Warning: Spoilers Ahead

A moment of truth here. While I’m a self-professed “geek” (hence, the name of my site) and a lot of times that trait goes hand-in-hand with being a Trekkie or space drama diehard in general, I’m not a big fan of the genre. Granted, I watched Star Trek: TNG and Farscape religiously back in the early 90s, but my focus has been on horror and crime dramas since then. The Walking Dead, The Strain, Z Nation, Hannibal, Person of Interest, basically anything one might call freaky-deaky. I never watched Battlestar Galactica. I never watched Firefly (and, with the cult following of that show, I bet my not watching is considered borderline criminal!). And, I never watched any of the Stargate series. Seriously. Now, an exception is Syfy’s freshman space drama Dark Matter, which I thoroughly enjoyed this past year and decided to cover for my site.

So, when it was announced that Syfy had picked up yet another space opera, The Expanse, I was skeptical. And, not just because the genre isn’t really my cup of tea but because of Ascension’s fate last winter. But when it was announced that The Walking Dead alumnus, Chad Coleman, had joined the series and after a whole slew of my readers told me how fantastic the book series was, I finally gave in. And, now fast-forward to tonight on the Eve of the premiere of The Expanse, I will say that was one of the best decisions I have ever made because the first few episodes makes it clear that this show is going to hit it out of the park.

Set 200 years into the future, The Expanse sets up humanity as scattered into three groups: Earth, Mars, and the colonists in the asteroid belt of our solar system. Earth and Mars have been at odds since the colonists of the red planet broke off and started their own militaristic society. In the middle of this are the colonists on the asteroid belt (or “Belters” as they are called), the workers who mine the asteroids for materials both Earth and Mars require. “Belters” are very much the labor class of the solar system with decades of different gravity affecting them in different ways.

Almost immediately, the big characters are introduced: a Belter detective, Miller (Thomas Jane)  who’s a hard-ass but who has weaknesses for women and hard liquor; an officer on a ice breaking ship, James Holden (Steven Strait)  who doesn’t seem to have any aspirations for moving up in rank and who is fraternizing with the his navigation specialist ; and Chrisjen (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a high ranking Earth official. Everything starts with the disappearance of the daughter of a leader of a big corporation, Juliette Mao, and Miller being tasked to find her. While Miller investigates the belt, the ship Holden is assigned to, the Canterbury, makes the surprising discovery of a derelict ship in deep space. What the Canterbury discovers and Miller starts to uncover is a massive conspiracy and a discovery that may change the future of mankind.

The premiere episode titled “Dulcinea” is a very dense hour of television, as it establishes the premise of the show, introduces all the main characters very nicely, and sets up the main mystery of the series. Honestly, it’s amazing all of this was done in a mere 60 minutes. And, just comparing The Expanse to other recent Syfy ventures like Dark Matter, the visual effects are off-the-chart. The Canterbury feels real, and the characters’ “space universe” takes us back to hard-core science fiction which isn’t seen much anymore on television.  Occasionally people have to wear magnetic boots to keep them from floating around, people need fluid pumped into them to survive high gravity force turns and acceleration, and the idea of air and water being more valuable than anything in these asteroid belt colonies are details that are rarely brought up, but here in 2015 on Earth are second nature to everyone.

And casting wise, the performances are rock solid, with Jane as the world weary space noir detective Miller and Aghdashloo as a character who seems to walk a thin line between being a hero and a super-villain in her brief scenes in this episode. And the supporting cast, namely the crew of the Canterbury in this episode, is rounded out nicely as circumstances turn a simple retrieval mission into something far beyond what they have dealt with.

The episode ends with a very shocking turn of events for the Canterbury and one that I honestly did not see coming, especially given that I have not read the books. Without giving away any big spoilers, the final scene calls into question Holden’s leadership skills, and what seems like a good decision literally brings disaster that will most definitely change the futures of our world and of the main characters forever.

The series premiere of The Expanse  airs Monday at 10/9c on Syfy.

Critic Grade — A

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