For those of you familiar with the Expanse series by authors Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham (writing under the name James S.A. Corey), the long-awaited television adaptation is about to get underway in earnest on the SyFy Network. To whet the appetites of potential viewers, and to build buzz among those of us who have read at least the first novel, Leviathan Wakes, the initial episode has been released online. You can watch it via Youtube, with the link/video posted below.

My non-spoiler thoughts:

I thought they did a great job staying faithful to open chapters of the novel. I liked the special effects well enough and feel that the set and ship design we’ve seen thus far fit well with my mental images conjured while reading the novel. I’m reserving judgment on the casting choices simply because we don’t really get a great deal of time with the cast in just this one episode. I did picture Holden older, though.

I’ve read other non-spoiler reviews which follow a similar theme in that a person familiar with the book watched it with someone unfamiliar and the person who hadn’t read the book felt it was a bit confusing getting up to speed. I did the same thing, watching it with Mary, and while she certainly sees that to some degree, she wasn’t overly confused.

I don’t have cable/dish, so I’m not sure that I’ll be able to keep up with the show as it airs, but I’m tempted at this point to either subscribe to streaming or to pay for each individual episode if they end up available on Amazon Prime. We’ll see how it goes. Thus far, I’m in.

If you’ve seen the episode, or watch it soon, feel free to engage in a more spoiler-filled discussion in the comments. Please head each of those comments with the SPOILER tag.