking for her". Past tense, ongoing aspect
Mi gonya tili vedi fo im, "I will regularly/ habitually look for her." Future tense, habitual aspect.
And I've gotten a thumbs-up from Nick Farmer, the linguist behind Lang Belta. Yes, he's a homie and Lexica & I hang w/ him, but I pulled this together almost as an exercise for myself & Lexi. Was pleased to see I got it right.
Next topic I'm working on is the various vocabulary words Belta Has for "gravity".
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:30 AM on March 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
Mi ta vedi fo im, "I looked for her". Past tense.
Mi ta ando vedi fo im, "I was looking for her". Past tense, ongoing aspect
Mi gonya tili vedi fo im, "I will regularly/ habitually look for her." Future tense, habitual aspect.
And I've gotten a thumbs-up from Nick Farmer, the linguist behind Lang Belta. Yes, he's a homie and Lexica & I hang w/ him, but I pulled this together almost as an exercise for myself & Lexi. Was pleased to see I got it right.
Next topic I'm working on is the various vocabulary words Belta Has for "gravity".
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:30 AM on March 1, 2017 [8 favorites]
Of course! They must have a hundred words for gravity, from "that little bit of gravity that you feel when you land on Eros" to "that twisty gravity that we used to have when I was a kid, before the station got spun halfway down." And a couple of old Belters could probably argue for an hour about what exactly they just felt as they passed between the third and fourth transverse tubeways....
posted by Mogur at 10:23 AM on March 1, 2017
posted by Mogur at 10:23 AM on March 1, 2017
The Miller stalking Julie Mao thing absent the protomolecule would be icky, but with it it is more complicated. Rewatching the previous episodes, Julie knows Miller (via the protomolecule) before they've met, and is aware of dialog between Miller and his captain that she wasn't present for ("kidnap job").
So while they haven't met, they both believe "we belong together" because, I'm speculating, either they both feel the connection via the protomolecule, or because at this point it's the protomolecule doing the talking, and the protomolecule can not only manipulate space (throwing Eros around without any inertia or perceived acceleration) but also time, reaching back to influence Miller and who knows what else.
posted by zippy at 10:35 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
So while they haven't met, they both believe "we belong together" because, I'm speculating, either they both feel the connection via the protomolecule, or because at this point it's the protomolecule doing the talking, and the protomolecule can not only manipulate space (throwing Eros around without any inertia or perceived acceleration) but also time, reaching back to influence Miller and who knows what else.
posted by zippy at 10:35 AM on March 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Also, in her dying moments Julie sees Miller walking into the hotel room, led by the sparrow. And he wouldn't make that entry till long after she died.
It's quite possible she's been seeing visions of Miller. I certainly hope she has.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:45 PM on March 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
It's quite possible she's been seeing visions of Miller. I certainly hope she has.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:45 PM on March 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Yes, which is explicitly what happened to all of Ceres' water, to rebut an earlier gripe. It's a major point to underscore the grief of the Belters, that Ceres is reduced to shipping water in from Saturn's rings despite originally being water-rich.
Estimates are that 27% of Ceres is made up of water. There's more fresh water on Ceres than on earth, about 200 million cubic kilometers of water. If Ceres exported enough water to create water shortages, a) Mars would already have oceans, b) Ceres would be a pile of rubble, c) we'
we're talking moving mass on a scale the Expanse just doesn't show.
posted by happyroach at 10:07 PM on March 2, 2017
Estimates are that 27% of Ceres is made up of water. There's more fresh water on Ceres than on earth, about 200 million cubic kilometers of water. If Ceres exported enough water to create water shortages, a) Mars would already have oceans, b) Ceres would be a pile of rubble, c) we'
we're talking moving mass on a scale the Expanse just doesn't show.
posted by happyroach at 10:07 PM on March 2, 2017
I believe it's from the books/novelas that much of the water on Ceres was used to spin up the asteroid in the first place. And water is the primary reaction mass when on "teakettle", a.k.a. Maneuvering thrusters.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:41 PM on March 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 11:41 PM on March 3, 2017 [2 favorites]
15g apparently just makes you look constipated, but I can see how they don't want to do an expensive effect for something that they're going to have to do pretty frequently.
I'd hoped we would get to see liquid breathing apparattus, which I guess is a real thing used for high-g acceleration in aerospace vehicles, but was also shown in The Abyss (1989) used for pressure diving.
posted by XMLicious at 8:52 PM on March 14, 2017
In the books it's just big squishy couches and shitloads of drugs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:40 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:40 PM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
Any idea what the drugs were supposed to do? Anticoagulants or something?
posted by XMLicious at 10:00 PM on March 14, 2017
posted by XMLicious at 10:00 PM on March 14, 2017
They're magic drugs that counter the effects of the magic drive.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:41 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:41 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
SPACE drugs.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:42 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:42 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
Ah, hard sci-fi. So much for the expense of special effects being the limitation.
posted by XMLicious at 7:09 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 7:09 AM on March 15, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yup, space drugs to allow you to survive high-g
Neat fact; in langbelta, "the juice" is dzhush. "Fruit juice" is suku . Milk is suku belang, "white juice".
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:22 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
Neat fact; in langbelta, "the juice" is dzhush. "Fruit juice" is suku . Milk is suku belang, "white juice".
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:22 AM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
Ah, hard sci-fi. So much for the expense of special effects being the limitation.
They're pretty open that they want to be sort-of-hardish but know that telling their stories means some handwavy bullshit... and their solution is to just not talk about those parts. How does an Epstein drive work? Quite well! What's in the juice? Drugs!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:34 AM on March 15, 2017 [6 favorites]
They're pretty open that they want to be sort-of-hardish but know that telling their stories means some handwavy bullshit... and their solution is to just not talk about those parts. How does an Epstein drive work? Quite well! What's in the juice? Drugs!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:34 AM on March 15, 2017 [6 favorites]
The very real science behind 'The Expanse'
Despite all of the show’s detailed, science-based visuals, there’s one fact that Franck says won’t be doled out: The exact year the series takes place. He suggests that’s because space nerds are spoilsports.posted by Lexica at 10:03 AM on March 15, 2017 [9 favorites]
“The minute you put a year on things, people start counting backwards and figuring out when all the various things would have had to happen to set that up,” he says.
“And the other thing that they do, is, they go and they find their astronomy app, and they figure out the relative positions of all the all the solar system bodies at the date you claim things are happening. And then they start doing the math to see if your ship travel times are right.”
And that's why nerds are the best
posted by vibratory manner of working at 3:05 PM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by vibratory manner of working at 3:05 PM on March 15, 2017 [2 favorites]
Well... not when they get all AHA! You wrote X but my calculations show IT HAD TO HAVE BEEN Y! How about that, writer-person?!
Nobody likes that asshole. Especially not authors.
Being detail oriented and smart is great. Using it like a coup stick?
Less so.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:06 PM on March 16, 2017 [7 favorites]
Nobody likes that asshole. Especially not authors.
Being detail oriented and smart is great. Using it like a coup stick?
Less so.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 12:06 PM on March 16, 2017 [7 favorites]
Catching up with the series after oh-so-many recommendations and am enjoying it. I thought this was the best episode so far and could have easily been a season or even series finale. In fact, I'm a little worried where they go from here, both plot wise and because I thought Miller was the most interesting character.
I recall from the books that Miller's hallucinations of Julie were a bit more interactive, but in this TV version they come off as basically TV language for "I'm grieving and have not yet accepted this person's dead." Grieving spouses on TV do this same "I thought I saw my dead lover's face in the crowd, but I was mistaken" all the time, but now the readers and less so the viewers of Expanse know that Julie was alive, in some form, was actually communicating with Miller, and not just a fixture of his obsession.
Yeah, until this thread I definitely didn't realize what those scenes were supposed to mean; I assumed, as you said, "grieving" and took it as a sign of how broken Miller was, that he was obsessed over this failure to save a woman he'd never met.
posted by mark k at 10:38 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]
I recall from the books that Miller's hallucinations of Julie were a bit more interactive, but in this TV version they come off as basically TV language for "I'm grieving and have not yet accepted this person's dead." Grieving spouses on TV do this same "I thought I saw my dead lover's face in the crowd, but I was mistaken" all the time, but now the readers and less so the viewers of Expanse know that Julie was alive, in some form, was actually communicating with Miller, and not just a fixture of his obsession.
Yeah, until this thread I definitely didn't realize what those scenes were supposed to mean; I assumed, as you said, "grieving" and took it as a sign of how broken Miller was, that he was obsessed over this failure to save a woman he'd never met.
posted by mark k at 10:38 PM on April 12, 2018 [5 favorites]
Just finished a marathon and was surprised this episode did not make this year's Hugo nominations. Especially since the Season One finale won best short-form dramatic presentation the year before. Were there not enough people watching? (Oops.) I really loved the ending (or "ending", maybe) of the Julie Mao/Miller story. Beautifully directed and acted; loved the music, pathos and sense of wonder.
posted by Coaticass at 3:26 PM on April 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Coaticass at 3:26 PM on April 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
This episode made me stop watching this show. I found it very dumb.
posted by French Fry at 9:49 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by French Fry at 9:49 AM on September 8, 2018 [1 favorite]
> Yeah, until this thread I definitely didn't realize what those scenes were supposed to mean; I assumed, as you said, "grieving" and took it as a sign of how broken Miller was, that he was obsessed over this failure to save a woman he'd never met.
I had the same experience, as someone who's watched the show now and then and missed that they were in contact via the protomolecule. I thought Miller was obsessed and creepy, and that him kissing her while she was in that pelvic-exam position with her bellybutton showing was also creepy. Maybe I should give the TV show more credit.
(Hi from two years in the future; dang, the messages I would send back to this thread if i could.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:33 PM on December 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
I had the same experience, as someone who's watched the show now and then and missed that they were in contact via the protomolecule. I thought Miller was obsessed and creepy, and that him kissing her while she was in that pelvic-exam position with her bellybutton showing was also creepy. Maybe I should give the TV show more credit.
(Hi from two years in the future; dang, the messages I would send back to this thread if i could.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:33 PM on December 18, 2020 [2 favorites]
Oh yeah -- I forgot to mention how much I loved the protomolecule bird as evidence that Miller has been infected for a while now. Long enough for the protomolecule to figure him out, read his memories, and (after talking to Protomolecule Prime in Space Julie) send him a message he will understand and follow.
Wait, what?!?! When and how did he get infected?
posted by medusa at 4:28 PM on December 25, 2020
Wait, what?!?! When and how did he get infected?
posted by medusa at 4:28 PM on December 25, 2020
When they found Julie's body in the shower, and also probably on the way back to the Roci, he could have been infected several times.
posted by Mogur at 5:23 PM on December 25, 2020
posted by Mogur at 5:23 PM on December 25, 2020
But wasn't he having visions of Julie before that?
And then wouldn't the rest of the Roci crew also be infected?
posted by medusa at 6:53 AM on December 26, 2020
And then wouldn't the rest of the Roci crew also be infected?
posted by medusa at 6:53 AM on December 26, 2020
Even if Ceres has more freshwater than Earth, Mars would have lakes, not oceans. And frozen lakes at that.
posted by sixswitch at 9:07 PM on February 22, 2021
posted by sixswitch at 9:07 PM on February 22, 2021
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Bad stuff: 15g apparently just makes you look constipated, but I can see how they don't want to do an expensive effect for something that they're going to have to do pretty frequently.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:19 AM on February 23, 2017 [1 favorite]