If You Miss The Expanse, Watch This 5-Season Sci-Fi Series That Actually Has An Ending

Published Sep 11, 2026, 10:30 PM EDT

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The Expanse easily ranks among some of the greatest sci-fi shows of our time. It has an incredibly high rewatch value and deserves every bit of praise and acclaim it has earned over the years. However, even after all these years, there is one nagging issue with the series that cannot be fixed. It never got to complete its run and still has an abundance of source material left to adapt.

Long before The Expanse got to last for six seasons, it almost faced the wrath of cancellation after season 3. It first premiered on Syfy and ended up getting axed by the network because of declining viewership and high production budget. Fortunately, one of the greatest campaigns in television history eventually ended up saving it, prompting Amazon to acquire the show and continue its run for three more seasons.

After being revived, The Expanse continued to prove why it never deserved to be canceled in the first place. However, history eventually repeated itself after The Expanse was finally forced to close its run on Prime Video as well before finishing its source material's story. While The Expanse's inconclusive ending is still disappointing, viewers looking for a more complete space opera must watch Babylon 5.

All The Expanse Fans Should Go Back And Watch Babylon 5

Long before The Expanse embraced a six-season arc to deliver a continuous space drama, Babylon 5 defied the norm and set the original blueprint for consequential long-term storytelling in sci-fi. When The Expanse first premiered, many shows of the sci-fi genre had already started adopting serialized story arcs where they committed to one sprawling narrative across multiple seasons.

Babylon 5, in contrast, was an outlier for its time. Most sci-fi shows in the '80s and '90s hit refresh after every installment to ensure new viewers could start watching them anytime. However, Babylon 5 committed to delivering a television novel that had a pre-planned 5-season arc.

After all these years, Babylon 5's visual elements have not aged too well. It was quite ahead of its time with its use of CGI despite having a shoestring TV budget. After all the advancements in visual effects, though, Babylon 5 can seem a little too underwhelming for today's standards.

When it comes to its storytelling, however, Babylon 5 remains light years ahead of its time. Everything, from its portrayal of geopolitical tensions to exploration of war and religion, remain remarkably relevant for the times. Similar to The Expanse, Babylon 5 also deserves credit for adopting real science with its depiction of space travel, Newtonian physics, and gravity.

Babylon 5 Saw Its 5-Season Plan Through To Completion

The Expanse season 6's story roughly aligned with the sixth installment of the original book series. After Book 6 (Babylon's Ashes), the original story makes a massive 30-year time jump before walking through another trilogy (Persepolis Rising, Tiamat's Wrath, and Leviathan Falls). Unfortunately, despite having so much source material content left to cover, the Prime Video sci-fi series ended its run with season 6.

Viewers still wonder if The Expanse will get a potential revival in the future, which could allow it to wrap its run on a more conclusive and high note. Given how the show's creators are busy working on an adaptation of The Captive's War book series, which was also penned by The Expanse's authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, it seems unlikely The Expanse will get a revival anytime soon.

However, while hoping for The Expanse's return, fans of compelling space operas with complete and conclusive arcs can watch Babylon 5. Babylon 5 stumbles a little in season 4, but it ensures that it resolves all underlying beats before wrapping its story in season 5.

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  The Expanse

  

  10/10

  Release Date

  2015 - 2022-00-00

  Network

  SyFy, Prime Video

  • 

    Steven Strait

    Jim Holden

  • 

    Dominique Tipper

    Naomi Nagata

  The Expanse is a sci-fi series set in the distant future where humanity has spread out across the solar system, but the alliances between the three most potent governing bodies have reached a state of cold war. A mixed-up crew finds themselves at the center of a dangerous intergalactic conspiracy that threatens to bring war to the colonized worlds.