The Expanse - Television Season 3 Review

Man, oh man, this show just continues to impress! For some reason, I recall not being all that impressed when I originally viewed this season back in 2018, but my second viewing has been really enjoyable. It makes me increasingly excited for season 4 as I have yet to see it at all, so I'll be going in completely blind. I hope you all will join me and Rocinante crew when that time inevitably comes! I continued this series on Amazon Video, where it is free with those that subscribe to Amazon Prime. 

*

General Information 
The third season of the Expanse hit screens on 11 April 2018 and is the last season that was produced under the Syfy channel. Similarly to season 2 (check out my review for it here), this one covers the second half of Caliban’s War and covers a large part of Abaddon’s Gate. As season 4 was produced by Amazon, I wonder if it will follow the same blueprint as season 2 and season 3 by splitting the season again. It wasn’t as bad in season 2, but I was not overly fond of this season getting cut into two halves. Despite that, season 3 had a slight increase in viewership and received possibly more critical praise than the previous seasons. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 100% rating on the Tomatometer, as well as a 97% Audience Score!

The Story
Things are looking particularly grim for the Rocinante crew as they come to terms with Naomi handing over the Protomolecule to Fred Johnson while Avasarala deals with trying to expose Undersecretary Sadavir Errinwright’s unholy alliance with Jules-Pierre Mao. The threat of the Protomolecule hybrids are far from gone and things are even worse as Mars and Earth are about to go to war. The second half of the season reveals what the Protomolecule on Venus has been up to, which leads Holden & Co. on a mission to save the entire solar system from total annihilation.

I was really impressed with the first half of this season, as the possibility of Earth and Mars going to war has been ominously discussed through much of the previous seasons. We don’t necessarily get to see too much of the conflict between the two planets first-hand (likely due to budgetary constraints), but it’s abundantly clear that this is causing real harm to everyone. This harm is what brings Pastor Anna Volovodov (excellently played by Elizabeth Mitchell) to the United Nations to act as the conscience for United Nations Secretary-General, Esteban Sorrento-Gillis (played by Jonathan Whittaker).

**
Anna Volovodov brings a perfect blend of common sense and compassion to the show

One of the glaring issues with the split-point in the middle of this season is that the second half picks up fairly later after the first. We didn't really see this happen much when season 2 split as there wasn't as much of a leap in time. Don't get me wrong though, the second half of this season is still really well done, but it just seems like it doesn't belong where it is. Some characters seemingly vanish from the plot at the half-way mark, but new arrivals like Klaes Ashford (played by David Straithairn) really help fill the void.

Special Effects/Atmosphere
The Protomolecule hybrids continue to look absolutely horrendous. I was glad they were only in a few scenes, as the rest of the special effects remains on par with what was seen in previous seasons (possibly even better). We get to see ships and space travel a lot more in this season, and I really enjoyed seeing how each one looked unique and special.

I really liked the scenery in the second half of this season and generally view that as the better looking half. We see a lot more space travel and different indoor locations that all just really pop. There's a few times where the green screen is pretty apparent, but I don't hold it against the show too much as they were doing something relatively neat with the technology on-hand.

The Acting
At this point, I would usually espouse my adoration and celebration of Shoreh Aghdashloo, and although she remains as majestic and awesome as previous seasons, we don't see her as much as we did in the first two seasons(she's practically non-existent in the second half). This season's biggest stars are the dynamic duo of Camina Drummer (played by Cara Gee) and Klaes Ashford (David Straithairn). These two have incredible chemistry when they're on the screen together and I loved their back-and-forth banter. There's a great scene where they both sing an old Belter tune while stuck in a room that stands as one of my all-time favorites of the series. We'd seen Cara Gee before in the previous seasons, but this is definitely her best performance thus far. Straithairn is an excellent addition as well and I'm hoping we see him again in season 4.

***
Drummer and Ashford are a match made in Belter heaven

I'm starting to become slightly disappointed with the Rocinante crew as we've entered our third season and some of them still feel like strangers while lacking chemistry. On a positive note, Steven Strait does his best work in this season (especially in the second half), and we see a fair amount of quality performance from Dominique Tipper. It's Wes Chatham (Amos) and Cas Anvar (Alex), who have somewhat petered out. Chatham has decent chemistry with Tipper and Prax's Terry Chen, but Cas Anvar rarely has much to do and few to interact with. For a small group of explorers that have braved the solar system, there are times I just don't feel that there's much cohesion there.

The Best of the Best: The reappearance of a certain investigator had me running around my apartment cheering and hollering like a crazy person.

The Worst of the Worst: Bobbie Draper's showdown with the Protomolecule hybrid was pretty lackluster.

Would I Recommend?
****
Do it for the Belt!

Season 3 continues to kick some serious butt, so I definitely recommend it to those that have liked the previous seasons. This show has yet to show signs of running out of steam, and the ending of this season makes me believe that there are endless opportunities on-hand for where the show can go from here.

-------------------------------------------------Spoiler Comments-----------------------------------------------------
  • I'm not sure I really liked Errinwright's turn as somewhat sympathetic villain to mustache-twirling mastermind. I get that he needs to kill Avasarala to hid his conspiracy with Mao, but it seemed like he trolled Volovodov just so the viewer could be reminded that he's a bad guy.
  • I don't recall seeing Volovodov give that random protestor her contact info, but I guess it was nice of him to send her a pic of him with a non-broken arm.
  • Do you think we'll see Prax in season 4? I like him and Bobbie Draper becoming part of the crew, but it doesn't seem like either of them are permanent members of the team. Alex needs someone to talk to.
  • Large-caliber machine gun rounds have seemingly no effect on a Protomolecule hybrid, but a single shot the to the head kills them instantly? That's definitely a step down from season 2, when they had to use a nuke as bait so they could incinerate it.
  • Considering the fact that none of the characters involved were main characters, I really loved the mutiny aboard the Agatha King. Admiral Souther went out like a hero, and I wound up feeling more sympathetic to Souther and his sailors than I've probably ever felt about half of the Rocinante crew.
  • I wish Tom Jane would randomly materialize around me to tell me about the brothels that the Loca Griegas are running.
  • With the vision that Holden had about the "Builders" getting wiped out via mass-extinction, does that mean this show is officially part of the Mass Effect series? I'm just waiting for ghost-Miller to rant about the Reapers.
----------------------------------------------------References--------------------------------------------------
*JustWatch. (n.d.). The Expanse season three cover image. Retrieved from: https://www.justwatch.com/se/tv-series/the-expanse/season-3.
**Kane2026. (2018, April 19). Anna Volovodov image. SciFiEmpire.net. Retrieved from: https://scifiempire.net/wordpress/the-expanse-s03e02-iff-review/.
***Ahr, M. (2019, December 16). Drummer and Ashford image. Den of Geek. Retrieved from: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/the-expanse-season-4-ending-explained/.
****Thibaut, D. (2020). For Beltalowda gif. Pinterest. Retrieved from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/43347215149266097/. 

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