I see no evidence of this. Clearly, it's your opinion, and you're entitled to it, but I couldn't disagree more. Anything in particular you can point to that demonstrates her inadequacy in a concrete way?

I think that would represent too much of a divergence from the source material. The show runners have moved bits of the story around, combined a couple of minor characters, added and subtracted a bit here and there, but they've never taken a major character from the books and completely changed his name, back story,…

In one of those "Inside The Expanse" things that SyFy posts to YouTube a couple of days after the episode airs, Naren Shankar and Ty Franck (if I remember correctly) address this. Their point (and I encourage you to watch it; I'm just paraphrasing here) is that a lot of TV Series will drag out a "will they or wont…

Arrogance. Hubris. And pride (we can only hope) going before his (eventual) fall.

They decided after the events of the last season. I think it was a gradual process, but if you're looking for a specific moment of transition, I think it would be during the last few moments of last season when Naomi told Holden that being in charge was a "shit job" and he could "have it."

OK. I withdraw my speculation. The sad results, though, are still the same. :( I do appreciate the additional info.

I don't think Zack was that into it, frankly, There were a lot of discussion here at the time, expressing frustration with Zack's generally "meh" reviews of the show, which is a bad combination when the show you're covering has such an ardent fan base. So it doesn't surprise me much that he dropped it; I just wish…

Sure hope so. I saw an advance copy of the premier double episode on a big screen tonight (special event at Alamo Ale House locations in the US) and it's really, REALLY good.

Well, clearly there are two camps evolving here, and there's probably not a lot more to be learned by continuing this. I think Agree to Disagree is going to have to be where we ultimately land here.

First, I'll start with the obvious part, yet the part that I think we all sometimes forget… Different people react to these things in different ways, and that's actually a good thing, because if we all agreed on what was or was not boring, then there'd be about 10 shows on all of television.

They've done a really good job of staffing this show. If you look at the writers and directors and check their resumes, they've almost all worked on one or more well-regarded, non genre show in the past. There are people with credentials from The Americans, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing, and a number of other…

I am speculating here with no real evidence to support it, but I can imagine that the creative team at the TV show wanted to make sure it was clear that the person in the shower was, in fact, Julie. Even as things are, I've noticed in several comment sections (here, Reddit, a couple of others I monitor) that a handful…

My take was that he is a spy, period. I think he's a mercenary who takes jobs that are offered to him - some civilian, some military. And over time he accumulates knowledge on various subjects, based on his assignments. I thought it was just fine.

the show does require you to pay close attention but isn't that kind of what a critic should do?

Just as an aside, I hope Alasdair comes back (as promised) someday to do Farscape season 4. You're right, those were particularly insightful and always interesting reads.

There was a throwaway line there, where the crew was getting ready to leave, and Fred says "you guys drive a hard bargain." I actually thought that was the one truly clunky line in this episode, that needed to be (like things usually are in this show) shown and not told. I wonder if they had more of the underlying…

Also, that event occurred eleven years ago. This secret-bioweapon-or-whatever-it-is seems to be of much newer origin.

The line is actually "You're either some kind of genius, Mr. Holden, or you're the luckiest dipshit in the solar system." I've misquoted it myself, but actually, it's a pretty big distinction. The thing is that the magnitude of Holden's dipshittiness is uncontested — he most likely is the biggest dipshit in the…

Agree 100%. After seeing this episode, I really felt it was the best so far of the series. I also thought "so that means the critics are going to hate it." And, although hate may be a bit strong, so far, a survey of the various reviews posted so far seem to bear that out.

I dunno, cliffhangers are sort of cheesy by definition, aren't they? I didn't think this one was any cheesier than any of the others. But cheesy is an eye of the beholder kinda thing, I think.