She will go down with her ship, like a good captain

[opensummer]

I started The Expanse a while back but have been mainlining it today and it is basically made for me as a person and that's delightful.

There's space!creole! Political tensions! Morally ambiguous characters who are better than they seem! Crew as family! Chrisjen MF Avasarala! Unlike Firefly, it's actually diverse! They! Actually! Consider! How! Societies! Would! Develop! IN SPACE!

Disclaimer before I start complaining: I'm on S01E08 at the time of writing this. Two gripes, so far-

1. I'd like it if the ladies had an expanded role. So far we've got three storylines - the cop on Ceres, the survivors of the Cant, and the UN officials on Earth. The cop's storyline has two types of wimmen, bosses and hookers and a potentially dead girl, and that's... frustrating. The survivors of the Cant has Naomi Nagata who is Badass Excellent but of the original five survivors we get one lady and a dead girl so Holden can have manpain.The UN officials on Earth? We get Chrisjen who is again Badass Excellent but she is the only woman in the upper echelons of the UN. There's ladies around in the background but no named female characters besides Chrisjen.
2.  There's sound in space and I should really know to expect better by now but come on. In space no one can hear you scream is a meme for a reason.

Finally, I got a hold of all of the expanse novels and they're going on my to read list but I'm not going to start them until I get through the third season. Tell if they're any good?

Comments

[jo]

The books are superb, but be forewarned that book Holden and TV Holden diverge a fair bit, more so than any of the other characters. Some people have issues with that, I didn't. The main female characters become quite central, and a couple of others emerge in season 2 (I think -- things kind of blur for me now). Also, the show merges events a lot more -- it's not a linear adaptation in the way that say, Outlander is.

Also, if you're looking for SF with strong female characters, Humans is superb. It's on AMC. Not a space thing, but about sentience in AI. Sort of like Westworld, but better and far less pretentious.

[opensummer]

I don't usually have any issues separating books from tv/movies they're different mediums and therefore have to make different choices. We did get Bobbie, and Camina Drummer in the second season! Both of whom are excellent, and Anna in third season.

I love humans it's one of my favorite shows of all times! AMC's been killing it with tv since Breaking Bad first aired.

[jo]

Wow! You're the first person I've encountered here who has watched Humans! Most people have no clue what I'm talking about. I had concerns about the remake because the original Swedish series was so good, but they've done a really good job.

I don't watch much on AMC other than the Walking Dead (and still haven't started the current season yet). Breaking Bad isn't my thing at all. The Terror was excellent, however. I really need to rewatch that one at some point...

[opensummer]

Yeah, Humans never got the wider recognition I expected it to. It's so well crafted that I was always shocked it never got popular. I didn't know it was a remake, I'll have to check the original out.

Yeah Breaking Bad was Not For Me but I think it represented a turn in the programming that AMC was producing and just about everything they've made since then are been objectively good even if it wasn't something I would enjoy (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, etc.)