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Season two is quickly coming to an end, as is Bobby Draper’s career with the MCRN Marines. The Martian Powers-That-Be are furious that she spilled the beans all over the man without a vac suit, and the feeling is mutual as they used her and her fire crew as live targets for a sales demo.
Errinwright is also in big trouble. In the absence of Jules-Pierre Mao, he will take the fall for Eros and nearly wipe out life on Earth.
I don’t know about you, but I loved the scenes with Alex and the Roci this week. That stellar cartography hologram was extremely cool, and I loved the slingshot. Astute viewers will remember the idea of slingshot – flying an orbit around the solar system using gravity instead of an Epstein drive – was introduced a while ago with some kids betting on it at a bar on Ceres. Coincidentally, showrunner Naren Shankar isn’t too happy with the scene, for reasons he elaborates on in a post on Dan Abraham’s site.
Again, the little details about the universe of the vastness keep enjoying. I love the animated backpack; It and the smart pots and pans we saw last week show us how ubiquitous and disposable some types of technology are at this point. But my favorite moment—and I can’t be here alone—was when Alex met the rest of the crew on Ganymede. It seems that in this timeline, talking about your ship as a person doesn’t come naturally!
In this week’s podcast, John Timmer interviews Amanda Hendrix and Charles Wohlforth, authors of Beyond the Earthwhere they talk about what we really need to do to colonize the solar system.
I’m going to analyse, debate and dissect the vastness each week with a different guest, and throughout the season we post the podcast on Fridays. New episodes air on Wednesdays in the US, so you have time to watch before we get into major spoilers. the vastness season 2 will air in the UK on Netflix, although possibly not for another month or two.
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decoded is Ars Technica’s weekly podcast about the TV that obsesses us. We are currently dissecting the vastness. Listen or subscribe as you wish above and let us know what you think — ideas, questions, and so on — via the comments section, on iTunes, or via email.