Missing The Expanse? Check Out Its Sci-Fi Precursors

As someone who grew up watching sci-fi TV shows (and was very careful about never revealing that I watched such shows because that was a sure-fire way to be made fun of in the 90s), I’ve loved seeing so many people on my social media timelines expressing their love for Amazon’s excellent series The Expanse. For the uninitiated, the series follows three distinct groups of humans (Earthers, Martians, and Belters, who work in the Asteroid Belt) as they deal with socio-economic issues, political intrigue, and a race to harness the incredibly dangerous – but deeply tempting – protomolecule before the other factions. What makes the series so interesting is that while there are certainly good guys and morally dubious “bad guys,” nearly every character on the show falls into a morally gray area. The decisions made are never easy and the questions posed are deep and probing. In short, it’s a show you have to think about while watching, and one you will keep thinking about once you’ve finished.

We have at least nine months left before we get to partake in The Expanse’s final season, so I wanted to provide my fellow fans with a list of older – but still great – sci-fi shows that could fill the void.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

(Streaming on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and Paramount+)

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that late last year I started a re-watch of this mid-90s Star Trek series. I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek (from Next Generation to Voyager, along with catching up on The Original Series on DVD), but DS9 was the series that resonated the most with me as a kid. And throughout my re-watch (I’m at the end of season six at the moment), I’ve been amazed at how well the series has held up. Unlike Next Generation or Voyager, which offered more rosy views of the future and adhered to a more episodic storytelling format, DS9 offered a darker, more complicated view of the Federation and Starfleet.

Set on a space station recently captured from the Cardassians (a particularly nasty alien race whose control of the station ended along with their enslavement of the Bajoran people – analogous to the German actions during World War II) that protects a wormhole to another quadrant, the early episodes are more about world building – introducing us to the Bajorans, the Cardassians,* and the strategic implications of this station. However, as the series progresses, it begins to tell one of the greatest arcs in all of Star Trek: The Dominion War arc. Spread out over several seasons, the series begins to dispense with an episodic format, churning in strings of episodes that interconnect without being two- or three-part standalones.

*While Bajoran and Cardassian characters appears on Next Generation, this was the first series to spend time digging into the Cardassian Occupation as a major plot point, exploring how it was incredibly damaging and showing the lack of Starfleet intervention. It also ties into the formation of the Maquis, a renegade group of fighters who would appear both on Next Generation and Voyager.

While it’s incredibly common today to have a series built on serialized storytelling, this was one of the the first times a sci-fi series really gave it a go. It’s not a coincidence that several of DS9’s best writers would go on to create smart, complex, serialized shows in the future (including one that appears later on this list). With the current era of streaming TV, serialized storytelling is everywhere. But in the mid-90s, taking on a serialized story was a big gamble. Shows lived and died on their ability to reach syndication (typically, 100 episodes meant you would get syndicated – and everyone involved would get paid for years to come), and to take a gamble on flipping the script like this wasn’t an easy choice. Not to mention that Star Trek’s bread and butter was the episodic TV model – and had been for years at that point. This was breaking with that particular tradition, and didn’t go over particularly well with a lot of fans back in the day. But it was the right choice. The final three seasons of DS9 include some of the best arcs I’ve seen, along with some truly great character development. Hard choices are made, and viewers who have been conditioned to expect the best out of Starfleet and its officers might be shocked at some choices made by those in power – which is another reason why the series was considered a disappointment by many Trekkies when it initially aired.

But from our perch here in 2021, there’s a direct line to be drawn from DS9 to The Expanse. This isn’t a show about celebrating a utopian view of the future. It’s a show about the hard choices that need to be made to help secure that universe and preserve it for those yet to come. Yes, there are aliens and the series has a heck of a lot more humor at times than The Expanse (and those episodes often end up being just a strong as the most dramatic parts of the series arc – the range of this cast is pretty spectacular), but DS9 is a heck of a ride. Even if you aren’t a Trekkie.

Babylon 5

(Streaming on HBO Max)

Premiering a year after DS9, Babylon 5 offered a wholly original five-season sci-fi tale that never got the same amount of press as its Trek counterpart, but its a series I would hold up as just as strong. The parallels between DS9 and Babylon 5 are striking: both are set on a space station far enough away from their military brass that the commanders are required to make their own decisions in the heat of the moment, tensions between alien races in their area are consistently simmering and occasionally boiling over, and the threat of all-out war eventually turns into a brilliantly executed war arc that paves the way for future sci-fi stories. The big difference between the two is that Babylon 5 knew what it wanted to be from the word go – that’s the plus to telling a story that doesn’t rely on a franchise.

Creator, head writer (he penned nearly every episode of the series), and showrunner J. Michael Straczynski had all five seasons of the series mapped out before a single frame was shot, which is a marvel from today’s standpoint – and it’s even more impressive that he was able to shoot all five seasons (and several epilogue films to tie up some remaining loose ends). The story, on paper, is pretty simple: A space station is caught between a rock and a hard place as it sees Earth begin to fall into the hands of a totalitarian government, forcing the Earth soldiers manning the station to choose between staying loyal to their home or breaking away to stand on the right side of history. If DS9 is best remembered for its war arc, Babylon 5 should be known for having the guts to start with a serialized story and take it to its conclusion. And if you like your sci-fi with dark twists and turns, a host of morally gray characters, and dark humor (seriously, there are some truly laugh out loud funny moments), this is definitely the series for you.

Now, Babylon 5 isn’t a perfect series – not be a longshot. The big problem with having a clear five season arc in place from the word go is that there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to fully execute it the way you envisioned. Several cast members left the series over the course of its run, putting Straczynski in a bind as he attempted to bring the series in for its landing (hence the epilogues, which allowed Straczynski the chance to clean up his ending, and reunited him with a key departed cast member). That being said, I’ve never seen a series built out from an original idea executed this well for this long. Considering how subsequent serialized sci-fi and fantasy series (think Lost or Game of Thrones) would stumble on their way to their finish line due to a lack of foresight as to just what their endgame should be, it’s pretty incredible that a little sci-fi series from the mid-90s was able to execute a solid five-year run and lay the groundwork for future series to come.

Battlestar Galactica

(Streaming on Peacock)

When it was announced in 2004 that SciFi (now SyFy) would be rebooting the 1970s series Battlestar Galactica, I wasn’t all that interested. And when news broke that several of the original show’s male characters were being gender-swapped for the reboot, well, all hell broke loose among idiot fanboys online. Turns out we were all short-sighted and wrong in our initial assessment of the series, as Battlestar Galactica turned out to be one of the best shows of the last 20 years, full stop.

For the uninitiated, years before the start of the series, the human race created an army of robot Cylons, who eventually evolved to the point where they turned on their creators. Following a violent war, the Cylons disappeared, and humanity returned to normal. When a series of deadly bombings occur, killing millions and reducing the human race to a mere shadow of itself, it becomes clear that the Cylons are back and more deadly than before – and are hellbent on taking out their inferior creators once and for all.

Spearheaded by Ronald D. Moore (who was one of the key writers on DS9 in its later, war-focused seasons – and who was responsible for some of that series’ best character focused episodes), BSG is a brilliant distillation of all that makes a television series great. There are a host of complex and compelling characters who grow and change in stunning ways over the course of the show’s four season run. And, as an allegory for the Iraq War, the series asks hard questions – including how far is too far to go when dealing with a foe that appears wholly willing to do whatever it takes to win? Sure, we have a natural desire to root for the humans, but circumstances evolve throughout the course of the series that force you to see things from all angles – and to try and wrestle with the question of whether the ends can ever truly justify the means.

Bad things happen to good people, and good people find themselves making choices that are truly disturbing to witness (something that also occurred on both DS9 and Babylon 5 before it). In fact, there was a particular arc that found the show’s actors shocked at what their characters were doing – largely because they had convinced themselves that their characters were the heroes of the piece and they should be the good guys. But nothing comes out of left field on the series, and everything flows clearly from the characters’ motivations, needs, and wants. Moore and his excellent writing staff were unafraid of turning characters inside out as needed, pushing them down dark paths, and asking the audience to look at their actions and come to their own conclusions regarding what was right and wrong in the circumstances. The whip-smart writing, spectacular performances (when your show is led by Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, you have a hell of a foundation to build upon), and brilliant arc took the path laid out by DS9 and Babylon 5 in terms of serialized sci-fi stories and took it to another level. Everything in the world of sci-fi has been trying to reach the heights of BSG in the years since. The only series to come close? Well, that would be The Expanse.

So, if you’re looking to expand your sci-fi TV repertoire while you await the final season of The Expanse, look no further than these three spectacular shows. The Expanse owes a debt to each in paving the way to changing how we consume sci-fi stories on TV and how dark and complicated a tale can be. It took over 25 years to get to where we are, but it was a truly spectacular journey.