Cover image: Jeremy Benning

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.

Also, we are trying out a new format this week. Let us know if you prefer this new list-style breakdown or if you’d like us to return to the classic blog posts!

Production

This week (or so) in production news features recognition for production staff support and photographers, photos featuring the contrast between the sets we see (inside) and what those sets look like from the outside. It’s really magical. We always appreciate the lighter side of the people who bring us this show, they are an amazing crew. And, several are dedicated enough that they work outside of the show to make videos and other items to help the readers and TV audience conceptualize the show.

This week’s shoutout from the Production Office Twitter account featured Lindsay, who was recognized for handling trailers and actors, and who also runs the very entertaining Instagram basecamp account. If you haven’t checked this Instagram account out yet, you should, and you can travel back through time with the Basecamp posts. This account deserves to be verified, Instagram!

Twitter’s TheExpansePO also featured Block Three’s Director of Photography (DP), Ray, as well as the 1st Assistant Director (AD), Paz. Ray was also a DP for episodes last season.

Twitter’s TheExpansePO provided a wonderful set of contrast photos “Inside vs. Outside.” The Production Office, in a terrific precedent set by Bob Monroe in previous years, shares intimate production views as the season progresses. This set of pictures shows what sets looks like, both inside and out. Check these out!

We love the good nature of Twitter’s ExpanseVFX folks. They conducted another contest. The winner this time was “Kevin Roastinante.” The winning picture speaks for itself!

Production will very soon be going into block four, as indicated by the Production Office. Block four will cover episodes 7 & 8 and is the second-to-last block.

Media

In media this week, The Expanse was recognized in two different top 25 lists. The book series also was in a competition. We got some good news for fans who like podcasts!

The Expanse Production’s very own Chris Danelon created a wonderful YouTube video illustrating scale on the show. It’s clear in the show that the Nauvoo is gigantic, but it’s not always easy to compare sizes of the various vehicles in the show. This video does a wonderful job of showing progressively bigger vehicles.

Chris Danelon created the YouTube video of ship scale (above), but YouTube’s WT Videoclip created a thrilling and beautiful set of cut scenes of ships in action, with very inspirational music. Check it out.

While we personally would have rated this much higher than #19, at least Paste Magazine recognized The Expanse in its annual top 25 shows. With over 400 shows on television each year, this is quite an achievement.

People like the number 25. In another evaluation of the best 25 shows, this time focusing on Amazon Prime Video, The Expanse rang in at the #15 position. Not bad! (It will be nice when our fans can truly binge it – as release of Season 3 on Amazon appears to be delayed until 2019).

Apple also revealed their ‘Best of 2018‘ list, featuring The Expanse in the list of best TV shows.

Although it was a significant accomplishment to be nominated at all, Persepolis Rising (The Expanse Book Series, Book 7) didn’t win, but came in at 7th place with over 12,000 votes in the 10th Annual GoodReads Choice Awards! There will be future GoodReads competitions, so stay alert.

Storm of Spoilers, a well known Game of Thrones podcast, plans to watch The Expanse in January after The Expanse won a fan vote. Should be very entertaining.

Cast

Our very own Cara Gee (Drummer) was recognized at Whistler Film Fest as the #WFF18 Star to Watch. We heartily agree!

Game Industry

We may have come to The Expanse in different ways, but it’s always nice to keep up with the news in other forms of The Expanse. This week saw the Role Playing Game (RPG) world enjoying The Expanse RPG in Philadelphia.

@FredKiesche shared information from an email update on The Expanse RPG, and we have to admit the graphics are lovely!

Over the December 2-3 weekend, PAX Unplugged, held in Philadelphia, PA, hosted WizKids, who demonstrated their Expanse board game, and its upcoming expansion, due in early 2019.

Community

As always, it was a busy week in The Expanse’s fan community. The amount of talent continues to amaze every single week. It’s nice that not only are fans creating all sorts of art – cosplay, fine arts, videos, anime, conlang, food and cocktails (yum!) but people in related fields, like writing, find that The Expanse is a source of inspiration as well.

Are you an aspiring writer? ScottWritesStuff uses the Prologue from Leviathan Wakes as an example of “Fantastic First Pages” in this YouTube video. We really hope that Scott takes the time to watch the show, and see how beautifully the show captures the essence of the books, something which can only be accomplished with great source material.

@Paine_MacTane announced their latest Expanse-themed cocktails: The LDSS Nauvoo and its successor, the OPAS Behemoth. We need a road trip and about 10 days to check out all of the delicious drinks these two have concocted.

Christina Ward (@theora666) released December’s #ScreamingFirehawks Here Comes The Juice, the always-entertaining Expanse-based newsletter. This month features a Syfy-favorite, actor Sean Baek, who plays UNN Commander Kunis.

We continue to be impressed at the talent, dedication and devotion of The Expanse fans. Here is some new fan art to enjoy:

That’s all for this week, folks. Check back next Monday for a rundown of the upcoming week in the world of The Expanse. 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,

Kiddle