General / Off-Topic The Expanse, Season 5 :: December 16th 2020

[Morbad]

Perfectly possible to have drama without making everyone uncharacteristically stupid.

I'm willing to let the issue with Tiny--the seemingly redundant shooting of holes in plates to create handholds that should already exist--slide as a set-design snafu. However, everyone who knew about Sakai's betrayal suddenly forgetting she was Tycho's chief engineer and had been overseeing work on the Rocinante is much harder to excuse. It also wasn't necessary for dramatic tension. A few minor changes/additions (a rushed inspection that finds some clever, but decoy, sabotage; mention that the Rocinante was the only suitable ship; reiterating the need for haste to justify the obvious risk in using the ship, etc) could have gone a long way. Maybe they still will, but right now, it seems like a major oversight.

 

[Stigbob]

The horror film where no one goes into the cellar with just a candle or didn't stick their face in the alien egg wouldn't be very popular.

Aliens the sensible screen play :

Scene Sulaco briefing just after breakfast.

"We are in orbit over LV426 and have dropped some remote probes, the colonies crawling with Ripley's bad guys and it looks like everyone's dead. So we nuked it from orbit, everyone go back to bed."

 

[Factabulous]

Perfectly possible to have drama without making everyone uncharacteristically stupid.

I'm willing to let the issue with Tiny--the seemingly redundant shooting of holes in plates to create handholds that should already exist--slide as a set-design snafu. However, everyone who knew about Sakai's betrayal suddenly forgetting she was Tycho's chief engineer and had been overseeing work on the Rocinante is much harder to excuse. It also wasn't necessary for dramatic tension. A few minor changes/additions (a rushed inspection that finds some clever, but decoy, sabotage; mention that the Rocinante was the only suitable ship; reiterating the need for haste to justify the obvious risk in using the ship, etc) could have gone a long way. Maybe they still will, but right now, it seems like a major oversight.

The writer seems to agree that people are missing things:

Spoiler

https://twitter.com/x/status/1344422816825765888

Source: https://twitter.com/JamesSACorey/status/1344422816825765888?s=20

Not sure it's the greatest writing to expect people to infer one thing over the other. They've said the same about the series before - that it doesn't go out of its way to explain things. Not watched the show yet, but I don't remember being annoyed by the way it pans out in the books - but then again I know in previous series I have wondered how anyone can understand it without reading the books (despite them being often quite different).

 

[Rubbernuke]

The problem as I see it is the writers (who wrote the books too) don't see the show 'cold' like some do. The hints are there, but you have to rewatch to catch them (for example Inaros watching the Roci docked for the explosion). It ruins the flow of the episode really.

This was not an issue for early series (its why I loved the first series so much, never reading the book) but as time has gone on the reliance on foreknowledge and hints has made it less friendly to new viewers.

 

[Morbad]

The writer seems to agree that people are missing things

Things that apparently aren't there to see in the series.

Not sure it's the greatest writing to expect people to infer one thing over the other. They've said the same about the series before - that it doesn't go out of its way to explain things. Not watched the show yet, but I don't remember being annoyed by the way it pans out in the books - but then again I know in previous series I have wondered how anyone can understand it without reading the books (despite them being often quite different).

I haven't read the books.

The Gamarra is mentioned briefly once, with nearly zero context, in the first episode of Season 5. I had to look up spoilers from the books to get any hint of it of it's significance.

In the TV series essentially nothing has been telegraphed or hinted at with regard to the checks that Corey says are occurring. From the perspective of a viewer it seems as though Holden and everyone else are just assuming the ship is fine.

Even after reading about how it's presented in the books, I'm still suspicious of their behavior regarding the physical and data security of the Roci; perhaps because it touches on one of my particular areas of knowledge. Then again, they couldn't find a blob of protomolecule that was on the ship for months...so lapses in security aren't really uncharacteristic, unless one expects them to learn from such events.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Things that apparently aren't there to see in the series.



I haven't read the books.

The Gamarra is mentioned briefly once, with nearly zero context, in the first episode of Season 5. I had to look up spoilers from the books to get any hint of it of it's significance.

In the TV series essentially nothing has been telegraphed or hinted at with regard to the checks that Corey says are occurring. From the perspective of a viewer it seems as though Holden and everyone else are just assuming the ship is fine.

Even after reading about how it's presented in the books, I'm still suspicious of their behavior regarding the physical and data security of the Roci; perhaps because it touches on one of my particular areas of knowledge. Then again, they couldn't find a blob of protomolecule that was on the ship for months...so lapses in security aren't really uncharacteristic, unless one expects them to learn from such events.

Spoiler

The hints are (for me) scattered all over the TV series across seasons- Nagata talks about it in past series (but puts no name to it), in S5 you have the moon based memorial (which I thought was to do with Marco testing Earths defences shooting down a ship initially), and little snippets here and there.

For me this is a symptom of compressing too much into too short an episode- I certainly don't mind paying attention and having to concentrate, but how they presented the information is IMO sloppy.

 

[Morbad]

Spoiler

The hints are (for me) scattered all over the TV series across seasons- Nagata talks about it in past series (but puts no name to it), in S5 you have the moon based memorial (which I thought was to do with Marco testing Earths defences shooting down a ship initially), and little snippets here and there.

For me this is a symptom of compressing too much into too short an episode- I certainly don't mind paying attention and having to concentrate, but how they presented the information is IMO sloppy.

That she was involved in the destruction of that ship during her time with Marco was made relatively clear in S5E1, but how that event relates to the Roci, specifically why it would somehow excuse no screen time, and minimal in-setting chronological time (a few days, for a comprehensive inspection of a small warship and a complete wipe/restore of every computer on it? That's about two orders of magnitude too fast for what I'd intuit, even if I can suspend my disbelief at not scuttling the ship, just to be safe), being devoted to them combing over the Roci for signs of sabotage, is not.

It's not that anyone seems surprised that the Roci was sabotaged, but that Holden and everyone else in the know on Tycho didn't just assume it was now a deathtrap...a flying Tomb of Horrors. Or rather that they thought their basic, entirely off-screen, diagnostic procedure would be sufficient. When dealing with nation-state level opposition or even 'only' a major terrorist operation, checking the tire pressure and running your free anti-virus scan probably isn't going to cut it. Specific knowledge of some "Gamarra code" shouldn't be required for them to realize that someone smart enough to be chief engineer on Tycho could do a whole lot of very subtle damage to a vessel she was given unlimited access to for weeks.

 

[Rubbernuke]

That she was involved in the destruction of that ship during her time with Marco was made relatively clear in S5E1, but how that event relates to the Roci

SPOILER SNIP

Spoiler

And I agree- how it was written was the issue. It could have been solved with a line of dialogue from a loyalist engineer saying something like "we checked, no problems found", and Nagatas message being extended with her responding to Holden saying "its all been checked" with her saying "my codes designed not to be found, its there! Trust me!".

 

[Factabulous]

I'm now more looking forward to seeing S5 when it's complete, as I want to see if it bothers me as much

(Gotta remember - space ship security in the Expanse does seem to be very bad - remember earlier (S3?) when the Roci, an ex-Martian Military ship, had its comms and weapons taken over by a blind cameraman with no military training?)

Lots of things in the series I have to ignore, because it is very good story-telling. S4 they hid from a tsunami by rappelling down into an alien structure, because apparently water won't enter from above? (In the books they go up within the structure to get away from the water - still have no idea why they changed that)

 

[Rubbernuke]

Spoiler

If it were me, EP 4 and 5 with Fillip, Naomi and Marco would have been radically different.

EP 4 should have been Marco making Naomi suspect he was using the malware, with Naomi asking Marco why he's looking at the Roci (and not seeing this in the background if you were looking at that spot at the right time). Marco likes to crow, and it would play to his ego which is his greatest flaw.Then it would be her putting two and two together at that point, setting up EP 5 for her contacting the Roci with a short exchange which would show the bond Holden and Naomi have just as well.

I hate the 'tell don't show' methodology some scripts have, but sometimes you need to structure the flow of events better- and recent Expanse episodes should have been less clever and more direct. Its all very well playing to the fans with easter eggs, but I enjoyed EP 5 the least after the cracking first 3.

 

[Morbad]

Spoiler

And I agree- how it was written was the issue. It could have been solved with a line of dialogue from a loyalist engineer saying something like "we checked, no problems found", and Nagatas message being extended with her responding to Holden saying "its all been checked" with her saying "my codes designed not to be found, its there! Trust me!".

That's pretty much what I was saying in my second post.

The Gamarra details the author mentions, or the specifics of the malware, are largely irrelevant...the issue is that we have no explanation given for why the Roci is cleared for use. It goes from, 'girl rebuilds Roci', to 'girl revealed as traitor', to 'all aboard the Roci!'...with nothing filling the rather glaring gap between two and three, as far as anyone on Tycho seems to be concerned.

 

[Rubbernuke]

That's pretty much what I was saying in my second post.

The Gamarra details the author mentions, or the specifics of the malware, are largely irrelevant...the issue is that we have no explanation given for why the Roci is cleared for use. It goes from, 'girl rebuilds Roci', to 'girl revealed as traitor', to 'all aboard the Roci!'...with nothing filling the rather glaring gap between two and three, as far as anyone on Tycho seems to be concerned.

Whats maddening is that it would take only a few lines to sort out too. I also get the impression that a lot of fans overlook these logical problems by using the books to fill in the blanks the show can't (or does not) have time for.

 

[Mu77ley]

The Gamarra is mentioned briefly once, with nearly zero context, in the first episode of Season 5. I had to look up spoilers from the books to get any hint of it of it's significance.

The entire Augustin Gamarra story is told in great detail in S04E05, when Naomi tells Lucia all about how Marco tricked her and used her code to blow the ship up.

 

[lysan]

This show just get better and better, oh boy I really enjoy it! That and the last edition of the Mandalorian

 

[Morbad]

The entire Augustin Gamarra story is told in great detail in S04E05, when Naomi tells Lucia all about how Marco tricked her and used her code to blow the ship up.

So it is (around 36 minutes in). I had almost entirely forgotten about the details of that episode, even after S5E1 reminded me of the general content of the exchange.

Still doesn't address my criticism around the depiction of the security and inspection procedures with regard to the Rocinante.

 

[Mu77ley]

Still doesn't address my criticism around the depiction of the security and inspection procedures with regard to the Rocinante.

Well, it seems a rather inconsequential thing to get worked up about TBH. It's a 49min TV show, they can't (and shouldn't) show absolutely everything that happens. Some things can just be taken as read that they've been done...

 

[Morbad]

Well, it seems a rather inconsequential thing to get worked up about TBH. It's a 49min TV show, they can't (and shouldn't) show absolutely everything that happens. Some things can just be taken as read that they've been done...

I don't agree at all that it's inconsequential.

The ship is essentially a main character and it's ability to function as expected has enormous plot implications. Glossing over something that I would expect to result in a protracted inspection teardown, if not the destructive decommissioning of the ship, is not a trivial matter. The assumption should always have been sabotage and the burden of proving it did not occur should have been extreme, as would the urgency of the situation required to abbreviate that due diligence...either of which would be deserving of more screen time than was given.

Putting the Rocinante back in service, only a few days after the engineer in charge of it's overhaul was revealed as an enemy operative, is probably one of the most glaring omissions of exposition that I can recall in the entire run of the series. Indeed, it's rivaled only by putting the Rocinante back in service after discovering a human-protomolecule hybrid had stowed away on it for a protracted period of time...which nearly resulted in the deaths of most of the main cast, and could have been the proverbial end of the world. I assumed in the first example, with the hybrid, that they did actually inspect things thoroughly when they could, and just screwed it up. However, in the case of being sabotaged at Tycho, there was no time allowed for such an assumption. Even if I assume future inspection techniques that border on the magical, the timeline is absurd...and evidently such an inspection was not sufficient, else they would not have needed to have been warned moments before disaster.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yep, I know we hate to use the term poor writing for a great show like The Expanse but you gotta call it as it is. If the first thing I (a geeky academic) think of is "Hey! Didn't that girl upgrade our ship" then a smart, savvy operator like Holden should've been cluey as well. They didn't even need to make a big deal about it, just a single line like "Crap, check my ship for bugs!". There's even an industry term for it - "It's called hanging a lampshade on it".

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Book 9 is 2021 which ruined my xmas reading list.

The bigger issue right now for the TV show is the cloud hanging over Cas Anvar and recasting for season 6, if they choose to. They might write out his character.

The authors also talk about that break between 6-7 where they say they cut out a lot of boring stuff, so hopefully Amazon won't get greedy and they do it 'as is'.

I think they are replacing Alex with Bull. A heroic sacrifice to save Naomi may be in the last episode.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

It's such a rich world, I've thought for a while it would be a great setting for a proper MMO.

It's called Traveller.