At the Television Critics Association press tour last Saturday Amazon announced the fifth season renewal of The Expanse prior to its season four premiere. Amazon picked up the show earlier this year after Syfy cancelled it. The Hugo Award-winning series is adapted from the celebrated science fiction series by James S.A. Corey, a joint pseudonym used by authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck.
The series is set centuries in the future and follows the crew of the Rocinate as they navigate a war for resources in the remaining planets in our solar system. The fourth season is set to follow the events of the fourth book in the series, Cibola Burn, but it is not clear at this point if the fifth season will correlate with the fifth book, Nemesis Games. The upcoming season will show how the heroes cope with heightening territorial conflicts between the Earther, Martian, and Belter nations. While all three groups are eager to colonize and claim these new lands, there are elements at play that are not immediately visible.
The Expanse is collaboratively written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby who also share executive producer titles with Naren Shankar, the showrunner for the last four seasons. Other executive producers involved in the projects include Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the original authors of the novels, as well as Jason Brown, Sean Daniel, Sharon Hall, Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, Laura Lancaster, and Dan Nowak. The Expanse stars Frankie Adams, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Steven Strait, and Dominique Tipper.
At the press event, Amazon released a sizzle reel for the upcoming season four, set to drop on December 13th, 2019. Amazon also announced the second season renewal of Carnival Row, another original starring Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne. The first season of Carnival Row drops on August 30th, 2019.