page_title: The Expanse (TV series)
section_title: Season 1
hierarchical_section_title: The Expanse (TV series) / Reception / Critical response / Season 1
caption_attribution_description: English: Hawk Ostby, Producer of Expanse, Winner for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, at the Hugo Awards Ceremony, Worldcon.
context_page_description: The Expanse is an American science fiction television series developed by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, based on the series of novels of the same name by James S. A. Corey. The series is set in a future where humanity has colonized the Solar System. It follows a disparate band of antiheroes – United Nations Security Council member Chrisjen Avasarala, police detective Josephus Miller, ship's officer James Holden and his crew – as they unwittingly unravel and place themselves at the center of a conspiracy which threatens the system's fragile state of Cold War.
  The Expanse has received critical acclaim, with particular praise for its visuals, character development and political narrative. It received a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and three Saturn Award nominations for Best Science Fiction Television Series. Alcon Entertainment produces and finances the series. It sold three seasons to Syfy, which canceled the series in May 2018. Amazon Prime Video picked up the series for a fourth season, which was released on December 12, 2019. On July 27, 2019, Amazon renewed The Expanse for a fifth season.
context_section_description: On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has a score of 77% with an average rating of 7.12 out of 10 based on 43 reviews. The site's consensus states: "The Expanse blends sci-fi elements and detective noir into a visually compelling whole, though it takes a few episodes for the story to capture viewers' intrigue." The first season received a rating of 65 out of 100 on Metacritic based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
  Reporting on the pilot screening, io9's Lauren Davis declared herself "blown away" by The Expanse, appreciating its "incredible sense of scale" and its "deeply thought out future world that reflects on our present one, with high production values and characters who speak and act like real people". Max Nicholson of IGN characterized the pilot as "grim and dramatic", and a "very dense hour of television", with the terminology and large cast sometimes difficult to follow for viewers unfamiliar with the novels, but highlighted the pilot's "gorgeous" visuals and effects reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica, Dune and Firefly.
  Writing for Variety, Maureen Ryan was unimpressed by the first four episodes "awkwardly linking a series of somewhat muddled stories" and the series' stereotypical characters but credited it with tackling "issues of class, representation and exploitation" and a convincing design. At Tor.com, Justin Landon highlighted The Expanse's "bold and unique cinematography" and its claustrophobic, discomforting set designs, as well as the "extremely faithful" characterization, but remarked that the patois spoken by the Belters, the natives of the asteroid belt, made the series difficult to follow.
caption: Hawk Ostby accepting the Hugo Award at Worldcon in Helsinki 2017
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