Header photo credit: Breck Eisner

Fans world wide have patiently awaited this minute!! And, Amazon even sweetened the deal by releasing the episodes early! Well, what actually happened was that Amazon Prime Video released Seasons 1 through 3 at midnight GMT on February 8. So, anyone to the west of London time zones got to feast early.  Most of this week’s social media was dominated by news that Amazon would release all three seasons of The Expanse on February 8.  A close runner-up was that stars were now able to tell the world they were a part of The Expanse Season 4.

In this blog series, we report on the production progress and other news of The Expanse each week. We collect the latest social media and press activity from the show’s production team, cast, and the community. We hope this series is useful for those who are not able to closely monitor social media but who want an easy way to catch up on all the latest Expanse updates each week.

To catch up on the previous week of updates, check out our last post here.

Production

This week marked the end of actual production.

  • Director Breck Eisner (such a hard-working guy!!) shared a benefit they got, which was sushi on set. Alex Kamal needs to apprentice to enhance his culinary skills.
  • Brian Hui shared a picture of Amanda O’Leary prepping Wes Chatham (Amos Burton) for a final scene. And, Wes’s master of wardrobe (Kim) completely predicted that Wes forgot his gloves. And, Wes shared a hilarious Instagram post of a set visit with his “bjj brothers.”
  • Jeremy Benning, csc takes us through the lighting used in The Expanse in this fantastic video.
  • Dominique Tipper (Naomi Nagata) was wistful about wrapping up this season, but incredibly excited about seeing rough cuts of the first three episodes. (We tried to sneak in, but couldn’t.)
  • Frankie Adams (Bobbie) took a final shot in Bobbie mode.
  • Finally! Here are the actors we were so excited to hear had joined this season’s production.  We’re sure there are more announcements to come.
    • Zach Smadu broadcast on Twitter and Instagram that he had joined the cast this season. We have yet to identify his character.
    • Steven McCarthy also announced he had joined the cast this season. While we know he is connected to the ill-fated Ganymede colony, we don’t have confirmation on his character.
    • Lily Gao also joins the cast as an unknown character who will be sharing scenes with Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo).
    • Patti Kim was thrilled to release the news that she has joined the cast this season. She’ll be playing Carol Chiwewe.
    • Lyndie Greenwood announced on Instagram that she will be playing the role of Dr. Elvi Okoye. We can’t wait to see what she brings to this PoV character from the books.
    • But, the news that nearly broke the web was that Burn Gorman (Torchwood, TURN: Washington’s Spies) has joined the cast as Adolphus Murtry! We promise you will love to hate this character. And, of course, Burn is the essence of thoughtfulness, as he compliments the writers (and uses the fandom’s FAVORITE NICKNAME: Screaming Firehawks).

Cast & Crew

Most of the cast was tied up finishing the last little bit of production, but we still have some news!

  • We love us some science, and some NASA! Cas Anvar (Alex Kamal) and Cara Gee (Camina Drummer) join Perry Shen in a new sci-fi show based on real NASA science: The Habitable Zone. Another episode of The Habitable Zone shows that NASA Spitzer helps to identify candidates, and this episode helps us to learn what would be important for human life.
  • Cas Anvar will be making an appearance at Philly Comic Con on April 12-14th. If you’re in the Philadelphia area, this is unmissable!

Media

The majority of media attention this week was focused on the launch of Seasons One through Three on Amazon, but there were other items to share, as well. We loved the trailers that Amazon shared. This trailer whet our appetite.  This trailer was next, but beware Thar Be Spoilers here. Finally, this trailer dropped with Seasons One to Three on Prime, but it’s full of spoilers too, so watch out!

Community

And, speaking of trailers, dedicated fan Dennis Quast prepared his own trailer. In other community news:

  • Interested in a Reddit thread for new Prime Viewers (with an attempt to keep book spoiler free)? Run over HERE.

Finally, we know we will need all the cocktails all weekend, while binging three seasons. So, we bring you Paine x MacTane’s Cocktail 72: Guanshiyin. The Mao family’s ostentatious pleasure yacht, where Avasarala confronts Jules-Pierre Mao and Bobbie discovers a new taste sensation (one of the more hilarious scenes in the show).

It’s hard to beat the excitement of the release of Season 3, in particular, for overseas fans who have been patiently waiting MONTHS. Enjoy it now that it is here.

For those interested, our detailed record of Expanse-related web activity for this month (assembled by SkalmanIsDaMan) is available here. As always, if we missed something you think belongs in this article, please get in touch with us and let us know!

Thanks for reading and see you next week!
~ Kiddle