The Expanse has its own problems, though. Namely, that a lot of the acting is terrible. Foundation at least, to me, has some strong acting and interesting character relationships.
I’m watching The Expanse now for the first time and I love it. Some characters are 2-dimensional and have childish motivations sure.
But there was a scene in which Chrisjen Avasarala gives an “imminent war” speech extremely sarcastically, like Homer to Marge in the bedroom.
I figured they’d address in the episode what her secret plan was for that speech.
Turns out: no plan, the actress wasn’t being sarcastic. She was going for strength and gravitas.
It makes no sense to me how an otherwise high quality show has those scenes. Surely the director could have gotten a non-sarcastic take. And if not, they’d have to minimize the actress’s role.
As it is, every scene with her in it breaks the fourth wall and reminds me I’m watching actors acting in front of cameras, rather than a visual narrative.
I enjoyed the realpolitik of Expanse but hated the trite interpersonal conflicts which seems to be a mainstay of modern drama. I find the main characters to be rather childish.
They are written in a childish manner: the white knight, the highly assertive love interest, the sociopath who wishes he could be a good guy, and the cowboy. Their personalities are unrealistic in ways that I would attribute to a young teenager. That said, the quirks of these trope-like characters is sometimes amusing. I enjoy the series mainly for the protomolecule plot, despite the characters.
I think the acting gets much better over the seasons. And when I rewatched seasons 1-3 recently, I didn't notice it. But maybe I'm so into the characters and stories that it just doesn't register anymore. And the Expanse certainly does have interesting character relations as the story progresses.
To be fair, I never made it past Season 1 so you may be right. It was just so distracting that I couldn't force myself to continue. More and more people recommend it, though, so I may have to just suffer through those early seasons to get to the good stuff.
The Expanse is one of only five science fiction productions on TV I could seriously recommend to someone. It deals with big themes in a coherent manner. And the characters get incredible depth as the seasons continue. And thematic/political elements get way more interesting. Almost every other science fiction series turns out to be mostly fluff (admittedly, very entertaining fluff) when viewed through the lens of The Expanse.
o Firefly - no brainer. Brilliant.
o Battlestar Galactica - Has some issues mid-late course, but still pretty end-end enthralling.
o Dark (I keep re-watching this over and over every few months. I have many notebook pages full of analysis. Seriously good SciFi for the most part.)
o Altered Carbon (mostly Season 1 - but Season 2 was okay)
Big Recommendation:
Not really science fiction (even bigger themes explored) but far superior in terms of overall quality of work/screen writing, and has a similar "concept" that a lot of supposed science fiction shows have - "The Leftovers" - Which I put on my list of the 5 most brilliant things on Television (Sopranos/The Wire/Deadwood/Breaking Bad being the other 4).
I'll give a honorable mention to stuff I loved but I can't totally recommends:
o Travelers - I'm a sucker for a good Time Travel Show.
o Foundation - Pretty - I watch it, but I totally would never recommend it.
o Fringe - Wow - was totally into this. Definitely an acquired taste though.
o Raised By Wolves - Interested in where it's going. Could entirely suck eventually I guess.
o Black Mirror - Hit and miss, though hits often enough that I keep coming back to it.
o WestWorld - I mean, we all watched it. Season 1 was *awesome* if you watched it in realtime and didn't read all the internet commentary when the aha moment hit you. Season 2 was pretty good as well IMHO. Season 3 was just dreck where the screen writing tanked *but* it paid an *awesome* homage to the very last of the Foundation Novels to bring it all home.
I did want to quit around episode 6 of season 1 on my first watch. Part of the problem is that it takes most of season 1 to cement the main characters and establish the story. I stuck it out and was hooked by season 2. Season 3 was fantastic. The story just keeps evolving, all the way up to book 9 and various novellas (season 6 is coming out in December).
