The Expanse: All Episodes   Show Only 
December 15, 2019 3:34 AM - Season 4 (Full Season) - Subscribe

The Expanse Season 4 is finally here on Amazon Prime. The first three seasons were on SYFY, but despite it being one of if not the best science fiction series around, it got canceled. Fortunately, Amazon picked it up and all 10 episodes are now available. Story description for the season is below the fold just in case some people are still not quite caught up with the events of Season 3.

Season description: "With the Ring Gates now open to thousands of new planets, a blood-soaked gold rush begins, igniting new conflicts between Earth, Mars, and the Belt. Meanwhile, on one unexplored planet, the Rocinante crew gets caught in a violent clash between an Earth mining corporation and desperate Belter settlers as deadly, new threats from the protomolecule emerge."

Amazon Prime URL: The Expanse

Episode 1 discussion is here. Per homonculus's suggestion I'm posting this. I feel like because all episodes came out at once and it's bingeable, having one big thread about it makes much more sense.

On July 27, Amazon renewed The Expanse for a fifth season.
posted by KTamas (55 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm mostly frustrated, for a lot of reasons.

The creators chose to have 4 storylines running parallel through 10 episodes, and spread themselves way too thin; because of that, all of them suffered.

Bobby's storyline was depressing to watch and felt half-assed until the end.

Christjen got a surprise personality replacement between seasons because everything felt way out of character for her. And then in the final 10 minutes, she leaves the message to her successor and she's suddenly back to normal. What gives?

The OPA/belter stuff felt superfluous oftentimes; the whole season was just the creators illustrating that, SURPRISE, they are divided! Who would've thunk. And then they kill off Ashford, one of my favorite characters.

Our arguable A-story with Ilus was mostly... okay. I was not happy with them switching to a cinematic aspect ratio because I felt like they did not make good use of it (counterexample: The Mandalorian which does a great job at that.)

Loved Amos's storyline, except the part where he kills Wei. Couldn't they just give that guy a break and let him be happy for a bit?

Murty felt completely one-dimensional. Yes, we get it, he's the poster-child of a racist Inner, but that's where his personality ends.

Miller vs. Real Miller (is what the subtitles called him) was weird and I had to have a friend explain it to me what exactly happened there and especially what happened with the protomulecule.

Overall it felt like a lot of Season 4 (pretty much all storylines besides Ilus) was mostly table setting for Season 5. Yes the story got rebooted, and I'm sure a lot of what happened in this season will pay off in the next one, but I'm frustrated nevertheless.
posted by KTamas at 3:42 AM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


(I'd be a lot more pissed if Season 5 wouldn't already be in the bag)
posted by KTamas at 3:58 AM on December 15, 2019 [2 favorites]


Oops! of course it makes sense that a full-season thread has spoilers! I had not considered that when I idly clicked in. Please consider an edit to your above-the-fold copy to reflect this.
posted by mwhybark at 4:27 PM on December 15, 2019


One thing I notice about this season (I'm not done yet) is the weird indignancy of the colony people. They're often like "I can't believe we have taken a alien gateway to a distant solar system and things are going wrong!"
posted by axiom at 4:54 PM on December 15, 2019 [5 favorites]


Historically accurate to human behaviour, I'll grant you tho.
posted by cendawanita at 5:21 PM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]


They're often like "I can't believe we have taken a alien gateway to a distant solar system and things are going wrong!"

"We went to the Belt, and we were fucked over. So we went to Ganymede...and we were fucked over. So we left the solar system and started a colony on Ilus. And now here are Inners trying to fuck us over again."

They weren't upset that life was hard. They were used to that. They were upset that the alien shit started up literally when Holden showed up, and the violence started when Murtry showed up.

It was super hard to sympathize at all with the Earth faction(s) this season, because if there's 1300 planets, why the fuck do they have to go to Ilus instead of checking out another?
posted by explosion at 8:19 PM on December 15, 2019 [11 favorites]


two trivial comments of things that amused me:

- they recasted Avasarala's husband for this season, and I do wonder why, as the first Arjun is someone whose work I've seen so I was initially confused with this season's one.

- legitimate worldbuilding for this southeast asian: a no durian sign in the martian public transport. stay on-brand, my people.
posted by cendawanita at 9:01 PM on December 15, 2019 [26 favorites]


It was super hard to sympathize at all with the Earth faction(s) this season, because if there's 1300 planets, why the fuck do they have to go to Ilus instead of checking out another?

Becuase, the UN won't allow anyone to check out the planets. They only got to Ilus because they slipped past the UN blockade.
posted by Pendragon at 2:41 AM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm still only about halfway through, but the wife and I had to jump back to the first episode to see how the RCE guys managed to apparently overwhelm the Belter security, and it isn't really shown. I mean, tension between belters and the UN guys, sure, they do a good job showing that in the first episode, but by the second somehow Murtry has already managed to cow an entire town of belters from his sick bed?

Huh.
posted by Kyol at 6:06 AM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


Becuase, the UN won't allow anyone to check out the planets. They only got to Ilus because they slipped past the UN blockade.

The Belters slipped the blockade (yup, Earth fucking the Belters again), but RCE had a "legitimate charter".

The UN decided to issue a charter to explore the one planet that the Belters decided to colonize? It's pretty clear that they're doing it to exert their authority and dominance.
posted by explosion at 7:02 AM on December 16, 2019 [4 favorites]


On the other hand, if the wildcat colonists (Belters) suffered adversely for any reason, the UN would be blamed.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:13 AM on December 16, 2019


I think the RCE had already had a charter to colonize that planet before the Belters colonized it. I'd have to go back and watch but I think everyone knew the planet was rich in lithium and it was basically a race to start mining it.
posted by numaner at 1:59 PM on December 16, 2019


Avasarala said that the belters had started mining lithium and selling it and Holden said "Belters found a thing and started selling it, good for them". I'm not clear on whether RCE had the mining rights from Mars and Earth or just rights to assay the land or if it was just a charter to perform scientific research so the belters would leave them alone. Murtry's story to (unknown dead guy during drop) in ep1 might clear it up except it hasn't been (as of episode 4? 5? I forget where we are) recapitulated, so his ride from "security chief for RCE who takes over as expedition leader when the original leader was killed in the initiating accident" to "belter lynching chief asshole" is ... not well covered, I guess? Kind of abrupt even in the in-show timeline?

And the shipboard scientist says that earthbound comms are shutdown when Elvi goes "dude's going nuts, what the fuck, tell earth" but.. Ok, hey, here's the Roci? And the Belters surely aren't incommunicado - ep1 showed them on TV protesting the blockade after they'd colonized Ilus.

I'm enjoying it on the whole, but it feels like Murtry's throne as "chief asshole" was a bit unearned and abrupt, and chewing up a bunch of screen time that might have been better spent on ... anything else? on Ilus?

Anyway, back after watching the rest of the season, I'm sure.
posted by Kyol at 2:35 PM on December 16, 2019 [1 favorite]


I liked the season overall but it did feel like a half season, with so many things going on and feeling stretched; it didn't have the tight narratives of previous seasons, when they were trying to fit complete stories into each season. The only real climax being Miller reaching the end of his story.

I was also put off by Ashford's death, seemingly avoidable (a 3 person breaching team, and not calling for backup the second both of his men died?) and didn't do enough to take down Marco. I guess this is all setting up for Drummer to rain her wrath on Marco, which I would enjoy watching, as well as Naomi getting back at him.
posted by numaner at 3:00 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]


Ashford’s death was chilling, though. The hair on my arms stood up when he started singing. My favorite moment from the season, and one of my favorites of the series.

Live a pirate, die a pirate.
posted by rue72 at 6:04 PM on December 16, 2019 [13 favorites]


Yeah , Ashford turning and starting to song was glorious, I assume he was sending the recording to Drummer?
posted by corb at 10:11 PM on December 16, 2019 [2 favorites]


I couldn't tell if it was to anybody in particular, but it was probably not to everywhere in the system, since he would want Marco to not know about it
posted by numaner at 9:55 AM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm thinking the thing he recorded was not just his own death but possibly also that Filip is with Marco - since he knows Drummer is close to Naomi.
posted by corb at 10:35 AM on December 17, 2019 [7 favorites]


they recasted Avasarala's husband for this season, and I do wonder why, as the first Arjun is someone whose work I've seen so I was initially confused with this season's one.

According to a comment Daniel Abraham made on Reddit, Brian George was signed to another project that conflicted with the season 4 shooting schedule.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:20 PM on December 17, 2019 [1 favorite]


"I'm thinking the thing he recorded was not just his own death but possibly also that Filip is with Marco - since he knows Drummer is close to Naomi."

He also recorded the reveal that the target of the gravity bombs wasn't the Belt. Learning that would lead one to see that the use of Martian military technology is likely to be used against Earth (or less likely, Mars).
posted by Seamus at 8:06 AM on December 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


Decent, but yeah, it felt sort of unfocused until the last few episodes. Like there was very little "what the actual fuck is going on here I'm just as confused as Holden" going on that made the first few seasons such a thrill to follow, just a lot of back and forth between belters and inners and very little of it really had the tension of prior seasons.
posted by Kyol at 8:01 PM on December 19, 2019 [2 favorites]


And to expand on that - it felt like basically by virtue of the belter settlement setting and with more of the primary crew in positions of power, that a lot of the "hey, we're flying through spaaaaaaace" and "we don't know what the fuck is going onnnnn!" tension was lost. A lot of barren planetary shots with UTVs and straightforward belter/inner tension, with the "huh, we have this ultra powerful planetary system that destroys the protomolecule" sort of flying under the radar? The poison grubs and eye-viruses were nice but underwhelming compared to the unknowable horror of the protomolecule in the first 3 seasons.

I dunno what I would've done. More episodes so they could've spent more time ramping up how hostile Ilus was to humans? Balance out the tensions between Ilus fucking with humans versus the humans fucking with humans? Stretch out the whole protomolecule activation sequence to a whole episode instead of a 5 minute sequence, allowing time for more of the impact of what's happening to be shown? Like the dawning realization that the planet they're on was home to a race that was at war with the protomolecule and they were discovering an entirely new civilization was just sort of thrown at the audience in a few minutes with Hat Cop before the pace of the season moved right past it. Heck, even more time for the Avasarala and Bobbie plots.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll take pretty much any Expanse they film, and maybe the final season will resolve a lot of this by going back to Ilus and figuring out the prior civilization. I'm worried it's going to be 10 episodes back in the solar system with Marco and Naomi fighting over the soul of their child.
posted by Kyol at 7:00 AM on December 20, 2019 [5 favorites]


Like the dawning realization that the planet they're on was home to a race that was at war with the protomolecule

Ilus is a protomolecule planet with a leftover weapon from the protomolecule-killers, not a protomolecule-killer planet. That's why it's crawling with protomolecule stuff.

the final season

AFAIK they haven't announced that the next season is the last. We're only through 4 books of a 9 book sequence.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:04 AM on December 20, 2019 [3 favorites]


Ah, I just assumed that it was a 2 season pickup, not that it was 2 seasons and maybe more. Fair enough.

And yeah, I dunno, I think losing the 3 episodes from their usual season length meant they had to cut a few too many corners in storytelling, all I got was that Ilus was the site of a protomolecule battle, but whether it was taken over by the protomolecule after defeating the killers except for the ... event horizon? bomb? that Hat Cop couldn't see or if it was always a protomolecule planet that the killers just mostly nuked until Hat Cop came back to warm up the engines wasn't very clear.
posted by Kyol at 8:35 AM on December 20, 2019


Okay, question: is the big protomolecule ball of blue on Venus still alive after this ending? I genuinely don't know anymore.
posted by KTamas at 5:26 AM on December 21, 2019


That became the ring. I don't think there's any of it left on Venus.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:09 AM on December 21, 2019 [1 favorite]


This tumblr has all of Avasarala's outfits in episode order. I love Shoreh Aghdashloo's character so hard, I almost made an FPP just for her costumes but thought better of it and am linking it here.
posted by polymodus at 11:43 PM on December 21, 2019 [5 favorites]


oooooh I somehow forgot that, thanks, Ivan Fyodorovich.
posted by KTamas at 10:08 AM on December 22, 2019


Yeah, I definitely found this season unfocused and weird. Maybe being shorter by three episodes was part of the problem. Too many storylines, too much crap trying to be jammed in. I really like this show and was super excited to watch, but feel weirdly dissatisfied with everyone sort of just playing a two dimensional part.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:51 PM on December 27, 2019


Christjen got a surprise personality replacement between seasons because everything felt way out of character for her. And then in the final 10 minutes, she leaves the message to her successor and she's suddenly back to normal. What gives?


I thought S4 Chrisjen was in-character. She has always been willing to step over the line to get shit done as she sees it. Chrisjen has tortured a belter, burned and betrayed trusted friendships, and connived and manipulated and bullied her way into getting things done her way. She claims Admiral Souther was a good friend - remember him from the earlier seasons? He hated her guts!

She views the election in the same perspective: "This young, ignorant upstart is trying to do what? Clearly Gao's addled, pathetic mind has not been paying sufficient attention to the events occurring in and around the Ring. She's a blithering idiot whose short sighted policy positions are going to get the human race extinct. I must defeat her at all costs."

Except Chrisjen has never had to win an election before. This fight is outside Chrisjen's skill set and she's feeling the pressure.

I enjoyed the election drama back on Earth. Nancy Gao is one smooth talking panderer. Makes me wonder, if the skills required to win an election are different from the skills required to lead after winning, isn't there something wrong with the hiring process?
posted by theony at 9:13 PM on December 30, 2019 [9 favorites]


Oh yeah I forgot to add my thoughts on Chrisjen this season, but theony is spot on. I don't think she was out of character at all. Her compassion in season 2 and 3 were for the Roci crew, because they were out there doing the right things, for everyone else she was a hard-ass and was willing to do anything to take them down.
posted by numaner at 9:50 AM on December 31, 2019


if the skills required to win an election are different from the skills required to lead after winning, isn't there something wrong with the hiring process?

basically real life lol
posted by numaner at 9:50 AM on December 31, 2019 [3 favorites]


Tough crowd around here. I liked this season a lot, especially the Avasarala stuff (though her recast husband definitely threw me off for a bit there, especially since previous seasons have conditioned me to expect whoever she's arguing with for most of a season to turn out to be an evil mastermind by the end of it). Definitely agree that she most certainly did not get a personality transplant, and one of the great things about her plotline this season was showing how being this "fierce, take-no-shit pull-no-punches defender of Earth" that has been such a huge asset in the circumstances of all the previous seasons (with Earth under direct threat from unimaginable forces) can be a liability in different circumstances. I mean, Nancy Gao is basically right - Avasarala's one of Earth's privileged elite so of course she's willing to do anything to protect Earth as it is now, including not risking sending out colonists to other worlds; but as we've repeatedly been shown, for billions of people on Earth the status quo sucks. And that's not even to mention the Belters. All of them have good reasons for wanting to take those risks and Avasarala naturally can't see that because she's so insulated from that misery. She'll do anything to defend the status quo but there's a lot she isn't even willing to consider doing in pursuit of transforming the status quo into something better. Feels very real to me, looking at say, the elite of the Democratic Party here in the year of our lord 2020.

The Bobby plot was definitely kind of meandering at first and took a while to get going (and honestly I don't think the fuckbuddy/boyfriend added much to her story) but I can recognize that since we'd seen so little of Mars previously, they had to spend some extra time establishing how the whole culture was changing. And thankfully Frankie Adams has enough charisma to carry all that exposition-y stuff.

Sad to see Ashford go but man, what a way to go. Just a phenomenal death scene. And I'm really glad he was broadcasting the whole thing because I'd be really annoyed if they were going back to the well of "character figures out CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT INFO and then dies before they can tell anyone".
posted by mstokes650 at 7:51 PM on January 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


Re: Ashford's death. I think we weren't shown an important moment - but that's okay, because I love a show that lets me figure things out - where Ashford, who very clearly has the drop on Naomi's ex, has to choose between A) shooting him, then getting shot by Naomi's son Filip, whom I am convinced he recognized, or B) surrendering and getting spaced but maybe also getting a chance to transmit some information (because what if they search him before they space him?).

I want to add, for your consideration: I think that at least part of his calculation was that he didn't want to make Filip into a murderer (or more of a murderer, anyway), and/or didn't want to move Filip to the top of Drummer's inevitable hit list.

Btw, do we know how old Filip is, at this point?
posted by Mogur at 5:28 AM on January 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


Amos Is Enough Reason to Finally Watch ‘The Expanse’ (Rob Harvilla, The Ringer)
He’s tough, he’s philosophical, and he’s vaguely problematic. We salute him.
And if nothing else, the article finishes with a screen cap of him just after Murty throws the first punch on the Roci.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:32 AM on January 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


I just really really _really_ hope that Wes Chatham doesn't pull a goddamn Adam Baldwin on fandom and turn out to be kind of a dink. I know, I know, separate the character from the actor, yes, sure, but it still flavors the experience.
posted by Kyol at 10:39 AM on January 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


I just finished binge-watching all 4 seasons, although I didn't realize it until I went to watch S4E11 this morning and found out there were only 10 episodes!

I liked season 4, though I had to start over after watching the first few episodes while I was a bit distracted. This is a show that I cannot watch while trying to do something else at the same time, and have any hope of following it or even getting into it. For me it requires focus, but it's been so, so worth it. It went much better after restarting.

I don't think I liked season 4 as much as season 3, but, I love that it continues with this thing where fairly ordinary kinds of humanity-centered space drama stuff happens most of the time, and then occasionally the weird alien stuff will do something like, oh, alter some laws of physics in the local area such that fusion isn't a thing any more. As the audience, we're not usually given information the characters don't have, so viewers and characters get to go, "What the fuck just happened?" at the same time.

I enjoyed Amos demonstrating that many of the RCE security dudes were just people who'd been given authority and a gun, and didn't really know what they were doing. In particular, when he walked up to that one guy, grabbed his gun, threw it away, and menaced him into not going over to pick it up again. I haven't read the books, so I'm looking forward to seeing how his season-ending fight with Murtry is going to end.

The treatment of ghost Miller throughout the show has been really spooky for me (in a good way) in the sense that it's uncannily reminiscent to what I experience in bizarre dreams or when my brain is doing weird things due to a high fever or something. I can't really explain how it's similar, just that it reminds me a lot of that somehow. So it comes across to me as very much like what I'd experience if some weird alien tech was messing with my brain directly. The glitchy alternating between independent Miller and protomolecule-controlled Miller seemed right on to me, too.

There are very few immersion-breaking or "why didn't they just do X" moments for me in this series. Maybe it was explained, but I didn't get why if the Roci is able to boost the Barbapiccola several times, why not just do one longer boost and get it into higher orbit with a lot less atmospheric drag? And of course any time Roy Thomson Hall shows up in a scene, it's a little immersion-breaking, but that's not really their fault. The have to film the thing somewhere!
posted by FishBike at 5:38 AM on February 1, 2020 [3 favorites]


I just really really _really_ hope that Wes Chatham doesn't pull a goddamn Adam Baldwin on fandom and turn out to be kind of a dink.

I just watched "Adam Savage Talks with The Expanse's Wes Chatham" and got a positive impression, but I guess that's only one data point. It seems like he enjoys the show and his character as much as any of us do, too.
posted by FishBike at 9:08 AM on February 1, 2020


The conversation between Amos and Murtry, where Murtry states something like "Sooner or later there will be blood between us," and Amos replies, "I'm free right now." That line of Amos's is gotta be my all time favorite reply. Amos what a great character.
posted by Oyéah at 8:22 PM on April 23, 2020 [13 favorites]


Not only is it a great line, I love how it illustrates Murtry's complete failure to intimidate Amos. It's right up there with "I am that guy." and delivered just as well.
posted by FishBike at 2:20 PM on April 24, 2020 [4 favorites]


The web is so astute, I just looked up that line Fishbike, with comma, Amos, and there it was, the entire scene. Then there is a whole visual thread about him and his great lines, and all the rest of the characters in The Expanse, as well. We are creating some sort of mind with all this data...
posted by Oyéah at 9:45 AM on April 26, 2020 [1 favorite]


> Maybe it was explained, but I didn't get why if the Roci is able to boost the Barbapiccola several times, why not just do one longer boost and get it into higher orbit with a lot less atmospheric drag?

The Rocinante was doing that, in Ep 8. They hook the Barbapiccola up and Rocinante does a continuous, gentle thrust.

They stopped (Ep 9) because they thought, conservatively, that that was "enough" time bought. Remember, they don't know how long they're stuck like this, and rationing their limited resources is crucial. Naomi asks Alex how many burns they can afford and Alex answers maybe 5. Also, the tow setup is a jerry-rigged mess and needs checking.

It looks like the first burn was not enough, they need another; more drag than anticipated is slowing them down faster than they'd thought.

The Edward Israel reports this to Murtry who seizes the opportunity to attack the Rocinante. The Roci survives but is quite damaged - the thrusters on one side are shot from the debris impact, it is low on power because Alex used it firing the PDCs, and the Barbapiccola is still dragging on the Rocinante. Any further tow attempts will put the Rocinante into a spin which will then have to be corrected.

You know what happens from there. The crew resort to using the recoil from the rail gun as thrust. It doesn't use main power as the rail gun has its own battery. It is located right smack down the COM of the Rocinante so that firing it in normal circumstances does not introduce weird spins, which is perfect. The thrust is jerky, which is not so perfect, and might snap the tow. They try it anyway, and they survive. Eventually the situation on the planet resolves, restoring fusion power to everyone.

Hope that helps.
posted by theony at 2:08 AM on May 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


I finally finished!

I’ll just say, I somewhat wish I hadn’t read the books because part of the fun of the first three seasons was trying to pick apart what all the details meant. But reading all the books in the long interregnum I was a lot less patient with the show, which is too bad.

That being said. Holy god Amos remains the best thing about this show. That look of glee in his final shot on the season, omg.
posted by midmarch snowman at 12:30 PM on September 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


This season definitely had the feeling that they were setting up for the next one. I guess when they're secure in knowing that there will be a season 5 they can relax the pacing but compared to how much happened in each of the 1st three seasons it definitely felt much slower and that not as much happened.

It was amazing to see how Drummer and Ashford's relationship evolved over the last 2 seasons. When Drummer quit I had the slight doubt that maybe Ashford manipulated her to do so but then with his reveal that he refused the Medina Station job it became clear to me that by that point they both truly were on the same side, even if they had disagreements as to approach. Drummer is going to be (even more) pissed now and I can't wait to see what she does next season.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:57 AM on October 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


It was announced today season 6 will be the last season. I kept hearing great things about the final books, so I'm rather bummed out about this!

It looks like in the scifi TV genre, JMS with his Babylon 5 will still stand as the only one who successfully told a nontrivial epic completely, from start to finish. Other multiseason shows (DS9, the Cylons, etc.) were not true epics and/or didn't stick the landing.
posted by polymodus at 11:20 PM on November 24, 2020 [3 favorites]


Keeping this show only, there's a natural "break point" at the end of the sixth book, and the last three books are more of a sequel to the first story than anything else. Adhering remotely closely to the last three books would always have been at best very difficult because rot13 obbx frira fgnegf guvegl lrnef nsgre gur raq bs obbx fvk.

So even if they only finish Babylon's Ashes and don't get into any plot details from the later books, they're still going to finish the first epic. It's just that the Expanse books have two loosely connected epics.

Also Cas Anvar isn't coming back after the investigation of sexual harrassment allegations against him.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:00 AM on November 25, 2020 [3 favorites]


Season 5 is on! First 3 episodes dropped, but the rest are spaced out once a week.
posted by porpoise at 1:00 PM on December 17, 2020


Season 5 is on! First 3 episodes dropped, but the rest are spaced out once a week.

Yes, I've been rewatching episodes in anticipation of the new season and when I started watching on Tuesday night I saw that the first 3 episodes were already there (I thought they were going to be released on Wednesday) so I dove into those instead.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 1:34 PM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Also Cas Anvar isn't coming back after the investigation of sexual harrassment allegations against him.

What? Ugh I really liked his character. Why do people have to be horrible abusers and assaulters and fuck up nice things? (Rhetorical.)
posted by medusa at 8:18 AM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


I got such "planet-of-the-week" Star Trek TNG vibes from the early episodes on Ilos. Maybe because the settlement was so clearly shipping crates in a very Earth-looking quarry. And why is the standard dress code for colonists always some form of brownish rags? The last 3ish episodes picked up nicely though, giving much more of the truly alien and hostile planet feeling. Excited to watch S5.
posted by Wulfhere at 6:59 AM on February 7, 2021


We loved seasons 1-3 but season 4 was... disjointed? enough to make us drop out half-way through. I came here for space, not a bunch of people wandering around on a planet looking at precursor artefacts like I was playing Mass Effect. Also, Bobbie is wasted on small-time crime drama but I like the idea of her and Avasarala teaming up. Anyway we picked it up again this week and powered through, hopefully they're done with alien planet stuff for season 5.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:39 PM on May 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


I just finished S4 and I'm glad I wasn't the only one let down by it. It was just so slow and disjointed.
posted by octothorpe at 4:49 AM on June 13, 2021


S5 is a lot better for what it's worth.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 9:35 AM on June 13, 2021


Just finished this season. It felt more like TV, which means it was not as good as the first 3 seasons. Amos is my favorite character, seems like I'm not alone in this. Interesting that the fan favorite is a sociopath. He just seems like the most relatable character. He's got the best lines, but he's flawed, no compunction about hurting people, but still has a moral compass.

No one else is really as interesting for some reason, and instead they all seem more like plot drivers than characters. Drummer and Ashford may be the exception, but Amos is definitely the best.

Minor quibble: For a show that prides itself on scientific accuracy... if you're about to be inundated with a tsunami, taking shelter below ground just doesn't seem very smart.

And what happened to the shuttle at the beginning? Sure, the landing pad was blown up, but it looked like they were under a sustained attack from small arms fire during that whole landing scene. I can't imagine a single explosion on the ground causing all that damage to a craft during descent.
posted by natteringnabob at 10:43 AM on January 30, 2022


Amos is such an unusual take on the psycho character, though. I feel nervous about saying this -- because I haven't read the books or seen the seasons after this -- but so far Amos has mainly manifested his sociopathy by doing exactly what other characters would do, but faster and without the ceremonial hand-wringing. He is violent, but measured about it -- he is inclined to violence when he thinks being violent will solve more problems than it creates. And of course, he's very funny. His matter-of-factness almost makes him a fourth-wall-breaker; he acts like a person who woke up and found themselves in a genre piece. So when a viewer (okay, ME) starts saying "this character is going to be trouble, someone should just shoot him now," I know that Amos will soon at least try to do that! It's so satisfying.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:14 AM on April 5, 2022 [4 favorites]


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