No, Murtry is the only real bad guy, and seeing as he has seemingly no inner conflict about gunning down Belters or leaving them to die on an increasingly hostile planet, he’s not an antagonist like most on The Expanse. There’s also a certain story weakness there. By the end of the sixth episode of this season, she is somewhat willingly working for him. Bobbie Draper ( Frankie Adams) also has problems but her antagonist this season is just a slimy black market traitor. She’s just there to threaten Avasarala’s place in the UN, and Avasarala’s not going anywhere. And she’s not delightfully conniving like Avasarala’s mentee, Sadavir Errinwright ( Shawn Doyle). Murtry is also the only real antagonist this season.Ĭhrisjen Avasarala ( Shohreh Aghdashloo) has a sort-of antagonist in the form of a political opponent threatening her tenure as United Nations Secretary-General, but besides being smug and self-satisfied, the opponent (Nancy Gao, played by Lily Gao) isn’t really an active threat to anyone - she’s not weak-willed like Esteban Sorrento-Gillis ( Jonathan Whittaker), who served as Secretary-General in Seasons 1 through 3. I get the feeling Amos Burton ( Wes Chatham) was always a difficult character to write, as he’s the closest thing the show gets to a sympathetic psychopath, but he’s also not as far as gone as say, the Thoth scientists in Seasons 1 and 2, or in this season, Murtry. And that’s also a difficult antagonist to write. Murtry is played by Burn Gorman, who is pretty good, but then again, it’s tough playing an out and out psychopath. The season’s major antagonist is Adolphus Murtry, a chief of security for the Royal Charter Energy company on the new, Earth-like planet that some refugee Belters discover, Ilus. Let’s go back to the point that people make horrible mistakes this season, but that they make them on purpose (at least so far). Then I settled upon the main point of contention I had. Because The Expanse is still essentially good and compelling TV, I struggled to figure out what it was. The premise of the series had been altered substantially.Īnd while the episodes are still well-structured and thankfully, efficient the characters are well-acted and the special effects are some of the best in the history of sci-fi TV, there is something missing. They had adapted the first three books, and sure, there were six more to go (with the final one, the ninth, pending publication), but the series had just radically changed from one about conflict over a tiny corner of the galaxy to the opportunity to explore more galaxies than the characters had possibly imagined, with the opening of the Ring gates. ![]() One question people had about The Expanse at the end of Season 3 is where they were going to go with the series. Make no doubt about it, people still make horrible mistakes. Which is perhaps why I was disappointed by what I’ve seen so far of Season 4. Because the people in this series make horrible mistakes, just like we all do. A family member who’s also a fan of the show (and was before I became one), told me that he enjoys how the show refuses to show an idealized view of humanity.Īnd that is why everything escalates so quickly on occasion after occasion in the series. Everything escalates in both the books and the TV series very quickly all the time. I just finished Leviathan Wakes, and I’m now not just impressed by how they managed to adapt such a massive book but also by how cinematically the book was already written. ![]() So, I started watching the series again and found myself hooked, especially through the first season and the first half of the second, which mainly follows the events of Leviathan Wakes, the first book in the series. What I saw teased a show which had grown into its own, expanding its outreach from a sad detective and the sad crew of an ice hauler to a whole solar system (and now universe) of possibilities. My interest hit a new peak when I saw The Expanse Season 4 premiere at New York Comic Con while covering the show’s panel. I drifted away from watching the rest of the show, but I’ll admit to being extremely intrigued by the continued praise, and its eventual pick-up by Amazon Prime Video in the aftermath of its cancellation on SYFY. Fans and reviewers alike had compared it to space opera series like Babylon 5 (one of my favorites) and Battlestar Galactica (which ultimately disappointed me). I couldn’t really get into The Expanse when I first started watching it during or after its first season aired (I can’t remember when I initially started). ![]() ![]() Spoilers ahead! This review will freely discuss spoilers for the first six episodes of The Expanse Season 4 and for the previous three seasons, as well as the books the TV series is based on.
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