The Expanse is set in the future, when other parts of the solar system have been colonized. And things aren't going particularly well. Of course, I knew that right from the opening scene when we're informed that Earth (and moon station Luna) is now governed by the United Nations- that's a dystopian nightmare all on its own. Talk about a wretched hive of scum and villainy... but I digress. A lot of people have left Earth for space because it's apparently a stagnant, slowly fading, mismanaged power- uh, yeah, it's run by the U.N. Hello. Mars has been colonized and is a center for innovation and is a technological and economic powerhouse. A lot of people living there have never been to Earth, never breathed actual fresh air. They are, however, working on terraforming Mars to make it habitable without the domes. There's a good deal of mistrust, resentment, and outright hostility between Earth and Mars; the term 'Cold War' is occasionally thrown about. Then there's the "Belt"- the asteroids and bases on other moons where the "Belters" live and work, supplying ores, minerals and ice mined from the Belt to Earth and Mars. There is a lot of resentment among the Belters towards both Earth and Mars; most Belters are poor, live and work in hazardous conditions, and experience significant health problems from being in zero gravity for extended periods of time. They feel powerless and exploited, at the mercy of the big companies of Mars and Earth who care little for the lives of the Belters. Life expectancy on Earth and Mars has now increased to something like 130 years; in the Belt, it's 68. Some Belters have joined a resistance group called the Outer Planets Alliance to try to force Earth and Mars to give them political power.
On the asteroid Ceres, we meet police detective Joe Miller who is assigned a missing person case: Julie Mao, the rebellious daughter of a wealthy executive who ran off to join the OPA and has disappeared. The last four members of the main cast are crew members of the space freighter Canterbury who are the only survivors after their ship is attacked and destroyed while they are answering a phony distress call. At first it appears that this was an unprovoked attack by Mars but it turns out that Mars was framed for the destruction of the Canterbury by an unknown party, presumably to set a spark to the tensions between Earth and Mars for some reason. The four crew mates- James Holden, Naomi Nagata, Alex Kamal and Amos Burton- are inadvertently caught up in what has become an interplanetary incident and don't know who to trust, or even if they can trust each other. Gradually, as all of these character' story lines intersect, we realize that someone is deliberately stoking unrest to make sure everyone is looking the other way while they construct some sort of terrible bio-weapon which they test on the population of Eros, one of the asteroids in the Belt, with horrific results. This is where series one ends, with the four crew members and Miller- whom they've met up with- escaping Eros in the nick of time.
As I said, The Expanse was a bit of a slow starter for me, but it grew on me and I'm now looking forward to starting series two. The characters and plot are interesting, and I appreciate the fact that there's not, as of yet, any tiresome identity politics going on in the show. The characters are who they are, warts and all, without their race, sex, or any other irrelevant traits coming into play. Thank goodness. Also, I appreciate that the show has some strong female characters that it doesn't feel it has to make into action heroes to prove that they are strong. I'm so tired of movies and shows which seem to think that women can only be strong if they can karate chop their way through ten guys twice their size without breaking into a sweat. But that's a topic for another day; right now, The Expanse is off to a good start and I definitely recommend it. Let's see what Series II brings.