In particular Dominique Tipper as Naomi and Frankie Adams as Bobbie Draper seem to struggle.

Doing that involves a lot of overly emotional dialogue that at least some of the cast don’t really pull off. This first episode though, is largely dedicated to splitting up the crew of the Rocinante and sending them on seperate paths. The show set him up well in season 4 and he’s here, lurking far in the background of season 5’s first episode. The big, dangerous threat of The Expanse season 5 involves the terrorist Marco Inaros. Naomi, unfortunately, seems to have other plans. Instead of worrying about the fate of humanity he’s imagining a happy future where he settles down and retires with Naomi. Amos is on his way to Earth to revisit his past. Alex and Bobby are on Mars taking care of personal business. The Rocinante is undergoing repairs and upgrades at Fred Johnson’s Tycho station and her crew is taking a break from, well, each other. The time and place of The Expanse season 5 is not long after the events of season 4. The Expanse understands it’s the little things that build a world, it’s the little things that create a time and place. It’s the little things that make a good show great. Another show, a lesser show, might look at how much it costs to make that scene look good and shoot it without the anti-gravity walkers. The characters the camera is focused on don’t even acknowledge them. If they hadn’t included them no one would have noticed they were missing and they added nothing to the dialogue of the scene.

They didn’t need to go the extra mile and have extras walking past on the ceiling. To me that corridor scene embodies everything that has made and continues to make The Expanse so great. The Expanse, even in a fairly humdrum exposition dialogue scene, continues to take complete and total advantage of its incredible, outer space sci-fi setting. A simple walk and talk down a corridor will blow your mind as passersby walk on not just the floor but also the ceiling.

Yes the first episode of The Expanse season 5 is basically an extended soap opera, but at least it’s a really good soap opera with fantastic production design and incredible special effects.

The expanse season 5 episode 3