The Expanse has had a winding road to reach its sixth and final season. Premiering on SyFy, getting prematurely canceled, getting saved by Amazon (because it just happened to be Jeff Bezos’s favorite television show, and what’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t ensure that your favorite TV shows live on), and now, completing a six-season run. And for much of that time, The Expanse was churning out story arcs that placed it in the all-time upper echelon of sci-fi television shows. It’s a show I’ve thoroughly enjoyed throughout its run as well. Which is why it’s such a shame that the series opted to go out with a truncated six-episode season that is so unsatisfying from both a narrative and character perspective.
Wrapping up a high concept series isn’t an easy proposition, and a series like The Expanse certainly qualifies as high concept. The series has a large central cast of characters, all of whom are central to the overall plot. There’s a complicated set of sci-fi elements that need to be dealt with (protomlecules, ring gates with angry aliens living within them, a three-pronged civil war (four, if you count the Belters who aren’t on Team Marco Inaros), and the complexities of what happens to Earth following the destruction wrought by the asteroid attack). And there’s only six episodes with which to address it all. Going into the season, it was pretty clear that some things would fall by the wayside – I just wish showrunner Naren Shankar and his team of writers had a longer runway to really wrap things up in the way they deserved to be.
Lest you think I hated this final season, rest assured I didn’t. I just wish it had been longer, richer, and more concerned with giving these characters the send-off they deserved rather than the paint-by-numbers, dull season of television that was presented. The story does what it needs to do: Deal with the threat Inaros and his plans pose for mankind. But it doesn’t do all that much beyond that. By the end, it feels more like a series of boxes was checked and less like a season of complex television was written.
As far as characters, only two out of the show’s large cast really get a chance to shine: Cara Gee’s Cammina Drummer and Wes Chatham’s Amos Burton. Considering Gee and Chatham are two of the show’s strongest actors, this isn’t a real hardship – I would gladly watch a spin-off starring either – but it’s disappointing that there isn’t more for other characters in the shortened season. In fact, there’s minor storyline with wholly new characters that I would have preferred to see excised as it pulls precious time away from our heroes (and villains) without adding much at all to the overall season arc.* When the cast does get the rare chance sink their teeth into their arcs, they shine. But, the strange season pacing does the show a massive disservice, with arcs dragging in ways they shouldn’t on this tight of a timeline in early episodes (seriously – by the time I reached episode four I was shocked at how much plot was left to get through and how little the arcs had advanced from season five), and then burning through plot in the back end of the season, depriving the audience of deep, meaningful character beats right when we needed them the most.
*You’ll know it when you see it – but it’s a clear pitch for a future series set in this universe that would have worked if the series had an additional two or three episodes to work with. As is, there’s barely enough time to provide Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Chrisjen Avasarala or Nadine Nicole’s Clarissa Mao sufficient screen time – which should have been a major concern of the writers, as these two are two of the show’s best actors and should be in as many scenes as is feasible – so throwing in potential spin-off ideas at this stage of the game further dilutes the narrative arc in ways that aren’t helpful when you are this pressed for time.
Would additional episodes have prevented an uneven final run for such a strong show? Perhaps. When one ends a show, there’s a delicate dance that must be done between providing the necessary character beats to allow an audience to say goodbye to their valued onscreen friends and allowing the story to flow to its natural ending. The best final seasons achieve this balance, letting characters continue to grow until the final scene. What The Expanse has chosen to do is elevate a single story arc above all others – including the interpersonal arcs that have made the series so compelling – forcing all remaining character beats to exist within that single arc. This means that everyone’s sole focus is on this one plot point to the exclusion of the other arcs – and relationships – that may have been built thus far.
Unfortunately, it also means that if your favorite character doesn’t have a pressing emotional link to the fate of that central arc, well, their presence within the story becomes more perfunctory than necessary. Yes, they have a role to play – negotiating, fighting, flying, planning – but outside of their goal of ensuring their own (and humanity’s) survival, there isn’t much else for them to work through. And that’s a shame. Yes, it’s fun to watch Bobbie kick ass or Avasarala chew someone out, but when that’s their sole purpose within the season, it’s a bummer. And yes, watching Cara Gee absolutely crush her complex arc as Drummer is a thrill (seriously, she’s sensational), but I wish more of the cast had been afforded the opportunity to get an arc like that in their final hurrah.
If you’ve been a fan of The Expanse these past six seasons, you’ll absolutely want to watch these final six episodes to see just how things shake out. But, I suspect that you will be left a bit cold when all is said and done. If you’ve fallen in love with this diverse and compelling cast of characters, enjoy this last look into their lives – and then go back and watch earlier seasons to remember how deeply drawn these characters were before this final stretch of episodes.
The Expanse’s final season premieres on Friday, December 10 on Amazon Prime. Episodes will be released weekly. All six episodes were provided for review.
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