Science fiction has been on a downturn over the last decade. Sure, we get event movies a few times a year, but a lot of that audience has been taken over by tales of comic book heroes. Marvel is a hugely dominating force in film these days, but the real core audience for science fiction used to be found on the small screen. Science fiction fans demand longer, more complex stories, deeper character development, and to have their thoughts poked. Star Trek is most commonly trotted out as prime exemplar. 

Aside from the original series which was ended prematurely, there have been five other series, the animated one most people don't recall, three huge series with seven year runs, and one aborted attempt at going back in time that ran for only four seasons. If you look beyond Trek, however, you see that TV used to be riddled with all manner of scifi shows. Space 1999, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, The Wild, Wild West (one of my personal faves that started in Black & White), and more recently Futurama, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Andromeda, the much loved Quantum Leap, the even more loved Firefly, Sliders, the amazing run of Dr. Who, Babylon 5, and that magnum opus, the new Battlestar Gallactica. 

Then something happened, and science fiction seemed to become less important to TV producers. Sure, there were the periodic stabs at it, but TV became a police drama/reality show wasteland. Even SyFy, that staunch stalwart of science fiction, wasn't producing as many series as it was running more horror-based content and live action shows that just weren't interesting. 

But then things started to pick up. 

A few years ago we got the phenomenally quirky and dark Orphan Black, the very dark re-imagining of the classic The Twilight Zone called Black Mirror, the look at the what it means to be good that is Dark Matter, and the perfectly cast Killjoys. These are all really good science fiction shows, but each of them lack something; that one thing that would make them great. Like The Expanse. 

I'll let the Wikipedia entry explain the plot, or at least as much as you're going to get: 

Two hundred years in the future, in a fully colonized Solar System, police detective Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), born in the asteroid belt, is given the assignment to find a missing young woman, Julie Mao (Florence Faivre). Meanwhile, James Holden (Steven Strait), the Executive Officer of the ice trawler Canterbury, is involved in a tragic incident that threatens to destabilize Earth, Mars and the Belt. Far away from their struggles in space, Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a United Nations executive, works to prevent war between Earth and Mars by any means necessary. Soon, the three find out that the missing woman and the ice trawler's fate are part of a vast conspiracy that threatens all humanity.

Watch in the opening moments of the first episode when you see Julie Mao's hair floating as if in real zero gravity (you'll find out who she is later). If you think they blew their budget on some sweet effects simply to make the first episode more compelling, you will be pleasantly surprised. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the set work and effects are mostly top notch. Much of what you see in the series would find itself more at home in movie theaters, not TV screens. 

The series is tight, unpleasant, unforgiving, brutal, and shatters your calm as you watch. It is as distressing and engaging to watch as mobster dramas. The violence, the language, the abidingly deep lack of care for human life rips at your soul. You want them all to go back home, knowing in the end that they can never step foot on Earth again, more likely to die in the vacuum of space or at the hands of killers. The glaring eye of the camera gazes unflinchingly at the characters on screen as their animal urge to survive at any cost is tested again and again. Death is around every corner. 

The Expanse is not Star Trek. It's not Star Wars or Dune or even the more recent iteration of Battlestar Galactica. There are no heroes or angels. There are no good guys and everyone has the spark of badness in their darkened souls. This is a dirty, hurt, and torn Solar System, touched and corrupted by the corrosive hands of mankind. 

Welcome to The Expanse.