How The Expanse went from game concept to blockbuster TV series

My SO and I were looking for a show to watch last November, so I did a search of &quot;highest rated shows on X platform&quot; and The Expanse was one of the frontrunners. There were some reviews that said it was slow to start, with lots of confusing world-building, but it picked up straight after.<p>We didn&#x27;t get the sense that it was slow and hard to follow, at all. In fact, one of my favorite things about it is the amount of world-building that you&#x27;re presented with, especially in the beginning.<p>We marathoned the first four seasons in a few weeks, and luckily Season 5 started less than a week after we ended. It&#x27;s easily one of the best shows I&#x27;ve seen in a long time, and one that I&#x27;ve been recommending to people left and right.

I&#x27;m kind of surprised how many nerdy people I know who have never watched this show. It is by far the best (maybe only?) hard sci-fi TV show ever, and almost every episode is better than any hard sci-fi <i>movie</i> ever made.<p>If AC Clarke and Stanley Kubrick were alive they&#x27;d be heaping praise on this show for getting so many of the technical details exactly right.

I love the little things in The Expanse that other space shows would typically not bother about. Like when Avasarala is pouring her liquor on the moon base and it floats away. Or when you sometimes have people simultaneously walking on both &quot;floors&quot; of a space station&#x2F;ship using magboots.

The books are EXCELLENT, and better than the TV show (which I also like a lot).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bookseries&#x2F;B00K7B2CRQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;gp&#x2F;bookseries&#x2F;B00K7B2CRQ</a><p>There are 9 books total, not including the novellas. The last book of the series is scheduled for later this year.<p>It&#x27;s structured as 3 trilogies. The tone and pace of the first book is maintained (for the most part) through the entire series. So, if you like the first book, you&#x27;ll probably like the entire thing.

The Expanse is easily my favorite show. I love the mostly hard SciFi story that is still exciting and action packed. It&#x27;s just really really smart TV. I hope it starts a new trend of smart hardish SciFi series.<p>Also I think RPG DM&#x27;s and gamers don&#x27;t get enough credit for the incredible storytelling and world building that a lot of us take part in. A number of great fiction series have come from RPG games.

If anyone in here has played the game Children of a Dead Earth, it may make you appreciate The Expanse even more (if that’s possible!). The game is a true-to-physics representation of how space battles would actually happen, and the scenes in The Expanse replicate them wonderfully, albeit they look much more pretty. Hats off to the developers of this show, they really did their homework.<p>PS Season 5 is great.

Does anyone have any idea how big the fan base? Obviously not GoT-levels, but big enough to warrant 6 seasons.<p>The show has some polarizing aspect to it, about half of my friends are really into it (me included). Half my friends bounced off the first couple episodes.

The show is simply brilliant and yet seriously underrated. Everything from the storyline, concepts, characters (and their names) and technical details are amazing. I wonder why Amazon doesn’t promote it as much.

I wish Firefly would have been able to experience some of this

I don&#x27;t think the amazon show description for season 1 does it any favors either. It sounds like a detective in space show, which pigeonholes it too much.

Question: I don&#x27;t have much interest in plot line of season 4. If I skipped it (and just read Wikipedia summaries) how lost would I be if I went straight to season 5?

It went from a book to ... TV, right?? I read all the books and novellas; couldn&#x27;t get into the tv show bc I objected to some of the casting decisions.

Interesting that the idea started as a game, and now the TV series has become a game. The kickstarter campaign was successful last year and you can now buy (if you can find it) and play the game.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;1780208966&#x2F;the-expanse-roleplaying-game" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.kickstarter.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;1780208966&#x2F;the-expanse-...</a>

My favourite show, first season is a bit slow but it gets better and better every time.<p>I just hope they manage to cover all books

I need to watch the new series of this show, it&#x27;s on my list of things to watch next, I have seen first season only. How are the new episodes? Good quality?

This show started off slow but slowly became an all-time favorite of mine.

Really fell downhill after season 3 and the switch to Amazon. Went from an incredible high concept sci-fi story to just run of the mill Hollywood action drivel.