Mastodawn

Just finished Season 5 of THE EXPANSE.

Bruce Sterling wrote a series of short stories about spacer families living aboard ships that are collected in a book called SCHISMATRIX. It had things like beetle husbandry to breed beautiful cockroaches to eat the detritus sloughing off living things onboard, and hand mending of spacesuits with needle and thread, and just a fun mishmash of sci-fi and life on the ranch.

The *space trucker* vibe in ALIEN comes close to that lived in, functional, subsistence setting Sterling evoked for me.

Anyhow, the Belter culture in THE EXPANSE is the best imagining of that kind of society I've seen put to film so far. Season 5, not just with the Belters, but especially with them, leans into the themes of tribe and family that remind me of some of what I found most memorable in SCHISMATRIX.

#SciFi
#TheExpanse
#BruceSterling
#Schismatrix

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toolbear#🌶️Jul 24, 2023

Just finished Season 6 (and thus the entire series) of THE EXPANSE.

It's a small miracle they got to tell six seasons of story that lined up with 6 novels and ended with a non-terrible conclusion.

The shorter than usual season makes me peeved at the studio. Once I understood that the timeline in the source material jumps 28 years forward I felt less rug pulled. Nonetheless the show runners were clearly rushed to wrap it up in 6 episodes and it shows, despite some decent efforts to compensate. It was distracting but never reached *fast travel from King's Landing to The Wall* bad.

The show's resolution was satisfying even though a lot of interesting story telling was left untold. The show runners didn't squander or ruin or undermine what they had built. I see myself rewatching someday; whereas with GoT I prefer watching video essay dissections and with FOUNDATION I noped out of after S01E03 and won't be tricked into trying to kick that football I don't care if S2 is good.

#SciFi
#TheExpanse
#Television

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toolbear#🌶️Jul 24, 2023

Though I can only speak directly to gay representation; I'll say THE EXPANSE is one of the most diverse and optimistically cast shows I've watched. Women are so commonplace that it looks like a majority woman cast at first glance (it's actually about 50% …🤔 /s)

Queerness is commonplace. I would say in universe that "queer" was an anachronism maybe; readers of the novels probably know definitively. Poly relationships were unremarked upon. Trans folk seemed underrepresented for what I would assume is commonplace in universe — and regardless for equity for real Trans actors today.

It's also decently class conscious in the portrayal of Belters.

The gender balance is what stands out most; husband remarked on it, too. Femininity is portrayed in myriad ways. There are butch women and competent women and the Venn diagram *isn't* a circle i.e. the women aren't just written as "men but tits". Even ultra-butch Martian marine Bobbie "Gunny" Draper gets some nice fem moments.

Plus I will always ❤️ Shohreh Aghdashloo.

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OG_zuul Jul 24, 2023

@toolbear i really liked that show but for some reason the 2nd season was moving too slow for me and i bailed. maybe i should pick up where i left off... i don't know that i have the attention span for a show like that though....