Prologue
ABOUT THE SERIES
"You must tell us the amazing story of how you became a second officer."
For me, The Expanse is the finest science fiction television program of all time. Why do I like it so much? I've thought long and hard about how to articulate this, and concluded that a standalone website with a review of every episode was the best way to do it justice. Before I get into it, let me first say that I'm not some starry-eyed obsessive fanatic: I don't dress up as characters or attend conventions; I don't participate in role-playing games or collect merchandise (aside from books); I don't render detailed illustrations of ships or write fan fiction; and I don't follow the careers of the actors, writers or producers. I simply like the show. A lot.
While it's unquestionably science fiction, The Expanse also contains elements of noire, mystery, political drama, thriller and even horror genres, amongst others. The cast is as enormous, and the story as sprawling, as the setting: our Solar System, from Earth to Saturn (and eventually beyond). For the benefit of newcomers, here's a brief introduction:
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There, in the smallest of nutshells, is the premise of The Expanse. Originally appearing on SyFy, the cable program was adapted from a series of bestselling books written by James S.A. Corey, which is the pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, along with Naren Shankar, adapted it for television, and also served as writers and producers. Alcon Entertainment financed the show.
After three seasons, SyFy cancelled the series due to the cost of production, and fans mounted an effort to save it, lobbying Amazon and Netflix. Amazon Studios picked it up, and produced a further three seasons. Given the amount of remaining source material, the show could have run for 2-3 more seasons, but it was announced that the remaining novels would be adapted for a comic book series.
ABOUT THIS WEBSITE
"The Grumpy Expanse" offers my thoughts on the show—in particular, why I consider it such an important piece of entertainment. For each episode I provide a brief synopsis, followed by my analysis, which can run from a single sentence to multiple paragraphs. I then score the episode from one to five (not that scoring is important—it simply provides a single-point reference for my overall valuation of an episode or season). Finally, I dive into a detailed analysis of the series as a whole in the Epilogue.
A quick word on scoring: if you add up the episode scores for a season, it may not mathematically match my season score. This is because my season score represents my overall impression of that season, and such feelings cannot be calculated numerically.
What you won't find on this website are cast and crew lists, development and production notes, and so on; I saw no point in repeating all of that information here when it's readily available at the Wikipedia page, the Fan Wiki, and the SyFy website, among others. I also don't get into book/show comparisons, as they're available online as well. And finally, there's no discussion forum here (plenty of those to be found elsewhere) mostly because they're a serious pain to moderate.
The website was created over the course of around a month and a half, from January to February 2023. It comprises 78 pages and a whole whopping 8 images. How come so few pics? I intentionally keep my website design austere. If you prefer sites with more visuals, there are plenty of others from which to choose. But if you're just looking for something (hopefully) worthwhile to read, you've come to the right place. I chose to embellish only the season pages with reproductions of Daniel Dociu's splendid original book cover art. I confess I did not obtain permission to use these images; in the event that anyone should object, please contact me and I'll remove them straight away.
THE TECHNOBABBLE ALERT
"Technobabble" is a term you'll come across every so often in my reviews; it refers to totally made-up science or technology (warp drive, phasers, deflector shields and so on). Overall there's very little technobabble in The Expanse, as compared to other science fiction programs, which is amazing. But, occasionally the writers resort to its use: it's a necessary evil when it comes to things such as ancient alien civilizations. However, technobabble can all too easily become a crutch. It's most problematic when the plot becomes entirely dependent on it; writers may fabricate technobabble-based issues that can only be resolved with yet more technobabble. Actual example:
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Riiight... Such stories tend to be far less believable and engaging; a show needs a good cast of likeable characters to maintain our interest, and even then some plain old human drama is still necessary to hold the show together. Thus, technobabble figures into my episode and season scores, and when things start getting iffy, I post a "Technobabble Alert."
Now that I've gotten all of that nonsense out of the way, let's get to it.
Begin with Season 1
Don't forget, this is not a spoiler-free website. It's nearly impossible to be totally spoiler-free with a serial program, since a synopsis of Episode 2, no matter how "clean," will, out of necessity, reveal details that constitute spoilers for Episode 1. I also delve quite deeply into some episodes, and going spoiler-free would hobble my observations. If you prefer to be surprised, please watch the series first.