![]() James Holden and the crew of his one small ship are sent to make peace in the midst of war and sense in the heart of chaos. Innocent scientists are slaughtered as they try to survey a new and alien world. Independent settlers stand against the overwhelming power of a corporate colony ship with only their determination, courage and the skills learned in the long wars of home. Illus, the first human colony on this vast new frontier, is being born in blood and fire. Settlers looking for a new life stream out from humanity's home planets. ![]() It’s not too late to fall in love with the best genre drama this side of Game of Thrones.The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonise has begun. Regardless of what the future holds their story is still drifting out there, waiting for be discovered. The good news is that the first three seasons are, to a degree, self-contained – especially for those invested in Miller and his search for Julie Mao. That’s a timeline bending conundrum worthy of a classic science fiction story – Philip K Dick would have had fun with it – and one that may indeed damn The Expanse to an early demise. That means SyFy needs The Expanse to a huge hit right now, when, given the word of mouth nature of its fandom, it’s only after the fact that a major percentage of the viewership is getting into it. So it doesn’t profit when The Expanse is sold to streaming services, where it has found a huge chunk of its fanbase (in the UK seasons one and two are on Netflix). The issue is that, as per its licensing deal with the production company, SyFy only has first run “cable linear rights” to the show in the US. Mars is an independent republic, the asteroid belt a rough and tumble frontier populated by “Belters”, who, raised in zero-gravity, grow up looking like bendy-toy versions of human beings. ![]() Two hundred years from now, much of the solar system has been colonised. Where space sagas are typically set millennia hence, The Expanse restricts itself to a (relatively) modest jump down the timeline. This addictive brainteaser plays out against a grippingly realised medium-term future. In the case of The Expanse, the puzzle of Julie Mao’s vanishing leads hard-bitten Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane) into a solar-system spanning conspiracy and the existence of a potentially devastating alien weapon (actually, it’s a little more complicated – you’ll need to watch the show to understand). Here, the spectre of George RR Martin once again hangs low given that series one of Game of Thrones was, in large part, a crime thriller, with House Stark piecing together the mystery of who pushed Bran out that window while the frisky Lannister twins attempted to cover their tracks. In the case of The Expanse, the corner of the geek-o-sphere that required rescuing was space-opera, which, as it became synonymous with bombast-fests such as Star Wars, decoupled from its brainy literary counterpart of hard science fiction. Both have resuscitated genres that had become mired in cliché. Setting aside their respective trajectories, the parallels between George RR Martin’s swords and sorcery epic and The Expanse are striking. (Amazon are reportedly on the verge of reviving the series following a fan campaign.) However, the situation is less happy for SyFy Channel and its retelling of James S Corey’s The Expanse, which, it has been announced, is to be cancelled after three critically-lauded seasons. It sounds like a can’t-fail formula and, in the case of HBO and Game of Thrones, that’s just how things have played out. With each season taken more or less directly from one of the volumes in the series there is a brisk trade in cliff-hangers and betrayals, augmented by the occasional spicy swear word and imaginative x-rated scene. Characters are vividly drawn, the storyline jumps between political machinations and ribcage-tightening action. The author is closely involved, helping to recalibrate a multi-tentacled plot for television. A fantastical saga with a huge cult fanbase is faithfully adapted for the screen by an American cable network.
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