The Expanse

Especially The Churn Novella as well.

Alright, finally managed to catch up and watch season 6 episodes 1 and 2.

All in all, awesome as always. Turns out, even though I only read book 6 about 1.5 years ago, I mainly remember the broad strokes of the plot and the ending. Not sure how close they are right now. But no matter, lot's of great stuff happening so far.

The "Strange Dogs" material is pretty cool so far. I wonder how far they'll take it. Right now, it really looks like they'll stick to the novella, which means that they would really set up to continue into books 7-9 in some way. But we'll have to wait and see where this is going.

This is my hope for sure.

it would be a shame if they didn't (I'd feel really sorry for the TV-only fans- imagine if the story just randomly ended after book 6 with all the Ring Gates and alien stuff still left hanging?), and unlike GoT they have the benefit of a finished series to follow, and one which more or less stuck the landing so they don't have to worry about the type of catastrophe that was the last 2 or 3 GoT seasons 

I don't actually have a problem with changes per se- I know some people get irate if a TV/movie adaptation changes any little thing, but that's just unrealistic. Its the changes they make that don't make sense, or hurt/undermine important character traits, plot points, themes, etc that bother me. 

With Amos, its not just a matter of trusting Holden, in the books (and in the TV scene with Amos and Miller in the bar), Amos talks about how Holden basically functions as Amos's moral compass, since he doesn't really have a conscience of his own and Holden is this unfailingly morally upright person. In season 1 they explicitly swapped Naomi into that role- they had a couple scenes where Amos says something similar to what he says about Holden in the books. Except, unlike Holden, Naomi isn't made out to be some sort of moral paragon- its not that she's bad or anything, but that's sort of Holden's whole deal- he always wants to do the right thing, under any circumstances, and refuses to make moral compromises even if its impractical or even outright dangerous (this is why the thing with the doctors on Eros made no sense- why invent a scene where Holden has to make a morally ambiguous decision when his moral righteousness is his distinctive character trait driving so much of the plot?).

But at the same time, they also cut some of the other material that built up Holden as the morally impeccable crusader he is in the books, so in light of that it made slightly more sense to swap Naomi and Holden as Amos's moral guiding light... only, then they go back on it by keeping the scene where Amos tells Miller Holden is his moral compass. Well, which is it? Does Amos really swap surrogate moral mentors at the drop of the hat? Should have just stuck with their initial decision. 

And the thing with Miller wasn't quite so bad, but it still seemed disproportional and arbitrary that Holden got so mad over Miller shooting Dresden. Like, you didn't have a problem with it when Miller was shooting random people all over Eros, but now its this HUGE deal when he executes the mastermind of what amounted to a genocide? Especially when Holden is no longer this super morally pure dude? In the books, Holden got REALLY upset with Miller for shooting people on Eros, and had warned Miller that if he did it one more time they would be through and Miller would have to hitch his own ride home. So when Miller went ahead and executed Dresden, Holden's reaction seemed perfectly proportional and predictable because they had laid the appropriate groundwork. 

So yeah, by all means, make the necessary changes to adapt the books to such a different format. But I wish they would be a bit more consistent about it, and if they make a change, like with the Amos/Holden vs. Amos/Naomi thing, have the balls to stick with the change and make it make internal sense. And when you're adding extra drama to pad out episodes or side-plots, don't add shit that completely screws with the characters (like having church-boy James Holden blowing up a plane of doctors, or having the notoriously stoic Amos getting emotional and weepy over some minor bullshit).

But like I said, I still enjoy the show as a whole, and at my current rate I'll probably be caught up through season 6 by the end of the weekend (it helps that its extremely cold here right now, so I'm kinda stuck at home anyways)

No you definitely got the point but I think you might be forgetting a few scenes that I'm picking up on because I just read the series and am now starting watching the show from the beginning- there was at least one scene in season 1 where Amos was telling someone else (I forget who) something to the effect of how he follows Naomi's lead when it comes to moral questions because he doesn't have a moral compass whereas Naomi does... which is like, precisely the same conversation Amos has with Miller about Holden in the books, and which they still kept in the show a bit later on, even though they had already explicitly said the same thing about Naomi and Amos (which I'm almost certain didn't happen at all in the books, probably because its redundant and confusing) just a few episodes earlier. And more than that, the Amos/Holden thing in the TV show felt sort of random and unearned since they had the two of them hating and fighting each other up until only a couple episodes before that and hadn't really spent much time showing them getting comfortable with one another. 

So it was more than just Amos trusting and deferring to Naomi because she's extremely smart and an ace engineer (which is obviously in the books as well), it felt like they were unnecessarily doubling up the exact Amos + needing someone else (i.e. just Holden, in the books) as a moral compass thing (pretty much to a T) while also undermining Holden's moral character, which doesn't make sense to me since its not only his single most distinguishing character trait, Holden making these righteous moral stands is also what drives like a lot of the plot not just in Leviathan Wakes but also throughout the series (it basically even becomes a meme/running joke, i.e. don't tell Holden any secrets because he'll blab them out to the entire solar system in the name of "transparency")

Yep, that sums it up nicely I think. 6 episodes should be sufficient but it is by no means a lot of time to tell the story of book 6, so including Strange Dogs on top of that could be a pointer that they really want to set up for a potential adaptation of 7-9. Maybe it is their way of trying to mobilize the fanbase to support a continuation - it has worked once before already.      

The other way they could have made the whole Holden/Amos vs. Naomi/Amos thing make more sense is if they hewed closer to the books in establishing Holden's impeccable moral character- if Holden was as uncompromisingly moral as he was in the books, then that would have made Amos turning to Holden as his new moral compass make a bit more sense, even if they didn't have the personal relationship to justify it. But they took out a lot of the material, and added in that ridiculous scene where Holden shoots down the ship of doctors on Eros. So between these two changes it just felt like they completely undermined the Amos/Holden morality thing, which they nevertheless chose to keep even though it no longer made sense in light of the previous changes/decisions they had made.

So by all means, make changes, but plan it out and stick to those changes instead of wishy-washily going back on the change you made and trying to revert to how it is in the books, when that no longer makes sense.

That's my girl, "Bad ass" Bobbie.....kickin' ass and takin' names!   Hunh!

What happens to my girl in the books????  (No, wait-- I don't want to know)...... "I have a bad feeling about this...."

yeah I'm still really skeptical about they way they've changed the group dynamics and individual character traits of the crew of the Roci. I probably mind the changes to Naomi the least, because Naomi is a little bit underdeveloped in the books until they get to the Free Navy/Laconia stuff later on so that's fine. I probably shouldn't admit it, but it helps that the actress who plays her is absolutely gorgeous. 

And I'm coming around to TV Amos, although he'll obviously never hold a candle to book Amos (i.e. the man, the myth, the legend).

Alex is harder to evaluate because I think the actor who plays him in the show just isn't very good, and he's the least interesting crew member of the Roci anyways.

I also like Bobbie in the show. I'll be interested to see how they deal with (or cut/change) her relationships with Alex and Amos, because in the books those were definitely strong points.

But yeah, I'm not really on board to the changes to Holden, and its mostly because his morality is SUCH a crucial factor in the plot- its not just a bit of personal trivia or characterization that doesn't actually affect anything, his uncompromising morality is basically driving the entirety of the plot of Leviathan Wakes (and throughout the series, though not as crucially as in the first book), and the plot just isn't as coherent without it. 

Still a good show overall, though, and its basically impossible to have read the books first and then watch the TV/film adaptation without getting frustrated by this sort of stuff.