The Expanse series finale left a bunch of dangling threads but gave us closure in many ways on an incredible hard science fiction story.

The Expanse ended its sixth and final season on Amazon Prime this last week, and it was a glorious farewell to (in my opinion) the best science fiction television series to have ever been filmed. The two minds that make-up the combined writer (who goes by James S.A. Corey( are brilliant. That their novels translated so well to the small screen is also amazing. I'm kind of in awe of this series, and I think that this is quite unusual as far as adaptations go.

But (to be fair) they had to roll with the challenges that they faced. I heard that filming this thing was a logistical nightmare under Covid protocols. Furthermore, it was getting more and more expensive with every season. However, it really looked good. What Amazon did with the show is nothing short of incredible as every set and every scene looked like what you'd get from a high budget movie. The actors who played the characters also seemed very committed to their parts, because they put in incredible performances. I don't think I can pick a favorite, because they were all so good. But maybe Avasarala would have to rise to the top simply because her voice (which sounds like what I would guess a person would sound like after chain smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for twenty years) is mesmerizing. I could listen to her read the phone book, and I think it would sound fascinating.

Another challenge they had was that the actor who played Alex in the show committed sexual assault or was accused of it. I'm not sure which or what is going on with that. But the show dropped him like a hot potato, and they killed off the character. In the books, I like Alex a lot. So I actually did miss seeing that character in the last six episodes. However, I know why it is important to get rid of troublesome actors like that.

A third challenge they had was keeping actors around while they didn't have much to do in the books. The way they did this was to combine events from the novellas, so that they could cut away to Bobbi Draper on Mars and the story with her nephew. That's an example of a work-around that seemed to pay off dividends. 

One of the things that made The Expanse so good was that they treated the science so carefully. For example, at first blush it seems like yet another SF show with "sounds in space" blunder, but it actually is not. Every crash and explosion you hear is a sound that someone in the show would hear, e.g., a missile hitting a spaceship is certainly heard by the people inside a spaceship, and so does the viewer, even if the camera viewpoint is in space. But events which nobody can hear, such as a missile hitting an uninhabited rock, are silent. At least...that's what it seemed like to me.

The one thing that is frustrating about the tv show is that there is soooo much more story to tell. I'm about halfway done with the last book, Leviathan Falls, and I'm excited to see how they bring the series to a conclusion. I know Patrick has read it (no spoilers please), and I'll be there soon enough. Anyone that watched season six knows that the showrunner sprinkled Laconia plot line seeds throughout the six episodes. So the people who haven't read the book are probably going to be invested in a plot line that will now have no resolution. However, there are rumors that maybe some movies might be in discussion to pick up events in the last three books that take place thirty years later (there's a big time jump in the books). This is all just speculation on the part of rabid fans and not real news. For whatever it's worth, The Expanse threw up the equivalent of a "Hail Mary" pass in its last season to generate enough buzz in the hopes that someone (with the power to produce things) might pick it up later. It's an interesting strategy, and as someone that loves the books, I hope it bears fruit.

Anyway, I'm sad that The Expanse has ended. It sure was an amazing story, and it just captured me from the get go and never let up. Did anyone else out there watch it? If so, what did you think?