I sometimes define art as finding a door that opens to a room that you didn’t know existed, and that time in this room is so exquisite you want to tell everyone about your experience, maybe give them directions to visit. I was lurking around Amazon’s Sci Fi series offering and blindly chose The Expanse as my possible next binge session, and I am so glad I opened the door to this experience. 

The streaming program was developed from a series of 8 novels, also under The Expanse moniker. The author of the novels, James S. A. Corey, is a pen name for collaborative authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who apparently developed the novelization from a blueprint RPG concept. I think Jeff Bezos made the right decision to back this series after Syfy channel’s baffling choice to bail and cancel after three excellent seasons.

The premise is simple and yet complex, as is most great art. Tropes abound but are taken to new levels: the group of anti-heroes, a storyline that at first glance appears as a space opera but flowers in the girdle of our solar system as something that asks “The Big” questions without bludgeoning us with their answers. There is a production value that appears to have fully funded both interior and exterior space travel. Our future is portrayed as new but has that realistic thread back to us. Finally space exploration where the characters wear realistic clothes, and man, do I want their communication devices now. 

A few hundred years forward, with Earth as the “seed” planet, we have (maybe) an independent colony on Mars that is nipping at Earth’s heels and shedding baby teeth There is also the punk/pirate civilization that has existed for generations in the asteroid belt around the planets of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. This Belter community, as they are known, has a loose confederation, The Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), as a system representation that is edgy at best. This creates a Cold War scenario as a base for the spark of the series, which is a surprising discovery on Saturn’s moon Phoebe. A major character/player in the series, Jules-Pierre Mao is the head of a private industrial mining endeavor that is the initial presence that makes the discovery. He and his industrial/financial complex represents the profound potential and dangers of economics and development in space. But he is not the only major player in this narrative, oh, no, not by any means. 

The series presents the main characters as self-evident, with each “base” in the solar system emerging as equally interesting in who they are and how they operate. But I’m especially impressed by how the writers/creators develop the main women characters, showing them as possessing their own organic power and vulnerabilities. 

Shohreh Aghdashloo—one of my favorite actresses of all time—plays Chrisjen Avasarala,  UN undersecretary (and more). She is excellent as the manifestation of the female as political. Yet other strong female characters abound. Frankie Adams plays Bobbie Draper, the Martian Marine whose loyalty but not life-trajectory is absolute. Dominique Tippers’ character, Naomi Nagata, is the engineer on the Martian Battleship-turned-Pirate/Mercenary ship, The Rocinante. 

Another bold and surprising narrative thread in the series is how realistic religion is portrayed. Yes there are Mormons in space in this series, and their presence plays an important yet unexpected part in the saga of human interstellar travel. Yet the religious messages are never overwhelming and sincerely evolve as an organic part of space travel. Elizabeth Mitchell’s Methodist minister, Anna Volovodov, articulates our spiritual needs that arise from this journey. But she still is a humane character, which strengthens her character’s believability.

The first season can lead the viewer to mistakenly think The Expanse is only a space opera. It is, but it’s so much more as season 2 and 3 show in glorious fully realized production, acting, and narrative development. It was at the end of season 3 that Syfy made the mysterious decision to not renew for season 4. Picked up by Amazon, season 4 has a completely different pace than the hectic previous two seasons, and lacks the need to be the Big Setup that season 1 claimed. Yet, season 4’s presentation didn’t live up to the promise in delivery that was expected.

Season 4, despite having Amazon as a fully funded backer, is considered by some as a letdown, and yes, something isn’t quite right about this particular season. It is quieter, and that in itself isn’t bad. I was grateful for the break in relentless pace of season 3, especially after the The Thing That Explains It All, (or does it?) that was given at the end of season 3. 

Regardless, my criticism of season 4 is not the quietness and depth dedicated to the greater character development of all the main characters. What bothered me was the way it all drifted into a regular Science Fiction show, a good show but didn’t have quite the same grandiose spark of the first 3 seasons. I was jarred by the new environment, the lack of grace that can be expressed even in the quietest of narratives. One of the greatest science fiction exploration films ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a study of not much shit happens for much of the entire movie, but everything happens. The more recent dark and adult future of space exploration imagined in the 2018 movie High Life certainly shows that the point of the film can be gleaned by the feeling from watching things happen with minimal dialogue. That is what season 4 should have been, slow paced, yes, a deeper look into the main characters, yes, time to explain, to let it all sink in but with the grace and pace of style. Everything was there but not the profound presence of the previous seasons. Instead of less is more, less was just less.

But there are still the amazing aspects of the series. Other cast members round out an exceptional array of acting. No actor ever phones in a performance here. Notably, Thomas Jane, plays police detective Josephus Miller, a noir character arc that doesn’t develop into a trope. There are also the pirate/mercenary/anti-hero ship’s officer James Holden (Steven Strait)  and his crew: Martian pilot Alex Kamai (Cas Anvar), Amos Burton, an Earther mechanic (Wes Chatham), and previously mentioned actress Dominique Tipper. The latter plays a wonderfully understated yet powerful female lead as Naomi Nagata, a Belter engineer. I especially liked the interplay between Belter comrades played by Cara Gees as Camina Drummer and the wonderful David Strathairn as the equally delightful yet razor-sharp Belter who struggles to merge his pirate past with a new, executive identity. Jared Harris as Anderson Dawes is introduced in season one as the OPA’s liaison, and while his physical presence is rare after that first season, the character’s controlling influence looms over the Belter and OPA narratives for the rest of the show. Another stark belter character is Fred Johnson, played by Chad Coleman,  an earther turned Belter sympathizer and one who, like many in this space-faring game, has a dark backstory.

The first 3 seasons were stunning, I liked the fourth season but . . . ummm, I would be willing to watch a “director’s cut” of that particular season. The Amazon streaming series inspired a major binge-watch and the books that inspired the series are now on my “to read” list. I am looking forward to the 5th season of The Expanse, which is about more than our exploring space. It is about exploring the expanse within ourselves. 

Jennifer Lemming won the Grand Prize for her poetry in the Dancing Poetry Contest in 2019. Her poems and short fiction have been published in online and print journals. Her latest chapbook, Star Slough, was published by Dark Heart Press in March 2019, She lives in Bismarck, North Dakota where she hands out her extra copies of Poetry Magazine to anyone interested, usually in tattoo parlors & beauty salons.