Hey guys, Pete here. Today i'm going to give you my spoiler-free impressions of the expanse season
6. i don't usually do videos like this and i don't normally watch too far ahead when i have screeners
for a show, but i started this and even with taking notes and reading the ninth book Leviathan
Falls I still ended up getting through it in a few days. And they did send out all
six episodes so here we are and there's a lot of good to talk about here and I can do that
in a pretty spoiler-free way. I'm definitely not going to spoil any major plot points so
unless you just don't want to know anything you should be able to watch this video and with that
out of the way let's get into it. I suppose the main question you have if you're here is,
"is it a good ending?" and i think the answer to that is yes. Given the situation, that this is the
last season that amazon prime video is making, I think it does a solid job of wrapping up the story
where it is and it leaves things open for a future adaptation. there's still three more books to go.
my quick spoiler-free review of Leviathan Falls is they did stick the landing and i hope that
we'll one day be able to see it, but there's a lot to like in this sixth season of the show.
there are some really memorable character moments. I won't get into any specifics but Holden,
Naomi, and Amos all had at least one scene that hit harder than it had a right to.
some of the changes they made to the story helped to set some of these up which means they're not
necessarily things that people who read the books are waiting for which is a nice bonus.
Drummer has a scene that probably takes the cake in this category for me but whoever your favorite
character is they probably have a spotlight moment. it does feel like a final season in
that regard. there are some really good callbacks and some characters from prior seasons popped back
up. there was at least one that was kind of obscure and put a smile on my face because I
wasn't expecting it. that happens in the premiere and i think you'll know the character from season
1 i'm talking about when you see it. not to create unrealistic expectations here though,
there are definitely some that are missing and are missed as far as how the book played out.
there are a handful of point of view characters from the book that aren't even mentioned or hinted
at on the show. another plus is that there is a lot of high quality space porn and not just
battles but there are those too. but there's just a lot of stuff that really looks authentic here
and they spend a lot of time in the Rocinante and it feels like we see more of that than we ever did
in the past. there's one scene in the premiere where Amos goes outside for some maintenance
and it's just leagues ahead of anything they did in those first few seasons. it's not flashy or
impressive other than it just looks like Wes Chatham is actually in a spacesuit in space
walking on the outside of a spaceship to do a job and it's the way that they track him and how it's
set up perfectly it just allows them to flex their muscles and show how good they've gotten
all of this over the years. there's another thing later in the season where with a lesser show you
might think oh now you're just showing off but the whole thing makes sense and it's a cool sequence
that feels like it was spawned from writers who know what their vfx crew is capable of.
the visual effects also have pretty consistently improved season after season and there are some
real set pieces here to look forward to. as i said the crew are in the Roci for most of the season
and there are some battles going on which they always do pretty well but i don't think it's as
wall to wall as some fans might have been hoping. i think realistically it's on par
with about how much we saw in season five except there is one really big and crazy season defining
sequence which didn't really disappoint. book readers will likely know what i'm referring to
here and it doesn't play out exactly the same but they managed to add a little more intensity with
some of the changes they made. and overall most of the changes in the season worked that way but they
also did cut out a lot which makes me wonder how easy it will be to follow for non-book readers.
and that brings up some of the criticisms i have. it is super short there's just no getting around
it. it's mostly paced well as in it's in good hands as far as streamlining things without
dropping important character stuff but it's still less than 5 hours total and it goes by fast with
45 minute episodes. plus I love that they added Strange Dogs and i think it works well alongside
with what's happening in Sol but that takes up a handful of minutes in a cold open in every
single episode. another thing is that you can tell this season is different because of covid.
it's subtle but you can tell that they were restricted in some ways. i can't say for sure
but it seems possible that this has something to do with which characters they brought back
and which ones they didn't. there are at least a few characters who i expected to be involved that
are barely mentioned if at all. it just feels like they couldn't get them back under these conditions
and there are some brand new characters which is where i think the shortness really makes a
difference. the casting and the performances are good but if you're not really paying attention
to the dialogue you might find yourself later thinking like why is this person here? there's
just not enough time to develop them and there are other decisions they made that seem to be a
result of some combination of these two things, so there are some issues. i should mention that
the showrunner said at the new york city comic con that there would be additional shorts in the x-ray
extras between each episode. i haven't seen those and they could fill in some of the details that
feel light in these episodes. apparently there's going to be mini-episodes between the episodes.
there was one sequence that i was really looking forward to seeing from the books that i didn't
think translated that well to the show. it was still good but i didn't think it had the same
tension and i'm not sure it would come off as impressive if you hadn't read the books,
but they did add some interesting stuff. i was caught by surprise at a couple of points and they
definitely played around with the idea that they could kill someone off. i won't confirm if they
did or not but there was at least one time when i was yelling at the screen because i was convinced
it was a setup to end the character. overall i think they made it work. there's a nice balance
between the big stuff that's going on in space and the intimate moments that happen on the ship
in between the characters and in some ways it doesn't feel like the ending we want as far as
we know there's more there but they made the end that we get count and i think that's a good place
to leave things i'm gonna be breaking down every episode as they come out so i really don't need
to say much more here it's fast but it's not game of thrones season eight i can guarantee
that to be fair though it does have a much shorter run time than that i've seen some things that i
always wanted to see on screen and i'm pretty happy about it so let me know what you're hoping
to see and how you think things are gonna play out please like this video if you enjoyed it
please subscribe to my channel if you haven't already make sure you check out my series recap
for everything you need to remember for season six and thanks for watching i'll talk to you soon