+++ Opinion +++
Anyone who has seen and loved “Game Of Thrones” not because of the dragons and ice zombies, but because of the great characters, the political intrigue and the surprising twists and turns, will have a problem after the end of the first season of “House Of The Dragon” : It’s not coming until 2024, the second season of “HotD” and far and wide there is no new series in sight that could fill the Westeros gap that has now arisen. But I have a series tip for you: “The Expanse” on Amazon Prime Video.
Already clear: “The Expanse” is of course a science fiction series and not a fantasy series, but apart from the different genres, “Game Of Thrones” fans will find a lot here to captivate them – namely just a lot of great characters, political intrigue and surprising twists.
» “The Expanse” on Amazon Prime Video*
This is The Expanse
The Expanse takes place several centuries in the future in our solar system, which has been colonized by mankind. Time and again there are political tensions between the Terrans of the dramatically overpopulated Earth, the Martians with their highly efficient army, and the Belters exploited by Earth and Mars in the asteroid belt and on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
In this tense situation, a freighter named Canterbury and a warship from Mars are destroyed by unknown attackers, raising the threat of war even more. The few survivors are some of Canterbury’s crew members: James Holden (Steven Strait) and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham) from Earth, Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar) from Mars, and belter Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper).
While the four of them investigate the attacks on a salvaged Mars frigate named Rocinante, researcher Joe Miller (Thomas Jane) is sent to the dwarf planet Ceres to search for the missing daughter of a wealthy Terran businessman…
That’s how the first season starts, but from here on the story develops dramatically over six seasons – but I don’t want to prejudge this too much, of course. But what I cannot emphasize enough is: Though later mysterious alien artifacts come into play and strange planets are explored, the greatest strength of “The Expanse” is the series’ realism.
And it’s not just about the political intrigue, the power games, the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, and the ever-looming threat of an escalating Cold War between Earth and Mars. It also explicitly includes the engineering and technology of this universe – Traveling through the void of space has rarely felt so realistic and believable as in The Expanse!
Based on James SA Corey’s book series of the same name (the pseudonymous authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck are closely involved with the series), The Expanse is a series that explores the meaning of the vast distances, even within our own solar system. in which the g-forces play an enormously important role in acceleration and deceleration and in which spaceships do not shoot at each other with laser cannons and blasters, but with torpedoes from great distances.
Be sure to watch it in one go!
I’ve been rewatching The Expanse cover to cover over the past few months and what surprised me the most is how great the series looks across the board. I watched the first three seasons on Netflix many years ago and for all their content strengths, they were clearly recognizable as productions from US broadcaster SyFy, which is known for cheap science fiction series.
But because of! In 4K resolution and on a big screen TV, the first three seasons of “The Expanse” are also visually impressive – whether it’s spacewalks, blue-hot alien technology or space battles in a unique dynamic. And starting with season 4, those responsible for the series around showrunner Naren Shankar were even able to add a decent budget kick — thanks to Amazon’s money, which prevented the series from being canceled after season 3.
Nevertheless, “The Expanse” remains for me a series that mainly lives from the characters and the story – great show values or not. And here too, it was really worth it for me to watch the whole series in a few months. Because the first time I looked at the individual seasons over several years, it’s easy to overlook how wonderfully the characters are drawn and how cleverly their character development has been worked out over the seasons.
For example, I completely forgot that the Rocinante crew has to get themselves together first and how much it grinds between the individual members before they eventually grow together as a surrogate family. Perhaps the most notable example is the friendship between Naomi and her comrade-in-arms Camina Drummer (Cara Gee) from Gürtler, which builds slowly over several seasons and finally reaches its emotional climax in Season 6.
And speaking of season 6: If there’s even one minus for The Expanse, it’s that the series was technically canceled before it actually ended. As mentioned, there are six seasons of The Expanse, but nine books by James SA Corey; three volumes were not filmed. Nevertheless, those responsible for the series found last season to be a great goosebumps finale, satisfyingly close most open storylines and still leaving the door wide open for a possible revival…