The Expanse Season 1 Offers a Blueprint for Adapting a Novel Series to TV

The Expanse has completed its first season, and with no new episodes airing for at least another year, I wanted to take one last, loving look at the inaugural run. It’s been a fun ride, but now that we’ve seen the entire thing, how does it stack up to Leviathan Wakes?

It turns out: pretty well. As with any adaptation, there’s the caveat that material must always be cut for time or budget, or simply because something that works on the page won’t necessarily work on television. But in many ways, The Expanse cherry-picked best parts of Leviathan Wakes, even streamlining and improving some parts of the narrative.

What is perhaps most impressive is how well the show captures the books’ epic far-future setting. James S.A. Corey has built a detailed, richly textured environment for these characters, and translating it to the screen was a tall order. We’re talking about three major societies: Earth, Mars, and the Belt. The show handles the the strained relations between them well from the start, and, in particular, emphasizes the difficult lives of the Belters front and center. Drawing on present-day national and international events, from police shootings to terrorist attacks, this emphasis makes the series feel very relevant, much like commentary on the post-9/11 world figured into Battlestar Galactica.

The first scene features a Belter giving a speech about how basic necessities are being restricted, even as indifferent politicians on Ceres station dismiss the situation deteriorating around them. There are great scenes that weren’t in the books, such as when a random Belter ship is boarded by Martian marines who literally hand the crew a death sentence. This is all communicated through depictions of the Belters—including their unique language and body language. The show also does a good job showing how different the Belters are physically—sticklers complained that the Belters of the books would be large-headed stick figures, but the production translates the tricky description into visual reality very well.

The first novel’s overarching story proved to be too much for a single season of television, cutting off a bit beyond the halfway point, but I was happily surprised at how much material was created just for the show: Avasalara doesn’t figure in at all in Leviathan Wakes, and we get a couple of episodes that plot a course far off the page, and almost all of it works. Early on, Holden and company’s flight to the Donnager took weeks on the page, something that would have been impractical on television world, halting all forward momentum. The episode introduced Kenzo and filled in a bit of backstory and transitioned the Roci from one point to the other, whereas in the book, the crew simply departs one station and arrives in another in the next chapter. Avasalara’s presence was essential for the larger story, providing context for political schemes that play out in the books’ background. Season 1 wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without her.

I did miss a few things from the books. The scene of Miller facing down a mob of Belters on Ceres station played out a little differently, and Star Helix having their riot gear stolen was a subplot that probably could have added additional context to the final episodes. What did surprise was how long it took Holden’s crew to really come together—and they still have a ways to go. Holden and Amos were far more antagonistic towards one another, while Amos and Naomi’s relationship felt a bit different. The changes came down to decisions by the writers rather than the actors; for the most part, the casting director nailed it. Thomas Jane owns the role of Miller, while Dominique Tipper just is Naomi. Others, like Cas Anvar (Alex), Florence Faivre (Julie), and Shohreh Aghdashloo (Avasalara) are brilliant, adding new layers to already compelling characters. Steven Strait didn’t match the Holden of my imagination, but quickly sold me as well. It took a bit longer for me to warm up to Wes Chatham, and it took me most of the season to accept his take on Amos, but, by the end, I did. Even as the characters take a different path than they did in the books, I think their struggles, arguments and antagonism will meld them into a better unit moving forward.

The real advantage the series has over the books is the eye-candy factor: the visual effects and set design. It’s impressive what they’ve accomplished on a limited budget, with memorable sequences (the flip and burn in episode one, those fantastic space scenes near Ceres) littered throughout.

I was able to visit the set last year. I was blown away by what I saw, and it looks even better onscreen. Syfy series sometimes look like they’ve been produced on a strained budget—I’m thinking specifically of Dark Matter and Killjoys—but you can tell here that a lot of time, energy, and money was poured into The Expanse to make it look best it could.

So, what do we have to look forward to in Season 2? Well, spoilers, but…

We’ve only covered about two-thirds of Leviathan Wakes: Eros station is now infected. Some later scenes were brought forward, but we can still expect to see Holden and the OPA take on Dresden and his station to find out what’s going on with the protomolocule.  We know that Miller and Holden will have a falling out, and that Miller will meet his destiny on Eros.

Judging from comments Daniel Abraham has made online, we can also expect more bits of Caliban’s War to pop up in season 2, particularly Martian Marine Bobbi Draper. Given how Leviathan Wakes ends, it’ll be interesting to see how the books are meshed together: I can’t see them introducing Bobbi at the end of the season, but given how Leviathan Wakes and Caliban’s War meet up, there will have to be some major changes to make it work. Fortunately, the writers seem to have the mentality of adapting the world as a whole, rather being slavish to each individual book. It’s worked so far, and if they hold to the same level of quality, season 2 should be amazing.

Hopefully, we’ll see a bump in their ratings: a decade ago, The Expanse may have faced cancellation with the numbers it has been pulling, but the landscape has changed, and there’s still plenty of time for the show to find its audience over the next 12 months.

The final verdict? Syfy, Alcon Entertainment, the writers, and cast did a phenomenal job bringing these books to television, and demonstrated that you don’t need to adhere strictly to the page to get the story across. We can’t wait for more, and fortunately, you don’t have long to wait to see it again: the episodes are streaming in all the usual places, and the DVDs will be available April 5. In the meantime, you can do some reading: the sixth Expanse novel, Babylon’s Ashes, is out in August.