5 Reasons Why The Expanse Is The Sci-Fi Show Of The 2000s (& 5 Why It’s Still Star Trek) – Screen Rant

Hailed by some fans asthebest science fiction series ever,The Expanse(based on a series of books by James S.A. Corey) focuses on humankind several hundred years in the future, when Mars has been colonized and miners extract precious ore from a region of asteroids known as The Belt. As Mars becomes a bigger military power than Earth, the two fight over resources, while a renegade ship's captain and a police investigator are brought together over a missing girl that may be the link to civilization's collapse.

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Due to its recent accolades and growing fanbase,The Expansehas been brought up against the heaviest hitter of science fiction television,Star Trek.Is it the best sci-fi show of the 2000s? The two most recent series in the franchise,Star Trek: DiscoveryandStar Trek: Picardhave taken a Utopian vision of the future and applied some of the gritty, hard science practicalityThe Expanseis known for, so the decision isn't easy. Here are 5 reasons why The Expanse is the sci-fi show of the 2000s (& 5 why it's still Star Trek).

The Expanseputs the "science" in science fiction, and the genre is all the better for its accurate showcasing of many of its practical concepts rooted in real physics. You won't find any ray-guns or warp cores in it, because it depends on extrapolations from real-world scientific things.

For instance, characters that exist on a planet with gravity versus one without have physiological differences. High G-burns actually affect the human body.The Expanseoffers a realistic reflection of interstellar society 250 years in the future that seems plausible.

When Gene Roddenberry first created theStar Trek: The Original Series,it was meant to showcase a better future with a Utopian society, where war, famine, and disease had been eradicated and humankind worked together with alien cultures in the pursuit of noble concepts like education and exploration.

The franchise continues into the 2000's with series likeStar Trek: DiscoveryandStar Trek: Picard,where the moral lessons of the original series are influenced by the new era in which they're made. Viewers watch Star Trek for the better tomorrow it promises, even in the most difficult of times.

When you first start viewingThe Expanse,you're thrown into a world you may not altogether understand. There'sgeographic factions at war, politicking on an interstellar scale, and a missing persons mystery all woven together to create an intricate and complex plot.

It's unapologetic in its denseness, and provides very little in the way of hand holding. The audience is expected to follow along and expend lots of brain cells in the watching, without a lot of exposition to guide them. They learn things in the same way and at the same time that the characters do in many cases.

The Star Trek franchise has long been celebrated for its diversity. Not only did the original series have things like interracial couples and Russians working alongside Americans before the Cold War was over, it also had a wide variety of alien beings to analyze the human condition through the lens of different civilizations.

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Star Trek: Discoveryhas continued that tradition with a serialized story starring a woman of color, a balanced cast of male and female actors, and normalized same-sex relationships.Star Trek: Picardhas also given us in its preliminary episodes a focus on political refugees.

The Expansehas introduced a myriad of complicated characters who are given a wide range of motivations and personal history. Its characters make difficult decisions with morally ambiguous consciences, and it asks that audiences understand, if not fully empathize with them.

Because it doesn't take place solely on a starship, or in a space station, but on different planets and in different atmospheres, it shows you a wide range of characters not all hard-wired to simply serve one captain or one crew. And their characters develop and progress over the series with their own agendas.

Every single series in the Star Trek franchise has given sci-fi a plethora of memorable characters that individually have come to be considered iconic in their own right. The original series had Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Scotty, and the rest of the crew, whileStar Trek: The Next Generationhad Captain Picard, Data, Riker, and others.

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It'sbecauseof the iconic status of a character like Jean-Luc Picard that over twenty years afterTNGhas gone off the air, Patrick Stewart has returned to reprise his famous role. Even people that never watched him in his debut performance demonstrate curiosity about seeing him inStar Trek: Picard.

The tension that exists between Earth, Mars, and the Belt is palpable from the first episode of the series. It only continues to grow, and as viewers bounce from environment to environment, and every character that lives there, they begin to feel the sense of a very lived-in world.

The Expansereally doesexpand with every episode and every season. New technology is introduced along with new characters and new environments, and each time it's done in a way that doesn't feel too smooth, too perfect, or too sterile.

As a soft science franchise, Star Trek series are good plainfun.Harrowing situations are saved by particle accelerators, enemies are vanquished with proton torpedoes, and the solution to a perplexing problem is provided by the rapid-fire delivery of a line of technobabble.

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Like good space operas,Star Trek: DiscoveryandStar Trek: Picard,the most recent series in the franchise, provide majestic over-arching plots that focus on larger-than-life concepts without the need to be grounded in reality. There is often mysticism, wonder, and whimsy attached to them to balance out the practicality.

There's no denying that the visuals inThe Expanseare nothing short of stunning. Not every scene is beautifulbecauseit's aesthetically pleasing in a traditional sense, but because nothing is sterile and smooth, rather everything is tangible and visceral.

The budget forThe Expansehas only increased with each season, and from beginning as a Sy-Fy channel program to becoming an Amazon produced series, it has taken advantage of the upgrade to its visual effects. It has it's own dynamic look that doesn't imitate any other sci-fi show.

SinceStar Trek: The Original Series,sci-fi fans have fondly recalled episodes of their favorite Star Trek show, able to remember exact lines of dialogue, singular scenarios, andparticular circumstances that coalescedinto one timeless hour of television.

Though bothStar Trek: DiscoveryandStar Trek: Picardare serial television, and depart from the traditional episodic programming all other Star Trek series were known for, they still have episodes that contain timeless qualities that areintrinsicallyStar Trekin nature, and give viewers a certain benevolent, nostalgic feeling every time they watch them, like the introduction of Captain Pike or an exchange between Picard and Data.

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Kayleena has been raised on Star Wars and Indiana Jones from the crib. A film buff, she has a Western collection of 250+ titles and counting that she's particularly proud of. When she isn't writing for ScreenRant, CBR, or The Gamer, she's working on her fiction novel, lifting weights, going to synthwave concerts, or cosplaying. With degrees in anthropology and archaeology, she plans to continue pretending to be Lara Croft as long as she can.

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5 Reasons Why The Expanse Is The Sci-Fi Show Of The 2000s (& 5 Why It's Still Star Trek) - Screen Rant