"The Expanse Is the New Battlestar Galactica" Topic

"Syfy's new show The Expanse features great writing and high production values, and is designed to appeal to the sort of discriminating genre fans who watch Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. TV critic Andrew Liptak notes that while Syfy has produced some great shows like Battlestar Galactica, recent offerings like Sharknado have turned the network into something of a punch line.

"Syfy has gotten beat up over the last several years for airing some crappy shows and really turning their back on the classic space opera stuff," Liptak says in Episode 180 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "A lot of people really didn't like that about Syfy, and really thought they were turning their back on their roots."

Fans of TV space operas have had little to enjoy the past few years, ever since the premature demise of shows like Farscape and Firefly. Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, creators of The Expanse, told interviewer Liz Shannon Miller that studios are leery about the high cost of space opera shows.

"That was literally one of the first things I joked with them about," says Miller. "And they were like, ‘No, we had that meeting. We had the "does it have to be set in space?" meeting.'"

But Fergus and Ostby were committed to a faithful adaptation of their source material, the Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey (a pseudonym used by the writing team of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham). Reviewer Justin Landon says the show greatly improves on the first book in the series, Leviathan Wakes…"
full text here
link

Amicalement
Armand

the show greatly improves on the first book in the series, Leviathan Wakes

I don't know I would say in improves on the book so much as "stays reasonably true."

Anyway, I'm hoping it's better than Battlestar Galactica but that should be hard to do given the failure that show became.

I will have to check this out.

Hmm. That is a very high claim. I will definitely give it a look.

Has that gritty feel …

I certainly hope it isn't more "soap operas in space".

I watched it, but then realized it is the usual Hollywood fake when the Martian warship had stealth technology. This is space we are talking about here people, there is no stealth in space. Your reactor is like a small sun and requires radiators to get rid of extra heat and when you light up your rockets they can see you clear across the solar system.

Well things we have learned after watching the 1st show.

The UN should be done away with now so that it will not become an Evil Organization in the future.

Martians are jerks.

Ships in outer space have no defensive weapons.

I certainly hope it isn't more "soap operas in space".

This, to the power of a million. I enjoyed most of nBSG, but the "I love you, but she's having my Cylon baby! I'm so conflicted!!" crap really added nothing to the series. If they had dropped all the "Caprica 90210", the series would have been half as long but twice as good.

Well I actually watched both the 1st and 2nd shows of it.

Oh and it was not the Martians who destroyed their ship.

Though that ship was stupid to not have any type of weapons on it.

@doug Redshirt

At least they had ships flipping over to decelerate and using thrust to create gravity

I've seen the first 4 episodes and it's promising.

Even if it tanks, if it stops them making any more sharktopocalypse movies, I'm fine with that. :D

BSG was probebly the most boring sci show i knew, horrible boring, boring character, i felt they only had about 4 stories and repeated them.

Of those two seasons i botherd watching, most episodes bled together.

Just a totally uninteresting.
I have no intrest in watching any sci fi series compared to BSG or game of thrones.

I'm still waiting for a new TNG/DS9/B5/SG1/ATLANTS

I like it. Even though Ceres mining settlement seems a lot like Babylon 5's brown levels with people milling about with too much time on their hands.

I like the series so far. Maybe I'll buy the novels. The science is said to be harder in the books than in the TV series.

I do wish I found this sooner..

As for SyFy cutting shows like Farscape and Firefly

"A lot of people really didn't like that about Syfy, and really thought they were turning their back on their roots."

and airing ANYthing like "sharknado" (If I had not seen the dvd in store I would have sworn that was a joke.. a bad one).
I think this is a 'sign of the times" (yes cliche' but appropriate). It seems now with not dozens but possibly 100's of stations, networks as well as Netcast veiwing available, I think networks are making the mistake of trying to be a One Stop TV Shop.

Another example, The History Channel. I "used to love the HS", but they began showing "Ice Road Truckers" and "Worlds Deadliest Catch", I knew whoever was running things there, no longer respected the original intent of the network. I.e. HISTORY.

As for the Remake of Battlestar Galactica, it was a 100 x better than the original if for no other reason they did not hit us with time measurements we had NO concept of. "Micron", "Secton", "Centon" ..what-ton??

Ironicaly, I never cared for the show because it became a case of .. "whos the good guy again?" And the few shows I did watch, I got lost in just that.. who do you cheer for?

I must say Edward Jame Olmos was outstanding. I could easily see him as Adama and a military officer and even more so a father and leader.
And the premise of a military being "disabled" by essentially a computer virus, so realistic to our time, it was and IS frightening even today.