Syfy: The Expanse
 

I'm really excited about this - it's a fantastic set of books that I think could translate into really good TV.

(Just FYI, the author of Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey, is actually a collaberative pseudonym of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. I guess EW didn't know this...)

Sweet. I guess those reports about SyFy moving back to true science fiction were accurate.

And I'm ashamed to admit I've never read this series. I'll have to fix that.

Well Leviathan Wakes is sitting unread on my bookshelf. I guess it's time to fix that so I can be in on the spoiler thread :)

Starting the book now.

I just hope they don't oversell the "Game of Thrones in space" thing. It's not, although the series is pretty wide in scope. The first book is more of a detective novel than anything, though. Like half space opera half hard boiled noir.

It should play really well on television.

I noticed GRRM has a quote on the front of the cover of Leviathan Wakes.

4 chapters in and I'm already liking what is happening. Not a whole lot of setup before shot starts getting real.

GRRM is a mentor of sorts to Daniel Abraham, I think.

About a 1/4 way through the book and it doesn't seem anything like GoT except for the alternating POV chapters, but there are only 2 POVs.

That changes in Caliban's War. It's more of a political novel, and sort of marks a transition, or perhaps better said an expansion, in the scope of the series.

(As I recall, it's been two years since I read it IIRC).

Thanks for the heads up, will have to grab the books!

When I read the book, I get this real "Foundation" feeling, not that the setting is that large in this book, but it feels a lot like what could have happened in between now and the setting in Foundation. Maybe I should start talking about this in the Scifi book thread.

They're evidently serious about this one. Thomas Jane's been cast as Miller: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/liv...expanse-718034

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I'm about 3/4 of the way through Leviathan Wakes and had no idea this was being made into a series. Could see this being a really good.

:(

Very disappointed in the trailer. Looks like Defiance level production, which I do enjoy, but I had much higher expectations. Was hoping for something more along the lines of a BSG level production. Maybe we'll get lucky and this will end up being a B5.

I thought it'd be more gritty. Still giving it a shot.

Leviathan Wakes spoiler below.

Going to start reading this--anyone worried that the show will get canned after 1 season?

What you don't want to see some bad cgi male robots get it on with each other. That is probably what they mean by GoT in space.

I use to have that throttle stick when I played mechwarrior.

Just to answer this one, they already picked up a second season, even though it doesn't premiere until December. So I think you're safe there.

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New trailer, exclusive to EW. They've done some polish since the last. I think this looks a lot more like the books: http://bcove.me/fhckom3a

Finally an embed...

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Looks good, I'll be watching it.

New trailer looks much better. Definitely going to watch.

Enjoying Dark matter and Killjoys so far too. Not BSG quality, but fun. And Dark Matter has a pretty interesting story going so far. Good to get some space based sci-fi again.

It's the most expensive show syfy has ever done, is being written by Abraham and Franck so it should be true to their books, and it already has a 2nd season committment. All good signs. We'll see.

I haven't watched any of Dark Matter yet but I do like Killjoys a lot.

I haven't watched Dark Matter or Killjoys yet but sounds like I should check out Killjoys first from what I have read.

Really hope this series works. For the most part the books were the type that I read through quickly and lost sleep staying up to read.

Killjoys seems like the more refined show (better acting/budget/fx), but Dark Matter just has a really cool story so far. Once they have the big reveal I may lose interest, but until then it's got me coming back. Both of these shows kind of snuck up on me.

If The Expanse is on the next level, since we already know it has a great story and has a monster budget, I'll be thrilled. Trying to keep expectations low though. :)

Killjoys is definitely the better show. Dark Matter has the more intriguing story IMO, but that could fall apart at any time.

Binge watched all of Dark Matter (so far). Solid little show. They've got a good Friday setup now with Defiance, Dark Matter and Killjoys.

This little Expanse featurette makes me feel even better about it. The guy playing Amos really gets his character on an emotional level, which was something I'd worried about (anybody who's read the one that just came out will understand...). They're not making him a nice guy.

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First review of the pilot that I've seen (it aired at comiccon...):

link

Seems like this has kind of turned into a thread on all the new SyFy products. Thought I'd just dump this here.

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Has a "Battlestar Galactica" vibe.

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I love the fact that the authors are having so much input. Really psyched for this one.

Unfortunately I'm on this recent kick to read source materials before seeing movies and am currently trying to finish up 4 more Star Wars books before Force Awakens. I've already read the original for Expanse, but had no idea that they'd expanded it with EIGHT more books and more to come in 16/17.

Trying to catch up on some good comics and TV shows too. I'm in media overload!

EDIT:
OK looks like mostly short stories. Only 2 new books published in the series to hit 5 currently, with a planned total of 9. Still a lot of reading to do this month.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/56399-expanse

Yeah, only 5 main series novels. I haven't read any of the shorter stuff.

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Pilot will be available online and on demand starting tomorrow (Nov 23).

Not sure how I feel about the pilot. The sound was so badly mixed that I could barely make out the dialogue over the soundtrack a lot of the time, and the episode itself felt 'off' even beyond that. Like the pacing was a bit off. But it wasn't bad, per se. Maybe a little too much world building. Which would only be a problem in the first episode. So we'll see how it goes the rest of the season. I really hope they get it right, and it finds an audience.

Watched on syfy.com. Worst commercial stream I've seen in years. I'd recommend torrenting over that POS garbage.

Besides that, I enjoyed it. Definitely agree that there were pacing issues. Probably could have done better doing a 2 hour pilot. Lot of potential though.

It's on Syfy's YouTube channel as well. I had no problems. Overall, I'm in "wait and see" mode. As others have said, it felt like it needed to be 2 hours to pull in the casual viewer.

Now 'ya tell me!

:)

Really enjoying Dark Matter so far

Dark Matter was good except for a kind of iffy end to the season that I won't spoil.

I really liked Killjoys.

I also really liked 12 Monkeys, which is back in April.

Looking forward to The Magicians in late January.

Childhood's End looks intriguing too. I enjoyed the last mini-series, Ascension. Really pretty pleased with the direction SyFy is moving with their original content. Although I still would rather they change their name back to SciFi!

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I was up late last night and put this on because SyFy's shit is usually uninteresting and I needed to sleep.

I was begging for more when it ended.

It's like a less cheesy Total Recall or something.
I really liked it.

So I just finished episode 4 (3 and 4 are on demand right now) and it's getting better with each new episode. 4 was really good.

I really didn't like the first episode but I'm willing to give it another shot. I'll stick around to episode 5. If I still dislike it as much as I do now, I'm out. Hopefully, it improves.

I need to start watching this this weekend.

Agreed. Just finished 4. Starting to pick up. Loved the "head shot" scene.

The book series really hooked me the first time I read that scene, so I was happy to see it executed so well on tv.

Much like with the books, however, I start to lose interest as soon as avasarala shows up. But the stuff with Holden and Miller is so good I guess I don't care all that much.

Although I did like the scene with the rugrat on the roof and how it foreshadowed events from the latest book.

I'm really liking this so far. Binged the first 4 episodes yesterday.

I do find the Belters slanguage to be annoying. It may be the sound mixing which someone else complained about, but the accents make it hard for me to tell sometimes whether they're speaking English or not. I'll think they're speaking the slanguage stuff, then I'll pick out some English. I don't know... it just makes me wish for subtitles on the slanguage stuff. I understand doing the whole Clockwork Orange, try to understand the language and pick up on it over time but it's offfputting to me.

Other than that, I like it. I was hoping the Martian that was with them on the escape survives because I think his interaction with that crew would make for interesting dynamic in that already interesting crew. It seemed to imply that he died, though, when he said that he had hoped to see an ocean on Mars someday then went silent.

Wow.

Watched all of this a few days ago.
Shit had me trippin'.

Thought it was bout the alien demon agenda. Still wish it would have been. That would make an awesome story. This was bad ass too, though.

Very unusual ending. God is a dick in that movie..

Makes no Fn sense to me at all.

I like to think that they were all fooled. Makes it better.

As in that wasn't God. Those aliens were working for Lucifer and had no idea. The little girl was the Antichrist. Actually makes more sense that way.

Just picked up for a second season!

I recently reread Leviathan Wakes and I had forgotten just how much awesome, crazy stuff is going to happen.

Cool. Read the first book recently and thought it was really good. I have the second book on my kindle but have not had time to start.

Been DVRing the show, I need to start watching. Thinking of maybe doing a marathon tomorrow and watching a few episodes.

Got caught up and watched the fifth episode last night. Was kind of a sleepy episode, but a lot of important stuff happened.

Even in those moments when the show tends to get bogged down with "character devleopment" type conversations, it's overall a damn beautiful show to look at. The high production values make a huge difference.

Not an action book series, so it was never going to be an action tv series. You can see the strings starting to come together though.

The weird part is that we're halfway through the season but about a quarter of a way through the first book, so I'm guessing Leviathan Wakes is going to be played out over seasons 1 and 2, with the end of season one being the beginning of the interesting stuff in the second half of the book. It's going to be interesting seeing people's reactions.

Some of the characters are so far removed from their book counterparts that they're difficult to recognize/reconcile at this point, but that can change over time. Alex Kamal in the book is openly a former MCRN pilot, acknowledged as one of the best, and the crew knows it the whole time. Holden is the XO on the Cant, and is acknowledged by the rest as the leader from the very beginning. Amos is pretty much Amos so far, and I would say it's mostly the same for Naomi. However, I'm not sure how I feel about Fred Johnson. The book handled the details of his history much better than the tv series has (so far). But we'll see. It was really disoriented seeing Havelock get cheered by the rest of the squad last night, because not only is he not attacked in the book (or have a relationship with a belter hooker), he's absolutely distrusted/hated by the rest of the Star Helix people because, although it's an Earth company, everyone working for them (including Miller) is a Belter. So the dynamic in the book is almost completely reversed in the tv show. In the book Miller is basically the only one that has his back, whereas last night on tv Miller was the only one that didn't have his back. But we'll see where it goes.

Not complaining, just laying out the differences...

Enjoying the show a lot so far, and the production value, minus the CW-level cheese shot of the father daughter floating outside of Anderson Station, has been phenomenal.

Yes.

Great show. Had not read the book, but it is going in the queue. Ton of twists I wasn't expecting.

Also, the pilot episode of the The Magicians was very well done. Enjoyed it much more than I expected. I still haven't finished the book as it just wasn't my normal cup of tea, but now I'm tempted to pick it back up.

SyFy has really turned the corner into new programming. Really loving their new stuff.

Have watched the first five episodes and have the 6th on the DVR.

Seems fairly close to book as I remember...but I think they made Holden's character weaker in the show...in the book he is the XO from the get go and is the established leader of the group.

Overall though, I am hooked on the show and will keep watching. Need to to read the other books as well.

Dark Matter's season 2 episode 2 was pretty damn good. Definitely got me hooked back into the series, especially after episode 1 was nothing more than a "the story so far..." kind of mash-up. Haven't checked out what Killjoys has done in their second season yet. Think with the time I have, I may wait until the season is done and then just binge it.

Killjoys hasn't been too bad. Their continuing to setup up an overarching baddie/conspiracy.

My favorite part of Dark Matter is #1 getting whacked. Hated him. Hope they don't bring him back. Like the introduction of new characters, too. Assuming the new Dr. is a plant. Now they just need to get rid of Android. She's horrible. Gimme some Rommie!

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...66/Rommie4.jpg

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Stoked!

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That's kickass. I can't wait for season 2. I've been thinking about starting on the books but I don't wan't it to ruin the show for me.

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I'm way more pumped for this 2nd season than I am for the new Star Trek series

Started watching this the other night because it is now available on Amazon Prime. About 5 episodes in, so I'm not reading the thread yet. But it's great so far.

I would agree with this. Probably going to try to re-watch Season 1 before the new season kicks in.

Star Trek is looking more and more like a cluster ****, which is sad.

Finished season one. I love this show. Best Sci-fi show since BSG.

Dark Matter is pretty good. I'm with Unlurking on being glad they killed off whiney ass #1. That dude was annoying as ****. I only saw the first few episodes of Killjoys before I got rid of cable TV and that one hasn't showed up on Netflix or anything else that I have found.

But The Expanse is definitely a step up from either of those. Interesting plot, awesome visuals, good characters. I'm tempted to read the books.

Second season of Killjoys was fantastic. Really upped the bar.

Second season of The Expanse should be amazing. Season 1 basically ends at the point that the first book kicks into high gear.

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Can't wait to watch this tomorrow

The second season previews look kick ass. Can't wait.

That was BAD ASS

I hope SyFy's promotion efforts paid off. I have no idea where its ratings or viewership is compared to Battlestar Galactica when it first got going, but it's a damn fine show. It deserves a wide audience.

For the love of all that is ****.

This is a good ****ing show

I don't get cable anymore, so I watched season one on Amazon Prime. It was so good I am debating between paying 30 bucks to watch season 2 now, or trying to hold out for it to go to prime.