From Fortune:
Amazon has picked up sci-fi epic The Expanse for a fourth season on its Prime Video service, following its cancellation by the SyFy channel and an impassioned social media campaign to save the show. That will be welcome news to a large cadre of fans – but also holds important lessons for the shifting landscape of subscription television.
The Expanse announcement, stunningly, was made personally by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during a Friday panel at the International Space Development Conference, where Bezos was receiving an award for advocacy in the colonization of space.
. . . .
Amazon has picked up sci-fi epic The Expanse for a fourth season on its Prime Video service, following its cancellation by the SyFy channel and an impassioned social media campaign to save the show. That will be welcome news to a large cadre of fans – but also holds important lessons for the shifting landscape of subscription television.
The Expanse announcement, stunningly, was made personally by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos during a Friday panel at the International Space Development Conference, where Bezos was receiving an award for advocacy in the colonization of space.
. . . .
But taking over The Expanse is more than a billionaire’s pet project. The show has been critically lauded, with a complex plot and gritty approach to space travel that earned it comparisons to HBO’s Game of Thrones. Yet, The Expansenever generated anything like Thrones-level ratings for SyFy, underperforming even the network’s other niche dramas, such as The Magicians and Krypton.
Perhaps more damaging to The Expanse’s status at SyFy, though, was that, according to Deadline Hollywood, the network only had first-run rights to the show. SyFy streams episodes of the current third season, but the first two seasons of The Expanse stream on Amazon’s Prime Video service.
Link to the rest at Fortune
I’ve been planning to check this out. I thought I should read the books first, but I haven’t had time to see how the e-book lending feature works at my library just yet.
*Adds Expanse to binge-watch list*
:::Moves The Expanse up to the top of my Watch List:::
The Expanse is the best SF on TV. I can’t think of a better series, ever. No, not even Firefly, and I love Firefly.
Dark Matter is far better in my opinion.
I watched the first episode or two and didn’t care for it. Taste, however, is utterly subjective and now I want to try watching it again and see if I have a different reaction.
I thought I was the only one underwhelmed by the first episode. Looked generic.
I just want someone to pick up ‘The Librarians’ for a fifth season. Is that too much to ask?
I love that show! It’s just, well, cute. And silly. And fun.
I’d love more of The Librarians! I just wished Noah Wiley would be in it more.
I’m happy for The Expanse folks, but sadly won’t be able to watch a new season on Amazon. I hate it when shows go to the channels/outlets that require more money to watch. I miss getting to watch the new Star Trek, and other shows. But, there’s not a spare penny, and certainly not to watch just one show.
You’re not missing much.
In absolute terms, DISCOVERY is not a bad show.
It might even have made for a great series as a standalone but trying to shoehorn it into the TREK universe hurts both the story and the franchise.
It has neither the tone nor the spirit of the franchise.
It does make the Abrams movies look more faithful to Roddenberry, though. 😉
Unfortuntely, streaming didn’t “eat” STARGATE UNIVERSE and came too late for SPACE, ABOVE AND BEYOND. Or FIREFLY.
The SyFy Channel. Where good shows go to die…
FOX has a longer record of launching good shows and cancelling them.
They’re still doing it: this year they ordered and paid for the pilot for BLACK LIGHTNING and then declined it after seeing it.
CW promptly picked it up and it was both popular and critically acclaimed. Plus it beat its FOX competition.
And then there’s the mess they made out of GOTHAM. Season one was great: a noir crime drama based on one of DCs most acclaimed series, GOTHAM CENTRAL. It wasn’t good enough for FOX, who had the show runners camp it up until it was unwatchable.
They just don’t get it. Not on TV and not on the movie side.
Yay!
Double yay! 🙂
Triple yay!