Just realized I never got a chance to post my response to S4 of The Expanse. In a word: great! Amazon took what SyFy started and kicked the whole thing up to a higher level. The FX were always excellent, but were just that much better, and I'm still waiting for them to release the soundtrack, which took the familiar and gave it just a little tweak. The pacing was a little different, as they didn't have to write for commercial breaks and could have episodes run a little long or short depending on the story (instead of being dictated by a timeslot), but I enjoyed it. And, of course, they did an excellent job adapting the story while making it its own thing. Great stuff, some powerful moments and some fun moments and some excellent dialog and just everything I love about The Expanse. Am looking forward to the fifth season, and hoping they get to do the full book run. (Amazon certainly pulled out all the stops on advertising in a way SyFy never dreamed of.)
And I just finished Season 2 of Altered Carbon on Netflix. The story takes up thirty years after the end of the first season, and moves the action from Bay City on Earth to Harlan's World, where Takeshi Kovacs was born and forged into what he is today. A little weaker than the first season, but some of that is because it's the middle installment of a trilogy (if they're paralleling the books, though they changed quite a bit from the first volume and I'm assuming they did the same here.) Can't get into too many details without spoilers, but it's less an exploration of the amorality of the immortal "Meth" class - how the creation of stack technology essentially eliminated one of the core features of being human - and more about the origins of stacks, stolen tech from the extinct race known as the Elders... and about how the Protectorate itself was founded on bloodshed and lies. The eight episodes parallel the first season, down to some of the beats, but generally avoid being strictly derivative or repetitious. Once in a while the story and dialog borders on melodrama, but it is ultimately a noir story, and some broody melodrama is baked into the genre DNA. It ends with a twist I didn't quite see coming, and an interesting tweak to the overall story that sets up what should be a great third/final season if Netflix greenlights it; unlike the first season, which could've rested on its own save one little hook, this one leaves more threads dangling that almost demand resolution. One thing I did miss was the soundtrack selections from the first season, which added some nice grit and emotion. Overall, though, a very enjoyable, if still dark and violent, story. (And Poe just breaks your heart... not really a spoiler at this point to say the AI assistant comes back this year.)