Let’s start with the positive: “The Expanse,” debuting on Monday, December 14th on SyFy in a two-night premiere and then airing on Tuesdays for the next eight weeks. Unlike SO much of what the network that has become known for “Sharknado” has offered lately, “The Expanse” actually challenges audience intellect, forcing them to follow disparate subplots, multiple characters and thematic intentions. Based on the bestselling books by James S. A. Corey, “The Expanse” is set two hundred years in the future. Mankind will apparently reinvest in its space exploration program shortly because, in just two centuries, we’ve colonized part of the solar system. People not only live on Mars, the government there doesn’t exactly get along with the one on Earth. Caught in the middle are the Belters, those born and living on space stations in the asteroid belts.

One of those societies floating through space is known as the Ceres, and that’s where we meet a Decker-style detective named Joe Miller (Thomas Jane). The people of this space station are struggling. They’re clearly designed to remind us of parts of the world not considered a superpower but essentially ruled by them. Water and air are not under control of the people. Imagine a society in which things as basic as oxygen and H2O were manipulated by others. Naturally, it breeds a sense of revolution. People are protesting in the street when Miller gets the case of his life. A woman is missing and he’s asked to find her. It starts that simple. Doesn’t it always start that simple?

While the Miller arc feels like noir, the other half of “The Expanse” is more directly reminiscent of “BSG.” In this future, blue collar men and women work on ice freighters, mining ice/water from asteroids to keep the humans floating through the solar system alive. One such freighter is called the Canterbury, and its Executive Officer seems like one of the few decent men still alive, a gent named Jim Holden (Steven Strait), who will become a very unlikely moral compass for this future. Shohreh Aghdashloo (“House of Sand and Fog”) co-stars along with a well-assembled ensemble that includes Paulo Costanzo, Jay Hernandez and the amazing Jonathan Banks of “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul.”