A year ago, The Expanse was canceled. News of its doom arrived while its third season was airing on SyFy, the reported rationale being that the rights agreement between its production company and its host network was not terribly profitable for the latter. In about two weeks, the show was saved by Amazon, an announcement made by Jeff Bezos himself. If pure entertainment is your concern, this was good news: The Expanse is one of the most dense and rewarding science fiction shows in recent memory, and at the time only one-third of the way through a nine-novel adaptation. Now it could continue, at the small cost of giving the world’s richest man a little bit more of your money and attention.
Season 4 pumps the brakes a bit to rearrange the show’s sprawling array of characters and places. The action centers around Ilus, a new, seemingly unpopulated world found beyond a newly opened gate to other star systems. Collectively, humanity is struggling to deal with the sudden revelation of new, habitable worlds, and ultimately dealing with it poorly. The first three seasons of The Expanse are largely concerned with how class structures and oppressive politics replicate themselves, even in the far reaches of space.
There’s a land rush. The RCE, an energy company with a contract to mine Ilus — dubbed “New Terra” by some — dispatches a research Topplay team. But their mission is complicated by refugees from the Asteroid Belt station Ganymede, who, with nowhere else to go, run a blockade to quickly claim land as their own. Knowing that this will likely end poorly, United Nations chief Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) dispatches the crew of the gunship Rocinante to arbitrate. Captain James Holden (Steven Strait) and his crew once again find themselves in the middle of a conflict that threatens to become the epicenter of something much larger — especially when it seems like the planet itself might be alive.
