Amazon Prime saves blockbuster sci-fi show The Expanse from obscurity
It's Prime time for The Expanse
Update: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has confirmed that The Expanse will return on Amazon Prime, though as yet there's no fixed date for season four.
Our original story continues below...
The Expanse has been around for three seasons now and was Syfy’s big push into creating a blockbuster science-fiction TV show.
Big money did mean, however, that the show would have to attract some big viewing figures. Unfortunately for The Expanse fans, a 25% drop in season two and a further 5% in season three meant that Syfy had no option but to cancel.
There's no such thing as ‘cancellation’ in the age of Netflix and Amazon Prime, though, services that have become the home of second chances.
Although nothing has been signed, it is thought that The Expanse will continue its fourth season on Amazon Prime - a place where money is seemingly no problem, especially when the boss of the company, Jeff Bezos, is a fan of the James SA Corey's best-selling books on which The Expanse is based.
The show is no stranger to streaming platforms - its previous seasons are currently streaming on Amazon Prime in the US and on Netflix in the UK, and has made it into TechRadar’s best shows on Netflix list.
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Prime time
If The Expanse does come to Amazon Prime, it will join a roster of big budget shows in production.
These include a Lord Of The Rings TV series, which will follow the exploits of a young Aragon, Utopia (a remake of the superb UK show), a TV version of the movie Hanna and Jonathan Nolan and Tina Joy’s latest drama The Peripheral.
It will also see Amazon Prime wade into similar sci-fi territory as Netflix, which has been creating a number of movies and shows in sci-fi genre.
Just last month, it was revealed that Netflix’s big push for this year and beyond is scripted sci-fi and fantasy drama.
- These are the best shows on Amazon Prime Video right now.
Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.