Add The Expanse to the list of great TV shows that looked like they were headed for the trash heap and ended up being rescued at the last second. The Expanse debuted on the Syfy network in December 2015 and ran for three seasons, the last of which ended in June 2018.
After those first three seasons, Syfy canceled the show, despite growing critical acclaim and a fervent audience base. These fans, who called themselves "Screaming Firehawks" after a ship in The Expanse, conducted a massive fan campaign to get the show greenlit on another streamer.
Over 100,000 fans signed a petition on Change.org to get the show back, and notable viewers like Patton Oswalt and George R.R. Martin expressed their hopes that the series would be renewed. Their prayers were answered by Amazon Prime, which put the show back on in 2019 for three more incredible seasons.
What The Expanse Does Better Than Other Sci-Fi TV Shows
The Expanse is based on a series of novels from James S.A. Corey set in a future where humanity has colonized most of the Solar System. Humanity has coalesced into three powers: the United Nations of Earth and Luna, the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance, which is the most loosely organized confederation.
The series stars United Nations Security Council member Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a bitter detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), and James Holden (Steven Strait), a ship's officer, who together stumble upon an alien conspiracy that threatens to end the tenuous peace between these space-faring empires.
The Expanse builds slowly through all six seasons of the show, but still has enough juice every episode to keep viewers invested. The series effortlessly blends classic sci-fi tropes with detective noir fiction to make something that looks totally alien from the amazing visuals but feels incredibly human in its storytelling.
It's a sci-fi show with an incredible sense of scale, and it makes time for politics, poverty, and ideas of oppression and discrimination. These are ideas that permeate all sci-fi, but The Expanse doesn't just gesture towards them; it infuses the grim and thrilling storylines with these prescient topics.
The Expanse refuses to just be a story about the "final frontier". It recognizes that just because humanity evolves technologically, it doesn't mean that we are able to easily overcome the more primitive ideas and proclivities that hold us back, making for a richer series than we often see.
Release Date
2015 - 2022-00-00
Network
SyFy, Prime Video
Showrunner
Naren Shankar, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby
Directors
Breck Eisner, Jeff Woolnough, David Grossman, Kenneth Fink, Rob Lieberman, Terry McDonough, Thor Freudenthal, Bill Johnson, David Petrarca, Jennifer Phang, Mikael Salomon, Sarah Harding, Marisol Adler, Anya Adams, Nick Gomez, Simon Cellan Jones
Writers
Georgia Lee, Robin Veith, Hallie Lambert, Matthew Rasmussen, Ty Franck, Naren Shankar, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Daniel Abraham, Dan Nowak
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Dominique Tipper
Naomi Nagata
English (US) ·