5 ms·

> If this show gets cancelled, this will be a huge blow to [...] efforts to keep people interested in realistic space exploration. Out of curiosity, are you ba

by salvar 8y ago

> If this show gets cancelled, this will be a huge blow to [...] efforts to keep people interested in realistic space exploration. Out of curiosity, are you basing this on anything or is it just your feeling?

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Mostly my feelings/intuition, but here's the argument: Name one other thing recently on air that's realistic about space while also being interesting to general audience. Closest thing that comes to mind would be NatGeo's Mars series, but that's half documentary, half speculative concept art, and definitely very niche. Beyond that, there's nothing. Before that, we had the trio of Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian, the former two being sorta-hardish if you squint hard enough. And before we had 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that's it. It's difficult to make a space show that's both true to physics and fun/engaging at the same time. Most authors don't bother with "true to physics" part. The Expanse succeeded at both, because an excellent team took great source-material and expanded on it, instead of butchering it like usually happens. The result was a show that was interesting to non-space geeks, that still gave accurate picture of how space works. If someone asked you, "I wonder why they're doing X", or "I wonder why they didn't do Y", your answer would likely contain some explanation of real-world physics. This is how you give regular people intuition about concepts they're not encountering daily. So yeah, losing the only show about near-future space exploration that's both engaging and highly realistic - I think it's a bad day for both science outreach and science fiction.
- OmIsMyShield 8y ago
  I would argue quite the opposite, based on anecdata, so take it with a good measure of salt, but: I know quite a few non-tech types who used The Expanse as an example of "why I don't watch space crap". The quality (from a narrative and acting viewpoint primarily) is so low that I think it drives people away from the topic. I desperately love space-y sci-fi but the space exploration really needs higher quality productions than this. It is of course, super subjective, and I do understand that people like the show. I'm one of the (probable) minority of techies who dislike this specific show.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    It's completely opposite to my perspective, but that's what actually makes me curious. I wonder what is it exactly that makes your friends consider it "space crap". Could you go into more specifics? Also noting whether any particular applies to the show, the books, or both, and whether it's from a perspective of someone who only knows the show vs. someone who also read the books? I'm not asking in order to argue, I'm just curious about the difference in perspective.
    - leetcrew 8y ago
      i love the show, but i will say i found the tension between naomi and the crew this season to be a bit disappointing. the conflict felt a bit manufactured. i know some people criticize holden's somewhat bland character, which is not entirely unfair. if perhaps unintentional, i think this still serves a purpose. the world of the expanse is very unfamiliar and, basically being a normal dude from earth, he gives the viewer a character to anchor themselves with, or even substitute themselves for. it's kinda like how gordon freeman never talks.
    - OmIsMyShield 8y ago
      Sorry I replied to the wrong parent - my comment is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059310
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    > The quality (from a narrative and acting viewpoint primarily) is so low that I think it drives people away from the topic. ive seen a couple people express this opinion in the thread, and i am wondering where it comes from. imo the plot and acting in the expanse is on par with all but the best currently airing shows. shows like the chi and fargo are certainly more sophisticated and have much more emotional depth, but the expanse easily equals the big action-oriented series (GoT, walking dead, homeland, all the super hero series), and only maybe GoT or westworld comes close to the world-building aspect. maybe it's just my hard sci-fi fanboyism showing.
    - 8y ago
- dahart 8y ago
  > Name one other thing recently on air that’s realistic about space while also being interesting to general audience. Person of Interest is on WP’s list of hard sci-fi, but isn’t about space. (This surprises me a little, it never struck me as accurate and I lost interest in the show fairly quickly.) I mention that in part to call out that this thread is equating sci-fi with outer space. There are plenty of non-space scientific topics on earth that are covered in movies and TV. Making hard sci-fi only about space might be missing a general trend toward more rigor about science in general. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction#Television https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction#Televis... Worth noting that Expanse is not on WP’s list. Nor are Gravity, Interstellar or The Martian. Gravity is a good example of the story intentionally breaking whatever hard science might have been there. What I do see across all the genres is a peak of interest in space between maybe 1965 and 1995. Perhaps most important is writing, short stories and novels, since those often fuel TV & films. If I look at the trend based only on this WP page, it does look like 1990-2010 was a trough and that space is trending again.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Person of Interest is the favourite series of mine. I love it, and I miss it so much. My argument was implicitly about space-related sci-fi, because I was arguing about its impact on interest in space exploration :). > Worth noting that Expanse is not on WP’s list. Both the books and the show have received Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval; that IMO matters more than being on a Wikipedia list :). http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sealofapproval.php http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sealofapproval....
    - dahart 8y ago
      > Person of Interest is the favourite series of mine. Hmmm maybe I’ll have to give it another go. Does it get better after the first season?
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
        Very much. It starts as a faux-procedural, but past S1 it quickly turns into the (IMO) most accurate and reasonable portrayal of human-level artificial intelligence in the history of TV. It doesn't go any way outside present-era technology (beyond an AI running in the background, which is _the_ sci-fi element of this show). Things I particularly liked include: - It has some great discussion and presentation of modern surveillance state issues, including predicting Snowden. That is, it actually had an NSA whistleblower before the Snowden leaks happened. - It stays up to date with infosec topics, and uses them, instead of inventing bullshit. Among other things, the show featured Stuxnet-based exploits (with Stuxnet code dumps visible), and a successful Shellshock attack just months after the story broke. I loved the acting, loved the story, loved the way it discussed the friendly/unfriendly AI topics, loved the humour. I was deeply saddened that it got cancelled without advance warning, and had to wrap up all the major plot points in the second half of the last season. (Also for those who like the writing of Westworld, Person of Interest was the previous show of that team.)

by salvar 8y ago

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Mostly my feelings/intuition, but here's the argument: Name one other thing recently on air that's realistic about space while also being interesting to general audience. Closest thing that comes to mind would be NatGeo's Mars series, but that's half documentary, half speculative concept art, and definitely very niche. Beyond that, there's nothing. Before that, we had the trio of Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian, the former two being sorta-hardish if you squint hard enough. And before we had 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that's it. It's difficult to make a space show that's both true to physics and fun/engaging at the same time. Most authors don't bother with "true to physics" part. The Expanse succeeded at both, because an excellent team took great source-material and expanded on it, instead of butchering it like usually happens. The result was a show that was interesting to non-space geeks, that still gave accurate picture of how space works. If someone asked you, "I wonder why they're doing X", or "I wonder why they didn't do Y", your answer would likely contain some explanation of real-world physics. This is how you give regular people intuition about concepts they're not encountering daily. So yeah, losing the only show about near-future space exploration that's both engaging and highly realistic - I think it's a bad day for both science outreach and science fiction.

OmIsMyShield 8y ago
I would argue quite the opposite, based on anecdata, so take it with a good measure of salt, but: I know quite a few non-tech types who used The Expanse as an example of "why I don't watch space crap". The quality (from a narrative and acting viewpoint primarily) is so low that I think it drives people away from the topic. I desperately love space-y sci-fi but the space exploration really needs higher quality productions than this. It is of course, super subjective, and I do understand that people like the show. I'm one of the (probable) minority of techies who dislike this specific show.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  It's completely opposite to my perspective, but that's what actually makes me curious. I wonder what is it exactly that makes your friends consider it "space crap". Could you go into more specifics? Also noting whether any particular applies to the show, the books, or both, and whether it's from a perspective of someone who only knows the show vs. someone who also read the books? I'm not asking in order to argue, I'm just curious about the difference in perspective.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    i love the show, but i will say i found the tension between naomi and the crew this season to be a bit disappointing. the conflict felt a bit manufactured. i know some people criticize holden's somewhat bland character, which is not entirely unfair. if perhaps unintentional, i think this still serves a purpose. the world of the expanse is very unfamiliar and, basically being a normal dude from earth, he gives the viewer a character to anchor themselves with, or even substitute themselves for. it's kinda like how gordon freeman never talks.
  - OmIsMyShield 8y ago
    Sorry I replied to the wrong parent - my comment is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17059310
- leetcrew 8y ago
  > The quality (from a narrative and acting viewpoint primarily) is so low that I think it drives people away from the topic. ive seen a couple people express this opinion in the thread, and i am wondering where it comes from. imo the plot and acting in the expanse is on par with all but the best currently airing shows. shows like the chi and fargo are certainly more sophisticated and have much more emotional depth, but the expanse easily equals the big action-oriented series (GoT, walking dead, homeland, all the super hero series), and only maybe GoT or westworld comes close to the world-building aspect. maybe it's just my hard sci-fi fanboyism showing.
  - 8y ago
dahart 8y ago
> Name one other thing recently on air that’s realistic about space while also being interesting to general audience. Person of Interest is on WP’s list of hard sci-fi, but isn’t about space. (This surprises me a little, it never struck me as accurate and I lost interest in the show fairly quickly.) I mention that in part to call out that this thread is equating sci-fi with outer space. There are plenty of non-space scientific topics on earth that are covered in movies and TV. Making hard sci-fi only about space might be missing a general trend toward more rigor about science in general. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction#Television https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_science_fiction#Televis... Worth noting that Expanse is not on WP’s list. Nor are Gravity, Interstellar or The Martian. Gravity is a good example of the story intentionally breaking whatever hard science might have been there. What I do see across all the genres is a peak of interest in space between maybe 1965 and 1995. Perhaps most important is writing, short stories and novels, since those often fuel TV & films. If I look at the trend based only on this WP page, it does look like 1990-2010 was a trough and that space is trending again.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Person of Interest is the favourite series of mine. I love it, and I miss it so much. My argument was implicitly about space-related sci-fi, because I was arguing about its impact on interest in space exploration :). > Worth noting that Expanse is not on WP’s list. Both the books and the show have received Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval; that IMO matters more than being on a Wikipedia list :). http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sealofapproval.php http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sealofapproval....
  - dahart 8y ago
    > Person of Interest is the favourite series of mine. Hmmm maybe I’ll have to give it another go. Does it get better after the first season?
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Very much. It starts as a faux-procedural, but past S1 it quickly turns into the (IMO) most accurate and reasonable portrayal of human-level artificial intelligence in the history of TV. It doesn't go any way outside present-era technology (beyond an AI running in the background, which is _the_ sci-fi element of this show). Things I particularly liked include: - It has some great discussion and presentation of modern surveillance state issues, including predicting Snowden. That is, it actually had an NSA whistleblower before the Snowden leaks happened. - It stays up to date with infosec topics, and uses them, instead of inventing bullshit. Among other things, the show featured Stuxnet-based exploits (with Stuxnet code dumps visible), and a successful Shellshock attack just months after the story broke. I loved the acting, loved the story, loved the way it discussed the friendly/unfriendly AI topics, loved the humour. I was deeply saddened that it got cancelled without advance warning, and had to wrap up all the major plot points in the second half of the last season. (Also for those who like the writing of Westworld, Person of Interest was the previous show of that team.)