Why Some The Expanse Fans Hate Season 6

 

The sci-fi show The Expanse enjoyed 90 percent plus audience scores for its first four seasons. Scores dipped into the 80’s for seasons 5 and 6. Of course, that’s still impressive, but the season 6 score experienced between a 10 and 15 percent drop compared to the first four seasons. So, why did season six experience this drop in audience scores? The best way to find out is to check what some negative reviewers had to say. I’ll start with Rotten Tomatoes reviews.

Michael T gave the season one star because he thought the ending sent a bad message. “Was going so well until they let filip go into the sunset. The writers completely forgot he was a terrorist and glorified him. He still had no remorse over killing millions of people and no judgment for their lives.”

Frank S complains that, “It was good until it ended with about four new storylines that go without any explanation. Really felt cheated for that ending.”Bill B wonders, “What the heck happened with the protomolecule?”

The Expanse is based on a series of nine novels. Season six mainly covers book six and the novella Strange Dogs. The series ended two-thirds of the way through the actual story, so, understandably, many people feel like the story is unfinished. Because it is unfinished. Lots of loose threads haven’t been tied up. The authors of the books call the ending a pause. They hope the series will be picked up by another streaming provider, so they can finish it. However, that might not happen, or if it does, it might not happen for several years. This unfinished ending is, unfortunately, all we have for now.

David G thinks season six:

“Felt really abbreviated, and yet left so many aspects unexplored and unexplained. The entire Laconia arc was pointless and irrelevant to the story, and could have been left out - felt like it was meant to have 4 more episodes to flesh it out properly.”

m g thinks, “No idea why fans giving this a pass, can only assume they hope it will get a follow up series with a actual ending”

Season six has laid the foundation for the potential final three seasons. If those final seasons happen, I think season six will be seen much differently. However, if those finals seasons don’t happen, it will make season six less satisfying because there are so many unanswered questions.

Laura W asks some of those questions.

“What is the protomolecule, where did it come from, and what is it's purpose? None of these questions are even remotely answered after being the core suspense of 5 seasons. Meanwhile, the plot line of a boy raised from the dead over the beginning of the first 5 episodes of season 6 is suddenly forgotten in the 6th without so much as a memory.”

Ryan H has multiple complaints. “While I love the show, you could quite literally feel Amazon closing its wallet to The Expanse's budget. Between its rough green screen shots, rushed finale, half of a final battle, and plotlines left wide open, a show as good as this one deserves a lot more.”

The first 5 seasons of the Expanse were 10 to 13 episodes. The shorter six-episode final season didn’t go over well with some reviewers, including Mike C.

“You can see how major events have been compacted into mere minutes.”

Corwyn V says that, “I'd be lying if I said the high volume of first appearance characters this season, especially in place of wonderful ones from precious seasons, didn't seriously effect my viewing experience. A show that has been running for such a long time can't really introduce new characters at the last minute and expect them to have anywhere near the kind of weight that characters who've been present in the series for a long time have.”

This is a major downside of killing off major characters too soon. Two major characters were killed off in season 4 and then two more in season 5. And two major characters were killed off-screen.

Over on IMDB, the episode ratings were between 7.7 and 9.0. While the final episode, Babylon's Ashes, has a rating of 9.0, not all reviewers were happy.

Ssarigollu says the show does “the same family drama conversation for 2 seasons”

Dprater200 has a similar complaint. “Space soap opera and barely even discuss what happens with the ring world's just family drama.”

These reviews refer to the Naomi, Marco, and Filip storyline that consumed lots of screen time over seasons 5 and 6.

Pratermb thinks focusing on the family drama distracted from the ring worlds. 

“The story was totally derailed and turned into a solar system soap opera. The Marco show. Some bad guy vs good guy story that has been told countless times, when they had the opportunity to write something completely original. The opportunity to: Expand on the science. Expand on the protomolecule, how it works, what it can be used for, its story, whatever. That was such a cool concept. Expand on the rings and new universes to be discovered. New types of beings, dimensions, realities”

Many fans expected that seasons 4 onward would be something along the lines of Stargate SG-1, with the crew visiting lots of new worlds. That could have been very interesting, but that isn’t where the authors decided to take the books. They seemed more interested in exploring how the opening of the ring gates impacted the humans in the story rather than what other worlds may look like.

Sandiegoharry thinks the season was too short to properly cover all the material in book 6. “Taking a very dense last book and THEN adding a novella (strange dogs) - but shrinking it to six episodes? Not only are key things left out, but some things are flat-out left unfinished. Why start the "Strange Dogs" story only to leave it unfinished?”

Jamielesouef says. “What a waste of a good series... such a let down. A whole side plot with the dogs that amounts to absolutely nothing (considering there is no season 7) and such a cheep kill of a complex villain.”

In summary, many negative reviewers didn’t like that the show largely abandoned the protomolecule and ring gate to focus on Marco Inaros. The shortened season and the unfinished story were two other major complaints. This is an obvious downside of adapting a nine-novel book series to television. It’s rare for any show to get that number of seasons. That’s it for the Expanse. If you are interested in the Expanse novels, I have a link to the first book Leviathan Wakes in the series in the description.