The Expanse Creators Explain Why Season 6 Is Only 6 Episodes Long

The closing season of The Expanse arrives this Friday, so io9 hopped on a video chat with writers Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (who co-author The Expanse books as James S.A. Corey) and showrunner Naren Shankar to speak concerning the present’s previous, current, and (hopefully?) future.

Cheryl Eddy, io9: If you needed to sum up season six with a single overarching theme, what wouldn’t it be?

Daniel Abraham: The necessity of regular folks to do the great factor so as to get us by. I imply, a lot of that is about not only one hero—not simply ending up a battle with two guys having a fistfight on a catwalk. [It’s about] everyone simply being just a little bit higher so as to make issues higher, recognizing folks’s humanity, recognizing folks’s place, giving room to one another, giving respect to one another—the type of banal goodness that truly makes society higher.

Naren Shankar: I feel recognizing the inherent humanity in others is absolutely a part of the season within the huge means. I’m attempting to recollect what we wrote on the board [in the writer’s room]. Remember we at all times would write the theme…

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Ty Franck: Normally we’d have had a theme taking a look at us day by day as we labored. And this was the primary 12 months we didn’t do this. So now we’re simply fumbling round like dumbasses [laughs].

io9: Was that due to covid?

Shankar: Yeah, we weren’t truly capable of be in the identical place bodily in any respect this season. This [press day] is definitely the primary time I’ve been in a room with these guys in two years. We weren’t capable of go to Toronto and be with the manufacturing like we at all times have been, with the actors. Even the author’s room was digital.

io9: Whose determination was it to make the season solely six episodes? Is that additionally due to covid-related causes?

Shankar: That was a choice between Amazon and Alcon Television. I imply, you at all times type of agree on how a lot cash you’re going to decide to the manufacturing of the present. And that was the choice. It got here down to creating six episodes of it. It’s at all times a negotiation to some extent. Could we’ve got completed 10? Absolutely. Could we’ve got completed eight? Certainly. Uh, I don’t assume we’d’ve been capable of inform the season in any much less than six.

Abraham: I feel if we’d have gotten 13 we’d have been in hassle.

Shankar: Yeah. I imply that may generally work in opposition to you—too many episodes additionally may be dangerous. So that was type of offered to us as, “Can we tell this story in six episodes?” and our response was, “Let’s think about it.” We talked about it and we got here again with, “Yeah, we can do it, but we’re going to have to supersize the sixth episode.” That one’s actually like an episode and a half.

Franck: And these aren’t six cheap episodes. [Laughs]

io9: Did they arrive at you with the six-episode plan earlier than you had began planning out the season?

Shankar: We had talked about it loosely, however we weren’t formally again at that time. I feel it was additionally a need to make it possible for we had been capable of end it and get the episodes completed to be again on [the air] a 12 months after we had been off. That was a part of it as properly, as a result of the best way these cycles work on the streamers, I feel that that most likely entered into the state of affairs.

Franck: And the true reply to your query is there’s by no means only one planning session. There’s a number of levels of planning. So there’s at all times like an early plan the place Naren or Daniel or I’ll get collectively and type of speak huge image what we’d do for a subsequent season. So that’s type of the start of the planning, however at each step of the best way as new constraints or new prospects are laid out, then we’ve got to revise the plan. We have so as to add extra element to it. So, yeah, sooner or later we type of had a plan, then they stated six episodes. Then we needed to revise the plan and do a six-episode model of that plan.

io9: Were there storylines that you simply want you could possibly’ve explored extra, for those who’d had the normal 10 episodes?

Franck: We truly had an even bigger half for [season three character] Pastor Anna and an even bigger half for [season two and three character] Prax. But as we had been doing the season breakdown and determining what we had been going to do six episodes on, it turned clear we couldn’t do justice to these tales within the period of time that we had. So then we trimmed them right down to form of cameos, however nonetheless received the purpose of that story within the cameo. Those are two examples, however there’s quite a lot of selections like that the place we realized we didn’t have the house to do the massive model of that story. So we’d trim it right down to this small model.

io9: Obviously we gained’t be entering into any spoilers, however having watched the entire season myself, there was no less than one storyline that left some dangling threads on the finish. Some characters that perhaps we’d wish to revisit. Is there any likelihood that we’d decide again up with them in one other medium?

Abraham: As we at all times say, there are three extra books. There’s much more story to inform. Big world! Things might occur.

io9: I’m certain followers are going to be unhappy about solely six episodes, though all of us must take into account that we nearly misplaced The Expanse after the third season. Do you assume there’s going to be the same fan motion after the finale to demand extra?

Shankar: For extra of The Expanse going ahead? Well, I go away that to them. [Laughs] Hey, you recognize what, if we do our job proper and it occurs? Great.

Abraham: I really like working with these guys. I really like working with this solid. If the universe noticed match to let me do this some extra, I’d present up.

Shankar: It is truthfully, it’s so uncommon as of late to get a present by six seasons. In the present period that we’re in, that’s a miracle in and of itself. I really feel like we received nice help at Amazon and Alcon to get the present to the top of e book six, which was at all times, you recognize, a chance that that was going to be an ending of the present as a result of there’s a satisfying conclusion at that time. The door is open to different issues. And if the celebs align, I feel you’d discover lots of people keen to take part in it.

io9: Including the followers, I’m certain. Looking again, have you ever had a favourite second that was delivered to life as a part of The Expanse collection?

Shankar: I hold going again to Julie and Miller. It’s simply such a wonderful scene.

Franck: My jokey, half-serious reply is that I simply actually like anytime Amos will get to shoot anyone or Bobbie will get to beat anyone up. I search for these alternatives. [Laughs]

Abraham: I can’t let you know mine as a result of it’s a spoiler for season six. The factor that I’m happiest about, um, occurs on this season.

io9: Well, we do get to type of see Bobbie and Amos develop into higher associates this season. You can type of think about them as a dream group having their very own adventures.

Shankar: And you’ll get a type of, on one of many “X-Rays” [after-show shorts]—you get just a little Amos-Bobbie X-Ray journey. We have 5 X-Rays for episodes one by 5. They’re nice little brief items that illuminate particular person characters or pairs of characters. They pop up on the finish of the episode, so for those who simply cease and click on on an x-ray, it’ll take you to that content material.

io9: Is that new for this season? How did these come about?

Shankar: Yeah. Amazon wished them.

Abraham: I feel the X-Ray group at Amazon has been wanting to do that for awhile, and that is the primary time it’s actually come collectively that we might make them. They’re very nice little vignettes—I’m more than happy with how they turned out.

Franck: The concept of doing these little brief issues is one thing we had talked about earlier than, and we simply by no means had the time or assets at that second to do it. But this 12 months Amazon gave us all of the assets we have to make these and it’s unbelievable.

Shankar: And they’re cohesive. There’s a philosophical thread that goes by them. They’re linked to the narrative and so they mirror it and so they illuminate it in quite a lot of methods. So I feel persons are going to get a kick out of them.

io9: So there’s going to be a Bobbie and Amos episode—what are the opposite ones?

Shankar: The first one is about Drummer and Naomi. The second one is Avasarala, the third one is Amos and Bobbie, the fourth one is Clarissa, and the fifth one is Holden.

io9: What do you hope folks take away from The Expanse as a complete, and the place do you see its legacy by way of sci-fi on TV?

Abraham: I’m going to botch it now, however the there’s a quote from Camus that’s one thing very a lot alongside the strains of, “there’s more to admire in humanity than to despise.” And that’s what we’ve tried to do with The Expanse, each variations of it—the books and the present take a look at humanity and discover it price loving, warts and all. With all the violence and the unfairness and the tribalism, to see that we’re nonetheless a fairly wonderful species. We’ve completed some wonderful stuff. And for all the horror, kindness continues to be extra frequent. For all of the tribalism, the tribes hold getting larger. If there’s a message that comes by, from that’s what I hope.

Franck: And its legacy shouldn’t be one thing that individuals who make the factor get to resolve. That is set by the followers now—and to some extent, followers who don’t even exist but. Future followers get to resolve that. So we don’t get to select.

The Expanse season six premieres Friday, December 10 on Amazon Prime. We’ll have much more Expanse developing on io9 this week, so keep tuned!

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