Well, here’s something we haven’t seen from The Expanse so far: excitement.

“CQB” sees the Martian warship carrying Holden and his crew come under attack by unknown assailants… who bear a suspicious similarity to the ship that destroyed the Cantebury.

What follows is a very lengthy and largely entertaining battle only slightly hampered by the facts that I still don’t really care about Holden and his crew and that the bad guys apparently went to the storm trooper school of marksmanship.

Meanwhile, Miller’s plot continues to go nowhere. Seriously, why is he even in the show at this point? We’re four episodes in, and while I enjoy his hard-boiled attitude and general snark, he hasn’t done anything at all.

Also, Chrisjen apparently still exists.

I’m starting to feel like Holden’s the only character the writers even care about. He’s the only one whose plot has had any significant development so far. They should have just not bothered with Miller and Chrisjen, or at least waited to introduce them until they actually had something to do. They’re just taking up space (har har) right now.

But at least the titular “Close Quarters Battle” was entertaining. A slightly more drawn-out, stately kind of space battle than we tend to see these days. I’m reminded of Star Trek’s original vision of emulating old naval battles.

I’m also getting a bit more drawn in by the mystery. I think I’ve figured it out — they don’t keep including random mentions of the Mormons for nothing — but we’ll have to see if my theory pans out.

Though there’s still that feeling of being strung along. They’re certainly taking their sweet time offering any kind of reveals.

“CQB” was entertaining enough to convince me to keep watching for at least one more episode, but The Expanse remains on thin ice where I’m concerned.

Overall rating 7/10

Apologies for the short length of this post. There just isn’t much to say about this show. It’s very good at filling an hour with very little.