It seems we aren’t the only ones happy that ‘The Expanse‘ has been renewed for a second season. The producers are just as excited! Mark Fergus and Naren Shankar are thrilled at the pick up and I have to say that this was clearly the right choice on Syfy’s part. With ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Killjoys’ having helped pave the way back for a network founded on science fiction, I have to say that ‘The Expanse’ might be the cornerstone that they want to build it on. Yes, ‘Childhood’s End’ and ‘Ascension’ were great mini-series but ‘The Expanse’ after only a few episodes seems as if it might have the world-building potential of, dare I say it, ‘Battlestar Galactica‘. It has the look, feel, and acting chops which might finally bring the network back into the geekdom that we’ve all been sceptically thinking it wouldn’t be able to pull off.

According to Fergus:

“We’re so excited to be able to finally show this 10-hour movie to the world, because not only do we love every episode, we love how the whole season is one big arc and one big story, that we’re just dying to get it out into the world so we could share it with people, so we’re pretty psyched.”

With Shankar jokingly adding that:

“It’s actually filled us with grotesque overconfidence, and we’re going to stop listening to everyone.”

Though following that he seriously continued that the news was the “greatest New Year’s Present ever” and I have to agree. Thankfully with it being a hit they will have plenty of material to mine from as the novels by James S.A. Corey, the pen name of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, have a ton of details for them to inspire the show.

Inspiration indeed as Shankar says that

“They published these wonderful novels, these terrific novellas which we’re drawing on. We have all of these characters that we’re starting and threads we’re putting through. There was a 1 or 2 sentence description in Leviathan Wakes. We turned it into an entire B story in an episode that connects in a very meaningful way to the larger plot, and launched these characters forward that you’ll see in the show. That’s obviously not in the books, but it’s part of the books, and part of the world, and that’s been a lot of the fun, finding those moments to expand on it and broaden the scope of it. It actually makes it feel real and rich.”

With a pre-built world to play in I’m happy to see this being done if only for the fact that so far it’s working beautifully. I know I shouldn’t get too excited with only a few episodes having aired so far but it is hands down some of the best science fiction that’s been on television in awhile.

A large change can be seen in Jared Harris’s Anderson Dawes character as Shankar puts it:

“In the book, he’s somewhat tangential. He’s very minor. We realized early on that this was actually a really interesting way to illuminate what was going on in Ceres, and give Miller an antagonist. That storyline just grew episode by episode, and it’s a really interesting relationship now. Jared Harris and Thomas Jane are so fascinating together. That is one of the things that television can do really, really well. You can spend time with people and really dig into them, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do in the adaptation, quite a bit.”

So far their creative take on the series has been not only working but has me wanting to see what happens next. Hopefully they can continue this as ‘The Expanse’ moves forward.

Are you happy to hear that ‘The Expanse’ has been picked up for a second season? With all of the new shows popping up on Syfy do you think that the network has finally gotten back to its roots? Share your thoughts below!

Source: Comic Book