The stars of The Expanse can’t say enough great things about the new fifth season, and one hints that the show could go on after its sixth and “final” year.
The fifth season of The Expanse is officially here, and the reviews so far have been fantastic, with the best yet to come.
Or at least that’s what you’d think if you listen to star Wes Chatham (Amos Burton) talk about the show with Steve Weintraub at Collider, who’s breathless about how fantastic the show is this year. “Going into season 5, I knew that this was the season that really dives into Amos’ past, and it was the one thing that I was really excited to go to,” Chatham said. “Before season 5 we all had butterflies. I felt more motivated in season 5 than we did even back in season 1. We knew how important it was to the show because it’s really the apex to our arcs that started back in season 1.”
It’s true that season 5 will finally dig into Amos’ murky past; in fact, all of the characters will get more individual focus, since they’ll be split up for the first time since the show began. And then there’s the increased budget that comes from being a show on Amazon Prime Video, where before they were on SyFy. “It felt way bigger to me, too,” Chatham said. “I’m blown away by the visual effects and the size and the scale. I think it’s hands-down on all levels the best thing we’ve ever done.”
Perhaps most intriguingly, Chatham discussed the end of the series. Not long ago, Amazon renewed the show for a sixth and final season, which disappointed some fans because the book series The Expanse is based on keeps going for longer than that. But pretty immediately, producers started to hint that The Expanse series could live on beyond the sixth season, although details are scarce at the moment.
And Chatham didn’t give many more, but he was clearly struggling not to say anything out of turn when Weintraub asked him his thoughts about the show ending with season 6. He settled for this, “Who knows what will happen after Season 6…?”
Expanse fans, I think you may get the final three books adapted after all. At the least, it sounds like people are trying to make it happen, even if we won’t see the fruits of their labors for awhile.
Meanwhile, Steven Strait (James Holden) isn’t being quite as liberal with the hints, but he is clearly excited about James’ arc in season 5. “He is on his own this time, but you know, there’s a difference within him as a man,” Strait told SyFy Wire. “By Season 5 he really has his feet on the ground. He’s matured into a very good leader. He knows what he’s doing. He’s been through just about everything at this point. He’s able now to deal with it. But the irony is, the people who supported him to get him here, who have become his family, are gone. That is very difficult for him. And without giving too much away, just where the season goes, his whole journey this year is wrapped up in figuring out how to protect humanity from what he has unleashed — and getting his family back.”
But something tells me he’ll be ready for it, because James has done a lot of growing over the course of the past four seasons, something Strait clearly cherishes. “It gave me an opportunity to show the evolution of a leader in a very realistic way,” he said. “Holden is born with an ethical core that guides him through all of these crazy situations and he stumbles a lot. But he’s a good man. That’s what he has. In the beginning, he’s in way over his head, and there are some frustrating and ugly moments that Holden has, especially early on, where he’s overwhelmed and afraid. But he grows into being a leader. He grows into the hero that everyone needs him to be, and the story needs him to be. We’ve always had the privilege of having extraordinary writing… and that’s allowed us to realistically and confidently show that it’s a messy process to become a leader at Holden’s scale where there’s so much responsibility on his shoulders.”
"It was incredibly gratifying to show those steps, and to have him arrive at Season 5 and toward the end, as this very good leader that everyone trusts. Having that be earned, and make sense, and the viewers watch how that process has evolved, and that he didn’t just start that way. He had to become that, oftentimes through his failings. There’s a lot of humility in that, and I think it’s an honest look at how leaders do evolve in the real world. It’s very unusual to have that opportunity as an actor, and to have the time, frankly, to show that process. But we’ve managed to have six years of this to show that in realistic terms."
But will James keep being a leader beyond season 6? Stay tuned…
New episodes of The Expanse drop every Wednesday on Amazon Prime Video!
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