The Expanse, Season 2: Stay away from the agua.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Expanse, Season 2: Stay away from the agua.

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Liked the episode. Liked the season more than 1.

Mass Effect husk effects were good, but it was kinda underutilized as a holyshit tier threat, since Holden was more at risk from sepsis or excessive G's than the thing itself. Throwing a big weight around was sold as more physics-bending in the book than in the show. I guess that's a common refrain I had. If I hadn't read the books maybe the show would have hit harder at some points, like Bobby's power armor. Of course, if the escape from New Caprica had been part of a great novel I'd have thought of the TV BSG episode as underwhelming.

Wife doesn't really ooh or aah beefcake on screen usually, but she had to have me pause it during the shirtless Amos scene. She just kinda assumed he'd be portly or have an average physique at best under the jumpsuits he always wears, without even having read the books. She dubbed him Sociopathic Helo.

Liked Cotyer not even realizing he'd been shot, a nice small touch. And how he checked his ammo every volley. Don't really expect a good soldier to waste that many shots blind firing if he's strapped on ammo, but meh TV. More often than not though the show nails the small touches, like Avasarala apologizing for guessing wrong about Mao's intentions after surrendering.

I also kinda expected/hoped for we need to talk but I agree that the timing wouldn't quite fit here. there's barely been that much time since the Eros Crater, so it wouldn't feel as earned, as much of a twist. plus, contract-wise, now I kind of expect it mid-season three so they can get the actor on board for that part of the season and all of season 4.

Longbaugh01 posted:

I think Holden maybe just suffers the most from the condensed nature of a television adaptation. Other than completely written out or merged characters I mean.

I like book Holden a lot, and I'm okay with show Holden, but I agree that he's just not really been done quite right. A lot of the book->TV show changes center around him, and they tend to always be reductions. What's added (Avasarala visiting his family) is obviously done to reduce exposition while still fleshing out stuff Holden thinks about in the books, but it ends up explaining way more about Avasarala than Holden. In both book and show he's shown as traumatized by Eros, but book 2 starts with (light book spoiler that won't impact show) him engaging in a lot more really harsh, negative stuff, like pretty coldly killing pirates, that seems to further cement the idea that he's got unresolved PTSD and that his upstanding good bland dude personality is being lost to a more ruthless gently caress this sick universe rear end in a top hat personality. The reason for Naomi wanting to separate from the book is a lot more profound in the book, and leads to a much better resolution between Holden and Fred Johnson than went down in the show. In the show, he's just kinda angry about what happened on Eros and wants to burn all the PM, which while reasonable remains dull. Replace Strait with Helen Hunt and "protomolecule" with "tornado" and you've can just slap Hunt's monologue about "YOU'VE NEVER SEEN WHAT IT CAN DO" from Twister right into The Expanse when Holden's talking to Prax about needing to kill the monster.

Long wait til 2018

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 21:23

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 19:59

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Number Ten Cocks posted:

Sort of, but he at least has lots of interior dialogue and thought processes.

Rereading Caliban's War, and it's pretty obvious in hindsight that in both the book and show the protomonster in the Rocinante deliberately didn't kill Holden or Amos when it obviously could have based on the way it chewed up the Ganymede marines. It wasn't quite minimum force, but it approached minimum to disable.

They mentioned that directly in the show, but I think it was more subtle in the book if memory serves. I think they kinda undersold it in the show. It looks great, but it looks great in terms of being a Mass Effect husk. It's lumbering, it uses brute force to do things, and it has simple needs.

I felt the book instead sold it as a lot more alien. Lots more physics-defying in how it threw things around. How it didn't really care at ALL about them, only the power it could latch onto. How it was pretty much just dormant, chilling there, most of the time.

The show did let Prax add some drama in there, and almost sold the whole "oh god he's going to try to talk to it and get murdered" angle.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2017 21:26

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

I thought that was some silly arm wrestling machine. Didn't pick up that it was their actual power armor. Huh. Need to rewatch the whole series anyway, so I'll look for that.

# ¿ Apr 26, 2017 16:41

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

flosofl posted:

How the gently caress is that a spoiler?

I mean I'm usually on your side here as I think people talk way too much about the books, but holy poo poo if you can't see that being telegraphed from the get go.

I mean she did already meet the family. Might as well meet the idiot son.

Question: Was there a shot when the rocci was accelerating during or after the invader last episode where it blew past near Mao's ship? Or did I just see something that wasn't there? I'm not 100% sure on the timing but I thought it was after they ignited the monster but before they resolved the standoff on the yacht.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2017 00:21

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Lord Hydronium posted:

I figured it was the ship that Mao was leaving on to hightail it back to Earth.

That makes more sense.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2017 04:31

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Number Ten Cocks posted:

In hindsight, we didn't bitch nearly enough about that awful Epstein drive flashback stuff.

Why was it awful? My wife's usually a good barometer for whether a scene works on a show like this or not because she's about 1000x less nerdy than anyone who'd post in this thread, and she liked those flashbacks.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2017 21:44

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

coyo7e posted:

I never said he was a binging addict, you all are projecting your own hangups onto what I said. In the universe that has been created, he is high as hell of a lot of the time and the novels make it clear that he's often not behaving, well, totally normally.

My point was that the sequence where he's obviously binge-drinking and then gakked out on some kind of amphetamine cocktail to counter it, are really weird to watch when there's nothing to show how he went from "whooooaaaah I can't hold onto a ladder in null-G! to ake it to my station!" to "whooooaaahh I'm tweaking like a sonofabitch!"

It all plays like "oh well the pilot is kind of goofy and kooky", there's no masks or injections or patches - he's just abruptly acting like an ADHD grade-schooler after making a scene out of getting too shitfaced to keep his empties in a garbage bag in a null-G environment. I wouldn't even be surprised if they did have the (iirc, double-injection) IVs that everybody is subject to while in space and in a combat or high gee situation but instead, his character is just made to look like a buffoon, on top of sounding like a buffoon because I mean come in, an Indian guy with a Texan accent as his only defining character trait (well, except from being high a lot)?

Maybe you should corral your own ADHD for a second and deliver a loving point?

He doesn't act weird given the contexts presented. He was bored and expecting them to take a while on ganymeade, so he drunk a lot of cheap beer (obv because he's a Texan). And no the novels don't make it clear he's behaving irregularly. Out of everyone in the books, he's probably the most Joe Shmoey of them all: genial, chubby, hung up on a failed marriage.

# ¿ May 6, 2017 20:00

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Grand Fromage posted:

Cortazar is the main character in the Vital Abyss side story.

Which I enjoyed and feel is worth reading. It is not at all required to enjoy the show, it just adds a wrinkle and is good on its own merits.

# ¿ May 13, 2017 19:22

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Draper using her power armor is described better in the book than it looks on the show. Theres only so much you can do with TV budget I guess.

I like how they handled her introduction to avasarala a bit better in the books too.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 12:52

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

3 DONG HORSE posted:

The BSG Marines always get died in droves so they probably don't have many volunteers.

And it's not like the flight officers are actually any good at it, fittingly. Crashdown (the officer played the fake ice truck killer in Dexter) went kinda Col. Kurtz on everyone in early S2, and got friendly-fired for it. Starbuck tried to be a sniper and tended to make problems worse.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2017 06:28

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Crazycryodude posted:

I mean, they had "and they have a plan" at the opening of every single episode for, like, the entire run of the show. It isn't unfair to assume that the Cylons (and thus, the writers) have a plan based off that.

They HAD a plan.

God's plan. Given to then by the Oracle. Interpreted into actions by the seven models of human cylons. Who didn't really have a plan of their own in particular besides destroying humans and self-discovery.

So I mean they both had a "plan" they followed AND no loving clue what they were doing long term.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2017 21:59

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Milky Moor posted:

On the other hand, Amos in the books is described as basically a baby-face on a few occasions.

Bit of a babyface, a slight bit of pudge around the midsection, and bald. But still lethal as poo poo and, well, Amos.

I like both book and show versions. Kind of like how I like both book and show versions of most GoT characters (e.g. Tyrion and Jorah Mormount are both significantly less attractive people in the book) too. So long as the essence of the character rings true I think the appearance can be a bit malleable. I ain't even mad about belters looking basically like earthers outside of stretch armstrong in the first episode. It'd be hard to get that makeup effect to look right, and they do a good enough job with wardrobe and dialogue to help establish that belters are different from earthers/martians.

The wife has been binging stuff like Handmaid's Tale, Big Little Lies, and now the new episodes of Outlander, but ever since GoT ended I feel like all I'm doing is just waiting for whichever of Westworld, Legion, or the Expanse gets its new season out for my next favorite thing.

Sigh.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2017 17:26

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

When the sci-fi gets "hard" enough the space battles get more and more abstract, involving speeds and distances too great to provide the visuals common to typical space operas. No lasers traveling at subsonic speeds a la star wars. No mystical "shields up" from Star Trek.

The only space battle that really worked was when the stealth ship was fighting 1 on 1 against the Roci due to the close quarters nature and tight surrounding geometry.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2017 16:13

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

hump day bitches! posted:

I'm willing to give a thumbs up to the donnager v stealth ships.That whole episode was fantastic

You don't really see anything there. The best action is all from the perspective of the soon-to-be Roci crew from the shop interior. I don't even remember if there were any battle visuals exterior of the ship.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2017 05:57

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Overdrift posted:

What I really love about the Expanse tv show is the little details that get thrown in for no real story reason. Like the bird flapping and slowly falling because of the lower gravity, or how the police chief pours her coffee and it spirals down to the cup because of the spin. These little things really help build up the world for me and I noticed more of them on my recent rewatch.

Yeah, the bird was great. I think the book makes a brief mention of birds flying in low-G.

My favorite similar "little touch" was the diagonally cut paper in BSG. I mean, it's not something inherent to the physics the way the coffee/bird is in the expanse, but it's just something that would be out of place in our world and helps cement the setting a bit.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2017 23:53

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Phi230 posted:

oh boy are you going to hate seasons 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9

watches hard science slip through fingers like sand

Noooooooo my Newtonian physics!

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 17:13

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Syzygy Stardust posted:

Bubbles.

https://twitter.com/spoilertv/status/924033753860550656

peaches?

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 00:18

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Proteus Jones posted:

Is she going to play ~~Clarissa~~Peaches?

seems that way.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 00:23

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Crazycryodude posted:

What's wrong with the Peaches arc? I kinda like her.

Ditto. One of the things I look forward to the most.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 23:57

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

And given that a lot of the physical sets/props/clothing and digital models are already built, isn't it relatively efficient to keep going compared to starting a new series?

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 03:19

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

Pretty sure they also have exclusivity rights that make it more attractive than their other IPs (like Dark Matter ), as well. The whole "SyFy Originals" label means a lot for their downstream monetization.

Was Dark Matter any good? It seemed fireflyish by description.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 05:56

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

Books are really good and expand on/correct most of what the show does wrong (mostly the timespans and orbital mechanics of space battles). I think the show does a slightly better job with the characters, but they also had several books worth of material to go on, so you could think of it more as a slow-burn in the books.

I think the style/prose would be similar to other contemporary authors who go for a kind of dry realism in the writing: think GRRM in space.

They don't spend 4 pages describing the banner patterns, food at a meal, and how the clothing was stitched every chapter. It's a much faster and cleaner read than GRRM.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 04:26

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

qirex posted:

Yeah I was super glad when they condensed 100+ pages of Eros "vomit zombie survival adventure" content mostly into a single episode.

That was probably the biggest change between books and show that I noticed.

I kinda felt bad cause I hyped my wife on a big tonal shift out of nowhere in the series to help keep her interest, as she found Expanse pretty slow at first. She gets kinda bored by slow space operas, and she likes monster/horror/zombie stuff*, so I thought Eros would be the turning point where she decides "yeah this is my poo poo". Then the flight from Eros is like 20 minutes long, with only the merest hint of protomolecule zombies, and with radiation poisoning set up as the far greater (albeit less harrowing) danger. She thought it was a good episode, best of the season, but didn't live up to the hype. Oops.

(*she also loved BSG and didn't like Walking Dead past S1, so who the gently caress knows right. She's stuck with the show through S2, likes it more as it's gone on, and promises to read the books at some point.)

# ¿ Jan 23, 2018 23:29

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

3 DONG HORSE posted:

It actually originated FROM a tabletop RPG

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/the-evolution-of-james-s-a-coreys-space-epic-the-expanse/

Sometime in the future we'll get a TV show adapted from Blackbird Dreaming: A Something Awful Novel Series

# ¿ Jan 24, 2018 05:36

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Phi230 posted:

In fact rumor has it they've almost entirely cut book 3

A lot of books 5 and 6 could be inserted before a lot of PM stuff if they jigger around with stuff.

And it'd be hard to blame them. Books 5 and 6 have a pacing better suited for TV than 3/4. I could see them using 5/6 as the overarching plot while certain events from 3/4 happen as a sideshow to advance PM tech.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2018 18:48

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Bubbacub posted:

Fred Johnson being on the Orville always gives me joy.

Cutty being on The Expanse always gives me joy.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2018 18:59

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

shovelbum posted:

Am I supposed to like Amos? He seems mostly creepy and horrible

"like" is a complicated question. Best place on the issue is somewhere between rooting for him and :stonklol:

at what he does.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 20:17

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

unofficial rankings

1) avasarala
2) amos
3) miller
4) bobbie
5) alex
6) fred
7) drummer
8) Naomi
9) Dawes
10) Prax
11) Errenwright
.
.
.
57) Diogo
58) Jules-Pierre Mao
59) Jim

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 20:22

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Zurui posted:

Am I wrong in figuring that Amos had a similar thing done to him as the nanoinfomatics guy? Or is he just supposed to be a natural sociopath?

I mean I don't think we have 100% proof, but it's almost certain that he's a natural sociopath due in large part to his upbringing in the slums of Baltimore (violence, sex trafficking, etc.). The nanoinfomatics guy got the procedure done as part of career progression in a R&D field, which doesn't seem in character for a guy like Amos. It seems like a relatively sophisticated (and possibly illegal or proprietary) procedure, and I don't recall seeing any soldiers with a similar profile as that guy.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 21:30

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Zurui posted:

It really jumps off two small moments for me. The first is when Fred Johnson says he's seen quite a few trigger-happy boys like Amos. The second is when Amos asks if the magnetic procedure can be reversed. It seems like a personal moment for him, for some reason, like he's connected to it.

I mean, it's not a lot but it figures for me.

the magnetic procedure reversing is just him wondering if there was a generic scientific cure for sociopathy.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 21:50

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Mu Zeta posted:

He asked that one lady if the procedure was reversible, implying he had it done to him.

If he'd had it done he'd have probably been more aware of it as a procedure and already had that answer. He seemed intrigued by the guy. The scene does not imply he had it done to him, and there is a boatload of evidence that his hosed up childhood is what caused his sociopathy.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 22:42

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Kingtheninja posted:

Man I feel bad about reading the books because I'm guessing I'm beyond where season three will end, and it's gonna be rough waiting for all of this to hit TV.

They change things around just enough that I can treat them like separate entities. Kinda like how GoT show went in completely wild directions after passing book 3's content (wisely, knowing book 4 sucked hard).

Not that the two situations are completely analogous, but it does help with keeping interstitial scenes fresh while waiting for the already-spoiled major beats to drop.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2018 19:55

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Invalid Validation posted:

Is Thomas Jane back this season cause I need me some Joe the rear end Crusher Miller back into this show?

I mean, it doesn't seem like it?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 03:26

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 19:59

Pander: Oct 9, 2007; Fear is the glue that holds society together. It's what makes people suppress their worst impulses. Fear is power.

And at the end of fear, oblivion.

Crazycryodude posted:

I thought we were playing along for the people who hadn't read the books

we are

# ¿ Feb 28, 2018 20:56

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Expanse, Season 2: Stay away from the agua.