A Legitimate Salvage (The Expanse)

Two Expanse episodes for the price of one podcast, as your reviewers get back on track. Have we started caring about Clarissa Mao? Why didn’t Marco go all Khan Noonian Singh on Cyn and Filip? Is there nothing more perfect than Bobbie in armor? And are we getting closer to Holden doing something? Just…something???

Season 5, Episodes 5-6

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

As we continue to butcher the pronunciation of Gaugamela, Warren Frey rejoins the team as we debate whether it’s reassuring or depressing that The Expanse’s future is just as screwed up as 2020! We debate Season 5’s special effects, marvel at Amos Burton the Nurturer, indulge in yet another Babylon 5 reference, and come to terms with the fact that the legs have been kicked out from under the solar system’s status quo.

Season 5, Episode 4

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

We’re back with a comparatively fast, character-focused overview of the first three episodes that dropped on Dec. 16, including a couple of characters who can’t help being who they are, a couple that react to a loss of positions of prestige and influence VERY differently, and the show’s return to the early seasons’ three-way political struggle now under a new context: the land rush through the Ring Gate. We’ll be back soon with Season 5 Episode 4!

Season 5, Episodes 1-3

Hosts Jen Burt, Kayti Burt, and Chip Sudderth.

Despite all of the pandemic’s distractions—we made it, everybody! Join the full crew as we celebrate Ashford’s blaze of glory; consider a season finale that is 10 percent resolution, 50 percent complication, 40 percent setup for Season 5; and spend a disproportionate time lovingly nitpicking Season 4 to death. We love The Expanse, but what worked and didn’t this time around? We’ll be back occasionally between seasons, probably taking our first steps into the printed universe….

Season 4, Episode 10

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

Triangle Man, Triangle Man, doing the things Miller can…. It’s a packed action-movie penultimate episode for Season 4, where The Expanse’s theme of interdependence is brilliantly illustrated with gunfights, railguns, last-minute rescues, and an Eye of Sauron. We compare “Saeculum” to PROMETHEUS and of course find the latter wanting, and Kayti gets her Majel Barrett on.

Season 4, Episode 9

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

We’re back after a long absence and set for the home stretch for Season 4. In an episode recorded just as New York’s governor announced a stay-at-home order due to COVID-19, your loyal podcasters reflected on just how CATHARTIC it was to see the disasters on Ilus and in orbit solved with SCIENCE and HOPE. Also: there was a hell of a lot of plot in this episode!

Season 4, Episode 8

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

How would you rather die on Ilus: green microbes to the eyeballs or green murder slugs falling from the sky? (Sorry, we only have options in green.) Jen, Kayti, and Warren also discuss the elegance of Chrisjen’s loungewear, Murtry’s wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing act, and whether or not we can relate to Okoye’s The Investigator Envy (also green). Oh, and Amos might just be Jen’s favorite TV character OF ALL TIME.

Season 4, Episode 7

Hosts Kayti Burt, Warren Frey, and Jen Burt.

Maybe recording an episode at a Doctor Who convention made it inevitable: there are SO many accidental parallels drawn between British TV and The Expanse! Kayti reveals the secret connection between Ilus and Narnia. Chip reveals the secret connection between Holden and Harry Potter. Warren and Kayti GO TO A DARK PLACE when it comes to a Tiny Tim character and the tsunami. Kayti pitches a new Call the Midwife series. Also: Has the protomolecule’s mastery over the laws of physics leaped into self-parody?

Season 4, Episode 6

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.

We discuss Holden’s terrible mediation skills, Avasarala’s equally bad campaigning skills, and Alex’s audition for an episode of Space ER. And, left to their own devices, Warren and Jen question how does universal basic income work in this show?

Season 4, Episode 5

Hosts Jen Burt and Warren Frey.

This “beginning an episode in the aftermath of a Murtry killing” thing seems to be recurring, no? We establish D&D alignments for a few of our characters (some of us are sorrier than others), explore the limits of OPA governance, and see just how much mileage Shohreh Aghdashloo can get out of a bare few minutes of blistering cussing.

Season 4, Episode 4

Hosts Chip Sudderth, Warren Frey, Kayti Burt, and Jen Burt.