The Expanse: Season 5

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 5 Critic Reviews

See All

USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 78 Ratings

See All

7.4

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7.4	Your Score
7.4	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 78 Ratings

Would you like to write a review?

There is a 75 character minimum for reviews. If your review contains spoilers, please check the Spoiler box. Please do not use ALL CAPS. There is no linking or other HTML allowed. Your review may be edited for content. 0/5000

Check box if your review contains spoilers

Play Sound

Please enter your birth date to watch this video:

You are not allowed to view this material at this time.

The Expanse

Now Playing: The Expanse

Season Details & Credits

SyFy | Prime Video | Season Premiere Date: December 16, 2020

Summary: Belter Marco Inaros threatens to attack planet Earth and the crew of the Rocinante face their past in the fifth season of the sci-fi series.

Genre(s): Drama, Action & Adventure, Fantasy, Suspense, Science Fiction

Watch Now

Stream On

Season 5 Episodes

tbd
S5:E10. Nemesis Games
Air Date: February 3, 2021
tbd
S5:E9. Winnipesaukee
Air Date: January 27, 2021
tbd
S5:E8. Hard Vacuum
Air Date: January 20, 2021

See all Seasons and Episodes

Metascore

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Zack Handlen

Dec 15, 2020

None of these storylines are duds, and the ways in which they all interact with one another to varying degrees remains one of the show’s greatest accomplishments. Read full review

Alexis Gunderson

Dec 15, 2020

For fans who want a bit more going on than a bunch of solo heroes working through their own long, dark teatimes of the soul, I can see it being a bit of a slog. That said, a bit of a slog, when it comes to The Expanse, is still a deeply satisfying, multisensory experience, and for all that the interpersonal stories are smaller this season, it is still as beautiful to look at as ever. Read full review

IndieWire Steve Greene

Dec 16, 2020

Even with the protomolecule saga relatively sidelined this season, “The Expanse” draws so much strength from exposing how fragile an expansive society like this is. Read full review

The Telegraph Ed Power

Dec 16, 2020

The Expanse’s complexity risks turning off the casual viewer. Yet its portrayal of a multi-faceted and morally ambiguous future brimming with dozens of heroes and villains remains a stunning achievement. For those prepared to commit the necessary time and attention, it’s an absolute blast. Read full review

Mike Hale

Dec 15, 2020

If you can look past some wooden dialogue and stiff acting, however, the new season might be the show’s best as an adventure-drama delivery system — the creators have only gotten better at pacing and packaging a taut conspiracy thriller over 10 weeks. Read full review

User Score

Write a Review

7.4

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

User Reviews

SevenThunders

Feb 17, 2021

This season the cast separates into several interesting adventures, further developing their relationship. It's about tragedy, hope, terrorism and a hair raising finale that will leave you wanting for more. Nice work.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

c300g97

Dec 26, 2020

This is the only show that keeps me on the edge of the seat , every episode!
I loved every second of it, just like i did with Mandalorian, but this time around there are no filler episodes, the story grows with each episode and the viewer can't catch a break!

1 of 3 users found this helpful12

Babaman

Dec 17, 2020

The best sci-fi series of all time. And Amos is an incredible character! I recommend everyone to see this series, it's worth it. A fantastic series, I hope the specialized critics realize it!

4 of 7 users found this helpful43

Moviessuck

Mar 3, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I was expecting so much more out of season 5. It reminds me of Walking Dead where there are long boring parts mixed with moments of intense excitement. This does create some great payoffs but I literally got bored of watching the show during the second half. Luckily I slugged through to a decent payoff I was just expecting more you know...expanse this season. Oh well. Season 6 looks to be setup to be pretty interesting so hoping for better next time.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Bashmarda

Feb 3, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. I have read all The Expanse books and have been an avid follower of the show.

Admittedly, Season 5 was going to be difficult to pull off owing to how the books had everyone off in a different place, but the execution was just so poor

SPOILER ALERT

The devastation of earth was watered down so, so, so much. Hardly the civilization upending event that it was supposed to be. Then, very critical plot lines were just poorly explained, rushed, or ignored, while excessive times was spent on various individual characters and their relationships.

The Expanse stopped being a sci-fi epic and started becoming a space soap with the requisite crying, emotions, and romances

Moments of brilliance were there; such as Naomi's unforgettable space jump... but the rest of the season was just a disappointment, and if I was just a TV viewer I wouldn't have a clue what was going on, especially the season finale when the Laconians are unveiled.

Tiamat's Wrath was incandescently exciting to read, and that's where Season 6 should start. I wonder if it will make up for Season 5.… Expand

4 of 4 users found this helpful40

grammarye

Feb 9, 2021

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A remarkable show suddenly becomes boring filler commentary. This season dragged significantly, and advanced the plot very little. We spend hour after tedious hour watching repeats of the same scenes, characters engage in actions that are just plain stupid & not in character with their previous seasons; the actual interesting plot advancement is compressed into short minutes here and there. That the show's owners decided to kill one of their most interesting characters off for their own petty reasons just adds more annoyance to the overall theme. The immense complexity of prior seasons is replaced with one-dimensional plot points and badly written exposition.

I'm honestly a mix of shocked and disappointed, which speaks to the regard I held the Expanse in. I fell in love with the show during the early seasons. Season 4 had a few rocky moments (Holden holding a metal plate against a tsunami I'm looking at you) but was still a fun sci-fi experience. Season 5 has fully transitioned to soap opera and political commentary in space. The sci-fi bit is pretty much killed off. There's no more discussion of actual space or interesting alien mystery or even geopolitics.

What a lot of Hollywood doesn't seem to grasp is that if I wanted to watch the same boring commentary on humanity transposed to yet another setting to ruin with unimaginative writing, I have plenty of existing failed shows to watch. The Expanse had the rare promise to actually be sci-fi and deal with the many challenges posed by that. It's not that the existing issues of humanity aren't present, but the point is that they should be backdrop, not the main theme. That's been done, and done better.

A few spoiler-worthy highlights: we spend more time watching Naomi crying or breathing with difficulty (and doing so astonishingly poorly for someone who allegedly lives and works in space) than almost any other part of the season. It doesn't even advance her character much, since the audience is left wondering most of the time what the hell she is doing or why she's acting so stupidly. Maybe the books provide more context but it's all been lost by whatever halfwit director put these scenes together. She flits about emotionally so much that by the end of the season you wonder whether a personality transplant was also included.

The big plot point of the season is Marco Inaros and his fight against Earth, one of the few characters who actually shines in creating a really irritating villain. Yet even here we don't actually get to explore much. The scenes are a mix of him psychologically manipulating his son and looking broodily into the camera while one of his one-dimensional sidekicks does something. We get a certain amount of ship porn with a few battles, yet the big mysteries of the Expanse's prior plotlines aren't advanced at all, or worse, are hand-waved off-screen.

By the end, finishing off with a brief almost apologetic space battle and boring scenes that do a terrible job of conveying the real reasons why parts of Mars acted the way they did, it's hard to care. Killing off Alex was bad enough, but the way they did so was perfunctory and did the show and their own reputations a disservice. Indeed the bulk of activities of most of the characters seems to be have been heavily cut in favour of specific screentime, and the show's pacing suffers for it.

It's not a gripping season. It feels forced, badly written, and attempting to appeal to a different audience to prior seasons. The interesting parts could almost be condensed into one or two episodes, and you'd have several hours of your life back. A great pity.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

TwiTu

Feb 8, 2021

This is not The Expanse anymore. Its completely turned around. Not only are the new actors almost all really bad, but also the existing ones had their characters partly rewritten/reassigned and obviously cant or wont deal with it. Ive never seen that much bad acting in any show or movie.This is not The Expanse anymore. Its completely turned around. Not only are the new actors almost all really bad, but also the existing ones had their characters partly rewritten/reassigned and obviously cant or wont deal with it. Ive never seen that much bad acting in any show or movie. There are such ridiculous situations of bad acting, that sometimes I just sunk my face into my hands and left them there for a whole minute, because it really was that bad.

The story is completely uninteresting now. Not to mention it was mainly just about saving one person (whos character is completely irrelevant to everything and unlikeable anyway - and the actress untalented).

The show feels forced now. As if they are pushing something. Propaganda maybe? Would fit, because the creators seem to favor a lot of people with full lips (not kidding - check it for yourself) and those with thin lips are mostly cast as bad guys or die quickly. The creators also seem to hate Asians. There are additional Chinese (or Japanese, not sure) words on every sign in the show (from the last seasons, obviously), yet you barely see any Asians at all, much less in lead roles. That also was much better in the last seasons, yet not very good either. That feels like its coming directly from the Critical Race Theory rulebook.

Then they also killed off a character because the actor was accused (accused, not actually found guilty) of misbehavior. Even though there is only one more season anyway. So what could have happened keeping him? Obviously the creators feel like they are the judge, jury and executioner. Curiously also a part of Critical Theory.

Sad to see this happening, but this is the way now. Brace yourselves. This by far wont be the last show or IP destroyed by or even completely made for woke propaganda.
Thankfully only one more season now.… Expand

3 of 7 users found this helpful34

SEE ALL 27 REVIEWS

Seasons & Episodes

72

Series Overview
Season 6

tbd
- Season 6 Overview
  Air Date: December 10, 2021
Season 5

82
- Season 5 Overview
  Air Date: December 16, 2020
- tbd
  S5:E10. Nemesis Games
  Air Date: February 3, 2021
- tbd
  S5:E9. Winnipesaukee
  Air Date: January 27, 2021
- tbd
  S5:E8. Hard Vacuum
  Air Date: January 20, 2021
- tbd
  S5:E7. Oyedeng
  Air Date: January 13, 2021
- tbd
  S5:E6. Tribes
  Air Date: January 6, 2021
- tbd
  S5:E5. Down and Out
  Air Date: December 30, 2020
- tbd
  S5:E4. Guagamela
  Air Date: December 23, 2020
- tbd
  S5:E3. Mother
  Air Date: December 16, 2020
- tbd
  S5:E2. Churn
  Air Date: December 16, 2020
- tbd
  S5:E1. Exodus
  Air Date: December 16, 2020
Season 4

91
- Season 4 Overview
  Air Date: December 13, 2019
Season 3

tbd
- Season 3 Overview
  Air Date: April 11, 2018
Season 2

77
- Season 2 Overview
  Air Date: February 1, 2017
Season 1

65
- Season 1 Overview
  Air Date: December 14, 2015