I'm really pissed off about this. It was a really good show, based on a good series of books. It's very rare to see hard sci-fi in television, much less one appealing to a wide audience. Also the VFX team deserves a shout out here, as they managed to keep almost all visual effects physically accurate, including sneaking in scientific details at points you wouldn't ordinarily notice (like things heating up far behind invisible drive plume, sparks moving correctly on a spinning station or inside a maneuvering ship, etc.).
From what I hear, the last hope is for Amazon to pick it up. Netflix apparently is not interested. If this show gets cancelled, this will be a huge blow to both sci-fi on TV, and efforts to keep people interested in realistic space exploration.
If you like hard sci-fi books, Iain M Banks "Culture" series is excellent. Excession isn't the first in the series but it's a great standalone adventure that gives an overview of the universe (literally).
Strangely, the Expanse was being heavily hyped by Netflix UK earlier this year - but then Season 3 failed to make an appearance and now, apparently, Netflix won't be getting it at all.
This makes me wonder if perhaps a deal with Amazon has already quietly been done? It would be a great shame if the Expanse got cancelled. I think it's genuinely the best sci-fi show around right now.
There was a huge fan effort to get Dark Matter renewed, and then casting around to find a new home for the show which looks like it's now properly dead. It looks like it had more viewers than The Expanse, though I'm not sure if the figures I've seen are directly comparable.
To be honest, I am getting a bit sick of both the TV Series and the book series.
The TV Series started off excellently, and I think they've cast some excellent actors. Unfortunately, some of them just grate on my nerves. I'm just not convinced by Steven Strait's performance - the character he plays (Holden) is supposed to be a shortsighted idiot a lot, but Strait comes across as more of an emo kid.
The changes in the storyline, while I can understand some changes needed to be made due to the different medium, the whole current storyline in the season is just confused and the motivations of most of the players are unconvincing at best.
With the book series, I think I'm one or two full books behind, because I just lost interest. The Philipe+Father storyline could've been interesting, but instead it was boring.
Instead of focussing on a few main aspects, it's fragmented into dozens of storylines about all sorts of inconsequential and otherwise unimportant characters, and I feel like I need to carry a reference guide with each character's backstory to-date on me to be able to follow everything.
While I'll be sad to see the TV Series die, this will be mainly be because I doubt I'll see Shohreh Aghdashloo or Wes Chatham play roles quite like those again.
To be honest, the first season was really good, but the second was a bit meh and, well, I haven't even bothered with the third. It seems the rest of the viewership mostly agrees (considering the declining ratings).
Such a shame if it dies. I love the realism of the show - just humans making life hard for other humans.
Worth noting the producers are trying to find someone else to pick up the show [0]
EDIT: There's quite the effort on the show's subreddit to rally fans to ping major players like Netflix (who've pulled out apparently) and Amazon Studios [1]. Join the fight :)
Same news on other site [0] was posted last night but not upvoted (I believe).
Most important aspect, which is not discussed by the Hollywood reporter:
The cancellation decision by Syfy is said to be linked to the nature of its agreement for the series, which only gives the cable network first-run linear rights in the U.S. That puts an extraordinary amount of emphasis on live, linear viewing, which is inherently challenging for sci-fi/genre series that tend to draw the lion’s share of their audiences from digital/streaming
That's why I prefer watching short serials like Band of Brothers or just straight series like Columbo or Star Trek.
Nowadays everyone wants to grab your full attention so they produce serials. When you're finally hooked on the story thanks to the neverending thread mill of cliff hangers and further unresolved mysteries they drop the show and leave you hanging. Because numbers ain't right, they show the audience the middle finger. The audience is upset, but not enough to recognize a vicious cycle that hurt them previously many times.
That's one of the reasons I don't intend to watch the new Star Trek serial. Or will watch a serial after it is naturally finished.
I too miss the self-contained-episode quality of TV shows. It gave viewers the ability to jump in and leave at any point in the series and still be able to follow what was going on (usually). And is it just me or do these modern serials just seem to stretch everything out to fill the season? I think that's part of what makes them un-re-watchable, because in most episodes basically nothing happens.
Some shows demonstrated that you can balance long-term plot arcs with the self-contained episode format really well, and I wish more shows would do that. One that comes immediately to mind is Stargate.
Maybe I am already too old, but a while ago I've learned that disappointment about something not being resolved is just part of life and it's better to look forward about what other things are too come than to be too upset that things don't go on as is forever.
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. - Orson Welles
The first season of the new Star Trek series wraps up the plot pretty well. There isn't much left unresolved after the season finale. I don't think it's guilty of what you are complaining about.
It’s completely a gimmic and infuriating. It demonstrates a lack of creativity in the writing staff when there’s essentially one plot and tons of filler. Glad I’m not the only one to not like this trend.
Hopefully Netflix picks this up - especially when the new series of Lost in Space is just full of idiotic decisions to line up the next absurd episode, and Altered Carbon plods along at a snails pace and uses nudity to gloss over the dull bits.
The Expanse is the best sci-fi series on TV by far at the moment, especially due to it having a good plot, a sweary UN woman, and mostly obeys the laws of physics.
The Siffy channel is rubbish anyway. Netfix has more sci-fi to watch.
If you check out the show on Rotten Tomatos it has a tomato rating of 90% with an average audience score of 95%.
That seems really high to then cancel the show?
I'm guessing the problem is it is highly loved by a small group of individuals? But given Sci-Fi in general is a wide enough demographic for many other shows - it seems strange this is not drawing in the ratings?
Reach varies around 1 million give or take a few hundred thousand depending on the season. That’s similar to other ScyFy shows but from what I read there’s some dispute over cost and rights that they couldn’t get over. Hopefully Netflix picks it up.
Netflix has worldwide rights except USA. Amazon has US streaming rights. The production is done by Alcon entertainment who should either find another network or convince one of the two streaming giants to foot the bill.
I don't think it's not going to continue.
I like pretty much everything else about The Expanse, but honestly, the crew of the Rocinante are just... unsympathetic. Forgettable. They could basically be killed off and I wouldn't care. Seeing that they're (intentionally) a microcosm of the system at large, with better writing their interactions could meaningfully reflect and comment on the tensions between their homeworlds, while still making me care about them as individuals and, indeed, as a crew.
Crisjen Avarasala is pretty much the only interesting main character in the show.
Could not agree more. I still wonder what their motivation is to stay together and make each decision that puts them in ever more dangerous situations, that part was poorly developed.
I've been skipping every Holden/Nagata scene for the entirety of this season, it's pure filler and so utterly tedious to watch, excluding it entirely would have caused no damage. If it is supposed to help explain the crew's motive, well, it doesn't help with that at all. I'd have thrown myself out an airlock in preference to remaining aboard with such utterly wooden personalities
Would love to see a lower budget breakout series of Avasarala just doing her ninja politics stuff -- she is the main reason I kept watching at all. But perhaps that is just the corner of me that misses Babylon 5 :)
Too bad, I really enjoyed how Shohreh Aghdashloo portrayed Avasarala, she made that character so much more interesting than it was in the books originally.
> Season two, which returned more than a year later with a significant marketing push and a solid lead-in, was down 24 percent among total viewers and averaged 457,000 total viewers. That compares more to similar returns for Syfy's inexpensive co-productions like Dark Matter and Killjoys, than to the cabler's original scripted series like The Magicians and Happy.
I'm a huge fan of both The Expanse and The Magicians, but if the above quote is true I can see where they're coming from. The Magicians is a far more accessible show than The Expanse, and if I have to decide where to stick marketing dollars I'm going to go with the show with the larger audience.
Also, although I love The Expanse, it is not nearly as compelling as BSG or Firefly. When BSG came out 14 years ago it was really a singular experience in terms of cable TV. I would say something like Westworld follows more in the footsteps of BSG than The Expanse. And Firefly tapped into the same energy as Guardians of the Galaxy but 15 years too early.
Overall, very sad but not surprised. At least the TV show got me reading the books...
The acting of several lead actors is really bad. Avasarala (the "undersecretary"), Bobbie (the "marine"), Jim Holden - they all portray characters in a way that is utterly unconvincing. Every scene with Avasarala is a scene that can't end quick enough. She looks like a bad impostor. Bobbie is miscast so severely it's on par with the "bitchy teenager" Anakin from Ep2 and Ep3. Holden's facial expression for determination is that of a man about to cry. In fact, he looks like his dog just died in most of the scenes.
The story and the universe is excellent, the rest of the cast is really good, but it's not enough to balance it all out.
love this show but it seems the commercial arrangements are a total mess with just about everyone having a small piece of it somewhere such that nobody made any money off it and nobody can give it up either. So nobody gets it after syfy predictably walked away.
I'm actually not too cut up about this - I really enjoy the show, but I'm also starting to get tired of series that get run into the ground long after they should have been tied off and finished. If the third season has a decent ending, I'll be happy.
End of season 3 is a key decision point (the expanse in the expanse :)). Stop it there or finance another 6+ seasons. I really hate it, but it is the right point in time.
And there are still the books for the people that really want to follow. The divergence from the book are not big in season 1 and 2.
I have not read the rest of the series, but there is a risk of change of tone of the series from close to realistic to more fantasy space opera setting.
I have given up on TV shows. I imagine many others have too. I no longer bother to watch them until I know there is a completed story. Nothing worse than watching a show and it just ends on a cliff hanger never to be resolved because the show got canceled. I don't think production companies realize how much they hurt themselves in the long run, because they are too busy looking at short-term figures.
'The Expanse' went from really exciting in the first season to really boring in the second season. I watched the whole first season at once, but couldn't handle a single episode of the second season.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
From what I hear, the last hope is for Amazon to pick it up. Netflix apparently is not interested. If this show gets cancelled, this will be a huge blow to both sci-fi on TV, and efforts to keep people interested in realistic space exploration.
[+] [-] ehnto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reason077|7 years ago|reply
This makes me wonder if perhaps a deal with Amazon has already quietly been done? It would be a great shame if the Expanse got cancelled. I think it's genuinely the best sci-fi show around right now.
[+] [-] simonh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salvar|7 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity, are you basing this on anything or is it just your feeling?
[+] [-] paranoidrobot|7 years ago|reply
The TV Series started off excellently, and I think they've cast some excellent actors. Unfortunately, some of them just grate on my nerves. I'm just not convinced by Steven Strait's performance - the character he plays (Holden) is supposed to be a shortsighted idiot a lot, but Strait comes across as more of an emo kid.
The changes in the storyline, while I can understand some changes needed to be made due to the different medium, the whole current storyline in the season is just confused and the motivations of most of the players are unconvincing at best.
With the book series, I think I'm one or two full books behind, because I just lost interest. The Philipe+Father storyline could've been interesting, but instead it was boring.
Instead of focussing on a few main aspects, it's fragmented into dozens of storylines about all sorts of inconsequential and otherwise unimportant characters, and I feel like I need to carry a reference guide with each character's backstory to-date on me to be able to follow everything.
While I'll be sad to see the TV Series die, this will be mainly be because I doubt I'll see Shohreh Aghdashloo or Wes Chatham play roles quite like those again.
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacksproit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oliyoung|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fareesh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danr4|7 years ago|reply
Worth noting the producers are trying to find someone else to pick up the show [0]
EDIT: There's quite the effort on the show's subreddit to rally fans to ping major players like Netflix (who've pulled out apparently) and Amazon Studios [1]. Join the fight :)
[0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/05/syfy-has-canceled-the...
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheExpanse/comments/8iq1a0/renewal_...
[+] [-] archi42|7 years ago|reply
Most important aspect, which is not discussed by the Hollywood reporter:
The cancellation decision by Syfy is said to be linked to the nature of its agreement for the series, which only gives the cable network first-run linear rights in the U.S. That puts an extraordinary amount of emphasis on live, linear viewing, which is inherently challenging for sci-fi/genre series that tend to draw the lion’s share of their audiences from digital/streaming
[0] http://deadline.com/2018/05/the-expanse-canceled-syfy-after-...
[+] [-] hawski|7 years ago|reply
Nowadays everyone wants to grab your full attention so they produce serials. When you're finally hooked on the story thanks to the neverending thread mill of cliff hangers and further unresolved mysteries they drop the show and leave you hanging. Because numbers ain't right, they show the audience the middle finger. The audience is upset, but not enough to recognize a vicious cycle that hurt them previously many times.
That's one of the reasons I don't intend to watch the new Star Trek serial. Or will watch a serial after it is naturally finished.
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|7 years ago|reply
Some shows demonstrated that you can balance long-term plot arcs with the self-contained episode format really well, and I wish more shows would do that. One that comes immediately to mind is Stargate.
[+] [-] blensor|7 years ago|reply
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. - Orson Welles
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|7 years ago|reply
You're not missing anything for it is a steaming pile of horse manure. Even Enterprise wasn't as bad.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianai|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DrBazza|7 years ago|reply
The Expanse is the best sci-fi series on TV by far at the moment, especially due to it having a good plot, a sweary UN woman, and mostly obeys the laws of physics.
The Siffy channel is rubbish anyway. Netfix has more sci-fi to watch.
[+] [-] laurencei|7 years ago|reply
That seems really high to then cancel the show?
I'm guessing the problem is it is highly loved by a small group of individuals? But given Sci-Fi in general is a wide enough demographic for many other shows - it seems strange this is not drawing in the ratings?
[1] https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_expanse/
[+] [-] ashelmire|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hendrikto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubyfan|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kyriakos|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sharlin|7 years ago|reply
Crisjen Avarasala is pretty much the only interesting main character in the show.
[+] [-] _wmd|7 years ago|reply
I've been skipping every Holden/Nagata scene for the entirety of this season, it's pure filler and so utterly tedious to watch, excluding it entirely would have caused no damage. If it is supposed to help explain the crew's motive, well, it doesn't help with that at all. I'd have thrown myself out an airlock in preference to remaining aboard with such utterly wooden personalities
Would love to see a lower budget breakout series of Avasarala just doing her ninja politics stuff -- she is the main reason I kept watching at all. But perhaps that is just the corner of me that misses Babylon 5 :)
[+] [-] stilley2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ivanhoe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arete31415|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thousandautumns|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lchengify|7 years ago|reply
I'm a huge fan of both The Expanse and The Magicians, but if the above quote is true I can see where they're coming from. The Magicians is a far more accessible show than The Expanse, and if I have to decide where to stick marketing dollars I'm going to go with the show with the larger audience.
Also, although I love The Expanse, it is not nearly as compelling as BSG or Firefly. When BSG came out 14 years ago it was really a singular experience in terms of cable TV. I would say something like Westworld follows more in the footsteps of BSG than The Expanse. And Firefly tapped into the same energy as Guardians of the Galaxy but 15 years too early.
Overall, very sad but not surprised. At least the TV show got me reading the books...
[+] [-] grizzles|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huhtenberg|7 years ago|reply
The acting of several lead actors is really bad. Avasarala (the "undersecretary"), Bobbie (the "marine"), Jim Holden - they all portray characters in a way that is utterly unconvincing. Every scene with Avasarala is a scene that can't end quick enough. She looks like a bad impostor. Bobbie is miscast so severely it's on par with the "bitchy teenager" Anakin from Ep2 and Ep3. Holden's facial expression for determination is that of a man about to cry. In fact, he looks like his dog just died in most of the scenes.
The story and the universe is excellent, the rest of the cast is really good, but it's not enough to balance it all out.
[+] [-] orionblastar|7 years ago|reply
I like The Expanse and I will miss it.
I've been meaning to write my own scifi books to be turned into movies.
The Expanse was no Star Trek or Star Wars but it had a realistic feel to it.
[+] [-] bantunes|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jotm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
Hell, spam Bezos himself. They're cancelling the show that literally explores the world Bezos wants to create.
[+] [-] techterrier|7 years ago|reply
Infuriating shame.
[+] [-] eponeponepon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oaiey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gutnor|7 years ago|reply
I have not read the rest of the series, but there is a risk of change of tone of the series from close to realistic to more fantasy space opera setting.
[+] [-] transfire|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerty456127|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alexeiz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddtaylor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjg007|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|7 years ago|reply
I have no idea what all that means. Could someone please translate?