July 12--Every year at San Diego Comic-Con, the Syfy channel consumes a local cafe in the middle of the Gaslamp Quarter and transforms it into a living ad for whatever series they want to feature. This year the new TV show "The Expanse" (adapted from the popular "Leviathan Wakes") brought the plot's space mining to Earth.
The restaurant takeover started on the outside and spread all the way inside, rebranding the menus, host stand and even bathrooms. The entire exterior was wrapped in an ad for "The Expanse" set on an asteroid belt. Hovering over the entrance is a collection of space-suit-wearing models climbing over asteroid rocks (the series is set in a newly colonized solar system near an asteroid belt where some characters find employment mining).
Tables are covered in star charts, and PR stills of the new characters moodily moon over the restaurant's patrons. And in the back there's a VR experience that allegedly puts you inside the series, clearly Syfy spared no expense to market its new TV show.
"The Expanse" is set in the future and stars Thomas Jane, who plays, wait for it, a space detective! Yup, this is half noir thriller half space odyssey. Jane's character is Josephus Miller, he was born in the asteroid belt and has been tasked with the job of finding a missing woman in this space madness. Naturally nothing is as it seems, you know the usual noir shtick, but this time in space.
We put together a photo gallery so you too can eat highly marketed space eggs, just with your eyes.
