#The expanse season 4 series#

Warning, MAJOR SPOILERS below for both season 4 and Cibola Burn. In almost every case, I think The Expanse made the right choice, and we’re going to look why some of these choices made season 4 a perfect adaptation of the book story. Some of these choices were natural extensions of choices made previously, while others were fantastic decisions to streamline or expand on certain parts of the books. The difference thankfully being that while Thrones utterly failed with its adaptation, and ended up being the herald of the show’s eventually disastrous final seasons, The Expanse did it completely right. It also presents the same challenges that as that book did for Game of Thrones.

#The expanse season 4 series#

In many ways, it plays the same role for the Expanse series that A Feast for Crows played for A Song of Ice and Fire. It is a necessary reset after Abaddon’s Gate ended the Earth-Mars war, resolved the protomolecule and Protogen plot, and introduced thousands of new worlds for humanity to explore, but with this reset comes a slow, measured plot that takes up more pages than was absolutely necessary. Everything takes place on a single planet and its immediate orbit, limiting the epic, spacefaring scope. While I certainly like it and find the Western tone to be both a fun experiment and an obvious direction post-Gates, Cibola Burn is considered the weakest book by many fans for good reason. Season 4 had an interesting task ahead of it. While not perfect, you won’t find many adaptations as strong as The Expanse. Characters like Naomi and Amos have been given characterization and personality exemplifying the advantages of live-action vs. The decision to include Avasarala and the UN in the first season alongside the introductions of the Roci crew was a very welcome decision, for example.

Since it began, The Expanse has typically done a pretty great job of not only adapting, but sometimes improving the books upon which it is based.