Hockey, The Expanse

[schneefink]

The Pens won 7-2 against the Red Wings! Fun game to watch, especially because I missed the first period (I forgot it was an afternoon game) and only saw the good parts. Dumo and Kuni though :( This team and injuries, incredible.

Women's Ice Hockey World Championship Div1 Group A started! (overview) Last year Austria got its best result so far, second; the first place is promoted to the main group each year. Last year Germany was relegated, so it could come down to an Austria-Germany game for first place on the last day, wheee.
Austria won 4-3 against Denmark on a SH GWG with 45 seconds to go, and yesterday they won against Norway in the shootout after being down 0-3. They like to make things exciting!


I started watching "The Expanse" because I hoped it was as good as the concept had the potential to be and better than the trailer. I almost stopped watching after the first episode, then continued on a friend's rec until episode five and now decided to stop and only read the rest of the episode summaries on Wikipedia.

There are exactly two surviving characters I care about, Naomi and Amos, and it's not worth watching the rest anymore. I really liked Captain Yao too, and her ship, but they died after one episode.

Of the main characters, five episodes in and I still don't give a fuck about Joe Miller. If being absolutely boring and cliché wasn't enough, the second thing we see him do is assault a suspect for no good reason, and it wasn't even his own interrogation. I'm tired of being presented with white (presumably) straight (presumably) cis able-bodied male characters that I'm expected to care about for no reason. Especially when they're in positions of authority that there's no indication they earned. Boooring.

Jim Holden is only marginally better. We meet him while he's fucking his girlfriend who might leave the ship in a few months, then he gets promoted even though he doesn't want to, oh no his life is so hard. Responding to the distress call made him at least have some personality. Nothing interesting though, standard reluctant hero type.

I had such high hopes for Chrisjen Avasarala (if I hadn't checked I would have no idea what her name was.) A high-ranking, manipulative UN politician, an older Indian woman with a family, so much potential. Then the second scene she's in we see her order a suspect tortured. I fucking hate how frequently torture comes up so casually on TV. She seems naïve for a politician, wants to act before confirming intel or even questioning it – how did she get her position that way? I want characters I (want to) like to be competent, that's not too much to ask for. In addition to that many of her scenes are slow, and that on a show that feels slow in general.

I liked the political set-up, especially in the episode "CQB" when we finally get the Martians' perspective. Reminds me of Killjoys, it's also only in one solar system and one important theme is colonization. Unlike Killjoys The Expanse has the political side very prominent from the beginning, but they too need a few episodes until it feels "natural." It probably would have helped if I'd paid better attention to the Ceres station parts, but they were so boring, and not even Miller cared.

Comments

[the_rck]

I didn't pay much attention while my husband watched The Expanse, so I wasn't surprised that I never figured out what was going on, but he did pay attention, and he kept losing track of which episodes he'd already watched and forgetting what happened in them. All bad signs.

[schneefink]

I'm not surprised, especially with two of the three storylines. It's possible to do good detective storylines even in non-detective shows, but Miller's is not done well. And Avasarala's storyline is basically just reacting to stuff happening elsewhere.

[scintilla10]

I'm not that interested in continuing the show either, despite the fact that it's conceptually the kind of scifi I'd be interested in! ): Unfortunately, I feel like the concept is better than the books as well. I read the second book in the series last summer (avoiding the first book in the series, which follows the plot of the tv show thus far) on the recommendation of Renay from Ladybusiness (see her recommendation here). There are more ladies in the second book and hardly any Miller (who was a dick in the books as well), however, the writing is mediocre at best. I enjoyed the plot elements of Book 2 enough to check out the show, but it is pretty, well, underwhelming. I enjoyed Killjoys much more, as it was a better blend of developing character relationships that I cared about, and also was much more fun!

[schneefink]

The rec does make the books sound more interesting. It calls Avasarala competent, sadly the show writers didn't manage that.

I didn't think of it before, but you're right, one of the reasons why I enjoyed Killjoys much more than The Expanse is because Killjoys is more fun to watch. People actually laugh and smile, it's nice.

[naye]

Thanks for the Expanse spoilers - Skuld's had someone try to sell her the show, but I've been skeptical, and you hit every single one of my "don't waste your time" points here! (Also, "Joe" and "Jim"?! Really? Did they run out of "John"...? Ugh. It's like they're trying to make me not care.)

[schneefink]

They might have a character named John next season, I wouldn't put it past them ^^