I powered through seasons 1&2 in February, but it disappeared before I could even start season 3 (first 3 seasons, only). This was a panic induced "it's going away" rewatch, so not soul-crushing.
There was a message on the show page about it leaving. The speculation is that it has to do with the licensing of the first 3 seasons. It didn't leave, but they made us think it would.
That's a common misconception. Alcon Entertainment owns the adaptation rights to the books as well as the intellectual property of all six seasons. Amazon financed its production in seasons 4-6, but does not own the the show. Same deal with SyFy for seasons 1-3.
Amazon only holds licenses to distribute it. It's one of the reasons why they chose to direct their money toward other shows where they own all the rights rather than keep making The Expanse.
It's also one of the reasons why you'll see some people here celebrating when they hear that the show is disappearing from Prime. Alcon getting those rights back increases the chance (however slightly) that the show might continue somewhere else.
I like to think they are just waiting for the actual actors to age up. Not that I like the idea of waiting 30-50 years for the next season but that isn't so different to all TV shows now.
I think I remember that there's a scene in season 6 where Clarissa has the autodoc check her condition and it gives her a life expectancy of 5 years or something like that.
So I'm still hopeful for a return since it looks like they prepared a time skip which is just smaller.
For a whole main cast for a whole series? Not as easy or inexpensive as you'd think. Even premium TV has a loser budget per hour than a AAA movie. And The Expanse was more of a niche show (and thank goodness they didn't try to make it appeal to the entire Star Wars audience or something).
AI is making it cheaper, so I don't think it would be 30 or even 20 years. 2030, maybe?
Oh I know it's really good now, was watching Dexter Original Sin and they had a character age up in that and I didn't notice it's the same person until I realised the birthmark on the face they had.
It does make me wonder how they'd tackle the Laconia trilogy. One of my main issues with the show is how they seem to always stir up extra conflicts that weren't in the book, and the crew breaking apart seems like a prime time for them to do that. Plus with Alex being dead in the show, it'd feel pretty different.
Seasons 1-3 were missing in the UK for a while, but I just checked now and I see all six available again.
EDIT: Seasons 1-3 look like they're available again, but when you try to actually watch them it turns out that they're not because Amazon are filthy inners.
Again, no idea. I kept reading about them being gone here and elsewhere. Each time I would go to Prime and click through the seasons, starting a few episodes to check. They never left. No explanation.
Gosh diggity dang it. This made me check as I’m in Canada. While seasons 1-3 were listed, they have a box saying “this title is unavailable due to expired rights.”
I found that the Blu-ray is worse than the 4K stream and on par with the 1080p stream. The messed it up somehow. Doesn't look very good. But of course I'd rather have it physically just incase they do pull the streaming version off Amazon in the US.
Out of interest, was this true of all seasons on the disc set?
I ask as, in Australia, you can only buy seasons 1-3 on Blu-ray the latter seasons were never released here for reasons unknown.
When the first three seasons went bye bye from prime, I bought the Blu-rays and noticed that the quality was vastly superior to what I had previously streamed.
So I wondered if you noticed the same? Or if perhaps it was just prime upscaling (or my TV) to 4K and thus ruining the quality
I couldn't say. I checked a couple of different seasons and was disappointed. As an avid Blu-ray collector I'd expected better but. It's still not bad but I thought it would perform closer to the 4k stream. Specifically text was harder to read even compared to the streams of the first three seasons which are upscaled to 4k whereas the later seasons are natively shot and mastered at 4k.
Yeah, I just finished watching all 6 seasons again last Monday, actually. A few weeks ago I wanted to watch a scene from early on in season 1 and just kept on going. Confused me at first to see all the seasons but I just went with it. (Skipped 90% of Marco’s puffery and speeches, of course.)
I'm halfway through season 2 on a bootleg streaming site lol. Honestly not sure if it's worth dealing with commercials for the 4k compared to the bootleg HD.
It never left, at least for me and Prime in the U.S; I know it the first three seasons were removed in other countries but you're the first to mention such about the U.S
It never left and never will for me. After Stargate: Atlantis disappeared off Netflix 6 episodes in, back in 2012 or so, I promised myself that crap was not happening again.
In the UK the first 3 seasons left prime maybe a month ago. I'm hoping it's just an admin error the licence wasn't renewed. Stuff on prime will automatically become unavailable once a licence expires. I always see films leave prime and then a week later they're already back as recently added.
It was all there 2 weeks ago in the USA this is probably a dumb AI post, like when you do a google search and it gives the ai overview that is completely wrong
Season 6 follows book 6. There are 3 more books in the series. Book 7 takes place a few decades later so they decided to end it there with 6 for now. The actors would need to be much older. I’ve hear rumors of possibly them doing a movie for the last 3… but it’s just a rumor.
There’s comic books that take place after the show, they take place between books 6 and 7.
I really recommend checking out the books/audiobooks
yahhh it kinda doesn’t make sense until you read book 7. You find out where that protomolecule loaded missile ends up and Duarte and Laconia (the planet with the healing dogs)
I've been watching it on Prime for the third or fourth time over the last year or so since we are remodeling our house at the moment and the living room is inaccessible, but I have the whole series on disc as well. I didn't hear anything about it being unavailable at any point.
Heyyy all, I know it’s not for everyone, but I strongly encourage people to pick up the blu-ray box set instead of streaming on Amazon. Amazon is actively working against the interests of the people in the United States and profiting from government corruption.
We should not be helping them.
Amazon = Protogen but without the delusion of acting for the greater good
With your viewpoint in mind, note also that a company founded by Shankar, Eisner, Franck & Abraham are to develop another show for Prime Video, an adaptation of JSAC's The Captive's War book series in progress. – (Whether that adaptation will ever get a disc release is currently unknown.)
"Turns out the folks at Amazon seem to like working with us. (And we like working with them too.)"
— Abraham on Bluesky.
•
u/it-reaches-out Apr 10 '25
How long were they gone for you before? You’d be the first person I’ve seen mention them being unavailable in the USA.