Sam Mell

The Expanse has been enormously entertaining to me, though unfortunately not for the reasons intended by its creators. Having heard nothing but good things about it, it's been amusing watching it as a train wreck and laughing at it in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. The characters are shallow and sterile, I counted a grand total of two scenes over the course of 4 seasons of the main characters just in a no-danger, no-stress situation where they could talk and interact and bounce off one another. They were the best scenes of the show. I have a lot of criticisms about this show. From shoddy pacing, to a lack of focus for the overarching plot, to the snails pace that is said overarching plot, to scenes where the "surprise" twist is so telegraphed that it's boring just sitting and waiting for it to happen. But I think there's a much more succinct way to get across how badly this show fails. I just finished season 4 quite literally minutes ago. Almost 50 episodes at ~45 minutes each. Over 36 solid hours, binged over the past two weeks. And I still do not have any idea what the goals and motivations of the protagonists are. Everything has simply been them reacting to dangerous situations for four seasons straight. I don't know who they are. What their hopes and dreams are. And that is as damning an indictment I can give to any story.