A Rare 10/10 Sci-Fi Masterpiece on Prime Video

It’s rare that sci-fi shows are essentially flawless, but there’s a space opera on Prime Video that’s easily a 10/10. Beginning in 2015, it ran for six seasons before ending in 2022. Originally produced by Syfy for the first three seasons, the decision to cancel the show allowed Amazon to pick up and make three more batches of episodes.

Even now, the project in question remains one of the best shows on Amazon and has worked its way onto the list of best sci-fi shows of all time. Beginning as a sci-fi book series and making its way to the small screen, the literary saga has been brought to life brilliantly. While the show is difficult to stream in some countries, it’s worth the effort to track down the missing seasons.

The Expanse Is A Rare 10/10 Sci-Fi Masterpiece

Every season of The Expanse is held in high regard, with many being shocked when Syfy pulled the plug after season 3. Amazon’s decision to save the show allowed the epic sci-fi saga to continue to a much more suitable stopping point. Set centuries into Earth’s future, The Expanse is largely a grounded affair.

That said, the show does delve into a select few sci-fi tropes that are more fantastical. While it goes in heavily on themes of interstellar politics and discrimination between the various sects of humanity, more traditional twists like alien life and highly-advanced technology do have their moments in the spotlight.

The Expanse lacks the broad flashiness of other space operas like Star Trek and Star Wars, but its gritty and mature approach to storytelling allows it to exist separately without constant comparisons to its competitors. The rich universe in which it’s set is filled with compelling heroes, villains, and morally ambiguous figures.

Although The Expanse season 1 gets off to a relatively slow start, it’s still great and sets up the world brilliantly. The show properly finds its footing in season 2 and never stops churning out brilliant episode after brilliant episode. It’s not that you’ll find season 1 boring – quite the opposite – but you’ll be surprised by how much better the show can get.

The Expanse Perfects One Balance That Many TV Adaptations Get Wrong

Sci-fi writing duo Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham wrote The Expanse‘s source material under the shared pen name, James S.A. Corey. The series consists of nine full-length novels and a collection of short stories. The authors were also heavily involved in the adaptation process, which contributed to one of the show’s biggest strengths.

The Expanse is incredibly faithful to the books, keeping almost every beat of the story intact. Alterations and additions were only made if they were truly necessary or if they made the story significantly better. Still, with the original writers involved, these tasteful deviations felt incredibly authentic and in-keeping with the books’ messages and themes.

Countless other book-to-TV adaptations have fallen victim to straying from the source material. To name a few, Altered Carbon, You, and Dexter all have origins as a series of books, but rapidly began to only cherry-pick certain elements from the source material rather than continuing to make a faithful adaptation.

To give a few examples of the changes The Expanse made, the protomolecule looks and acts slightly differently in the show, the Belters are much taller and spindly in the books, and the death of Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar) in season 5 only happened because the actor was dismissed for behind-the-scenes reasons.

The Sci-Fi Show’s Successful Approach To Adapting The Books Helps Make It Great

The Expanse exists in such a detailed fictitious universe and has such a huge amount of lore that it must have been tempting to explore a bunch of stories that never happened in the books. Thankfully, it rarely acted upon this temptation. The decision to stick so rigidly to the source material helped pacify fans of the books while also drawing in new viewers.

Those who had never read the books were able to enjoy the original version of the story. If anything, they were arguably treated to a more refined version, as The Expanse was able to iron out any issues that had since been noticed in the source material. If too many creative liberties had been taken, though, existing fans would likely have been annoyed.

Similarly, new fans would have been missing out. Still, even though the show did an incredible job of keeping the original story intact, it wasn’t able to complete its mission. Although season 6 is a great stopping point, The Expanse still had three books left to adapt by the time the show ended in 2022.

While there are no plans to make The Expanse season 7, it could still technically happen one day. There is a sizable time jump after book six, which is where the adaptation comes to a satisfying halt. If ever The Expanse returns one day, the source material will be waiting, and I have no doubt the continuation will be just as faithful.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

The Expanse

10/10

Release Date

2015 – 2022-00-00

Showrunner

Naren Shankar, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby