TV Show Review: The Expanse

Rating: 9/10

The Expanse has six seasons, most of which are pretty good, but there are certain seasons that are a little slower than other seasons. Season four, I’m looking at you.

The Show/Story

The premise of the show is about a time in the future when technology has advanced enough that humans have decided to colonize Mars. During this time, Mars has then wanted to become a separate entity and nation from Earth.

What’s interesting about Earth is that instead of being represented by specific countries, as a planet, it is now represented by the United Nations. Additionally, in supporting colonies on Earth, Mars and the moon (Luna), workers live in poverty-stricken areas of the asteroid Belt.

These different forces create tension between different planets, accessible resources, etc.

What’s Good About the Show?

The attraction of this show is likely how well they paint the picture of what this futuristic world can look like, with explanations for technology, science and history. On the science side, they unfold stories about how technology evolved to allow for quicker transportation between Mars and Earth, which significantly revolutionized outer space travel.

The history and politics within the show also strikes as a familiar narrative; humans continue on fighting over limited resources, being unfair to each other, exploitative practices, etc.

Does that sound cynical? Possibly.

Does it make this realistic? I think so.

Characters to love; Characters to question

Characterization within the show was a hit and miss at times. There are a lot of lovely and well-developed characters in the show.

Bobbie is amongst one of my favourite, with clear motivations and goals that change as she uncovers different contexts and grows as a person. Plus, she really is the person where we see some of the coolest Martian tech, which is an added bonus. (Her Martian suit is so cool???)

Chrisjen is also amongst my favourite, as the United Nations representative from Earth. She plays a flawed but powerful role right from the beginning, which evolves so beautifully and realistically across the story. Plus, whoever is charge of the costume department for this character, bravo! She has one of the coolest, most detailed outfit designs in the whole show, which adds as a nice aesthetic balance to the tech and CGI heavy theme of sci-fi.

Finally, there’s Naomi, brilliant in her engineering knowledge with a complicated backstory. She represents a kind of resilience that keeps the story going and really bridges between the worlds depicted in this show. The one downside to her characterization is that because she’s written as the romantic counterpart to the main protagonist (James Holden), despite being a unique person with fantastic skills and brilliance, she’s always written to be saved by James.

This brings me to the most controversial point here in my reaction to this show — I really did not like the main protagonist as James Holden. The story is supposed to revolve around him and his role in adventuring through the solar system as the head of a free team comprised of representation from each segment of the solar system. Yet, he is so bland. I cannot understand his motivations, other than the fact that he’s written to be a hero because he was born to be a hero. He has a thin backstory that’s supposed to set him up as someone feeling pressured to save the world, and his whole characterization is that he’s going to save the world. It’s circular and does not offer any true context to his motivations and next steps.

Perhaps that’s the point, though? The more “neutral” and empty you make a main protagonist, the more people can place themselves in those shoes? I don’t know. He just presents as a stark contrast from every other well-written character in the show. Each time a side character gets a well-written backstory moment, it just highlights how … lacking in a backstory James has himself.

The One Eerie Thing About This Show

The one eerie thing about this show is that sino-Chinese characters (i.e., as in letters) were used prominently in signage and in the language of the Belt, but there really weren’t any East Asian characters (i.e., people). Not in the prominent characters from the belt, nor as random background characters.

Most of the East Asian representation in this show were only shown if they were prominent in the plot (e.g., Prax, Julie Mao). Otherwise, they died immediately in the same episode. You must imagine the excitement as I saw Simu Liu (yes, of Marvel: Shang Chi fame) appears in half an episode before being literally dismantled and disappeared. Jean Yoon (who plays Simu Liu’s mother in Kim’s Convenience) also appears as a Martian Captain for a brief period of possibly one or two episodes before her character ultimately decides to blow up their ship. Lily Gao, the politician who wins the election against Chrisjen, gets removed from the show in the most abrupt of character disposals too, and I’m only made less made only because I love Chrisjen to smithereens.

To be frank, sci-fi is not known to have diverse casts and The Expanse sits somewhere in the middle. But when a show’s premise places one language as prominently adopted but the people who first spoke that language are not to be found — it’s eerie.

It’s one of those things that aren’t front of mind until I notice little things like the adoption of certain terms (e.g., use of “xie xie”, from Mandarin, in Belter Creole) or Holden’s ship named Zhang Fei (of which I recognize through the 關公 張飛劉 備邊個 meme rather than from history), where I’m like hmmm there’s a lot of sino-Japanese influence but where are my people?!?!?!?

Hi, I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I’m on a mission to document all that I watch because I am now old enough to watch and forget things and then think I should rewatch things and then realize I hated it the first time but then I don’t remember it at all so there’s no memory stopping me from rewatching something bad. So here it is. The documentation.