Welp. How do we save this show? I'll join any crowdfunding platform.
The acting of several lead actors is really bad. Avasarala (the "undersecretary"), Bobbie (the "marine"), Jim Holden - they all portray characters in a way that is utterly unconvincing. Every scene with Avasarala is a scene that can't end quick enough. She looks like a bad impostor. Bobbie is miscast so severely it's on par with the "bitchy teenager" Anakin from Ep2 and Ep3. Holden's facial expression for determination is that of a man about to cry. In fact, he looks like his dog just died in most of the scenes.
The story and the universe is excellent, the rest of the cast is really good, but it's not enough to balance it all out.
Jane - yes, agreed. Excellent choice. Alex, Amos, Naomi are all good too.
Hahahaha, this is too true. Bobbie is also terrible. But Avasarala I thought was really well cast.
But in general it felt like we got straight-to-dvd type D-level actors (think about crappy movies like The Human Race) in a B+ level setting (writing, CGI, set design etc). I was really confused at first as to whether this was a serious series with a relatively big budget for science fiction, or something that evolved out of a college film project.
Never really knew what to think. Like, I enjoyed Miller as a character. But I also cringe everytime I see his fedora. It feels like they do a lot of the hard things right, but somehow go out of their way to mess up some of the easy things.
I like The Expanse and I will miss it.
I've been meaning to write my own scifi books to be turned into movies.
The Expanse was no Star Trek or Star Wars but it had a realistic feel to it.
Orbital mechanics seems to only apply when convenient, e.g. an orbital mirror around a moon is damaged and "falls" straight down. I don't think that is accurate, even assuming the loss of atation-keeping thrust.
* Not real gravity, but you can't tell the difference between gravity and acceleration. And they also account for high-G manoveurs being difficult/deadly for humans.
Beyond that, the books are pretty hard. The only one physics-bending technology used by humans is the Epstein drive, and as a drive it doesn't really violate any laws of physics (it's a fusion drive) - the unrealistic part is its absurdly good fuel efficiency.
That IMO makes Amazon the more likely party to purchase the US rights that Syfy had.
Netflix introduced streaming in 2007, and started content production in 2012.
Something like Jericho or Firefly being cancelled today is much more likely to get picked up.
Hell, spam Bezos himself. They're cancelling the show that literally explores the world Bezos wants to create.