Netflix’s Away depicts humanity’s first, perilous mission to Mars, but it’s not a gritty sci-fi drama like Star Trek: Picard. It’s more West Wing: NASA, with smart, passionate people working together to solve problems. Everyone’s well-intentioned, fundamentally decent, and capable. There are no villains, only complicated situations. When someone suggests it’s better for an astronaut to die in space a hero than return home a coward, the argument feels profound, not diabolical. This makes the series dramatically frustrating at times, but given our current social and political climate, it’s also refreshing.
Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is Emma Green, an American astronaut in command of the Mars-bound Atlas. It’s not clear when the series takes place, but even the most optimistic real-world estimates don’t place humans on Mars until the early 2030s. Away offers no hints that this is a world 15 years or more in the future. At times, it feels as if it’s set 15 years in the past, or at least the pre-COVID-19 past: People gather in crowds to watch their kids play soccer. Schools and churches are open. Friends hug and serve each other drinks at parties. That all seems very far away now.
Emma’s crew is made up of Russian cosmonaut Misha (Mark Ivanir), Indian medical officer and second-in-command Ram (Ray Panthaki), English civilian botanist Kwesi (Ato Essandoh), and Chinese taikonaut Lu (Vivian Wu). If the mission’s successful, Lu will be the first person to set foot on the red planet. It seems inconceivable that the primarily U.S.-funded mission would permit a non-American this historic honor, but there’s no political backlash or complaints from shouty cable news hosts about how a weak U.S. president let this happen. Forget Mars—the Earth in Away feels like another planet.
Here’s the biggest problem with an otherwise enjoyable series: Each crew member is more interesting, with more compelling backstory, than Emma, the show’s focal point. It rarely seems like she wants to be on this mission, let alone lead it, which Lu calls her out on in a tense moment. Emma almost relinquishes command before the mission’s even started, and when her supervisor Darlene (Gabrielle Rose) warns her how it would look if the first woman commander quit for personal reasons, she dismisses the concern as “feminist bullshit.” That contrasts starkly with Lu and even Misha, who never forget the duty they have to the people they represent. Emma’s constant second thoughts don’t feel realistic for a veteran astronaut. This can’t be the first time she’s spent an extended period away from her family—such feelings would be more understandable from a rookie like Kwesi.
There’s a Friday Night Lights feel to the life Emma leaves behind on Earth, which makes sense because executive producer Jason Katims worked on that series as well. Emma’s husband, Matt (Josh Charles), is a former astronaut with a medical condition that denied him the stars. He suffers a debilitating physical setback in the first episode and spends the series struggling to adjust while also solo parenting their teenage daughter, Alexis (Talitha Bateman). Charles carries the series during its quieter moments. As Matt navigates the confines of a “new normal” (yes, they use that term), he seamlessly journeys through despair, frustration, rage, and hope—he could be at the center of his own series.
The same is true for Kwesi, Misha, and Lu. Kwesi is the emotional heart of the show, and the excellent Essandoh makes it impossible for anyone not to like him. He’s loyal, considerate, with an infectious passion for his work. His adjustments to space travel are a source of lighthearted humor, even when his body reacts in unpleasant ways. Misha is the “cowboy” member of the Atlas, quick with a biting quip that masks a gentle spirit. (He and Kwesi put on a puppet show for his grandkids!) Ivanir gives him depth, as we learn what he’s lost, and is still losing, for this mission. Wu is a revelation as Lu: She’s stoic but never cold, decisive but not heartless. She’s sacrificed the most emotionally for this mission but is the most determined to see it through. She’s the one crew member who never puts the Atlas at risk, either unintentionally or recklessly.
Unfortunately, despite a solid performance from Panthaki, Ram struggles as a character because he’s designed to function as Emma’s “Number One,” her closest confidant, and the series never delivers on their relationship. Emma tells Ram that she likes to keep her personal and professional lives separate. That’s a fair practice in real life, but it isolates Emma from the crew (and the audience) without revealing anything new about her. We get to see Lu with someone she loves deeply on Earth and how that contrasts with the stoic, driven Lu on board the Atlas. Emma is not that different when at home, perhaps because so many of her flashbacks show her in periods of emotional distress. It’s also unclear if Emma keeps Ram at a distance because inappropriate romantic feelings are developing and she’s drawing a line. That could’ve been interesting to explore, but Away isn’t the type of series where people cross ethical or moral lines. The closest we come is when a crew member conceals a personal disability.
There’s a scene during the Christmas episode when Emma is once again spiraling into self-pity. She asks Lu how she copes with the separation from her loved ones. “You always seem so stalwart,” Emma says. Lu’s contempt for Emma’s remarks is obvious, but she patiently sets her straight—a sign of a true leader. “We are about to be the first human beings to set foot on Mars. I look that way. You’re looking in the wrong direction, Commander Green.” At times it seems like the series is trying for a Spock/Kirk dynamic between Lu and Emma (though at least Kirk’s top priority on Star Trek is always the Enterprise and its crew.) Lu is overtly analytical like Spock, but she also intuitively understands people, their strengths and weaknesses. When she tells the crew that for the next three years, her husband is their son’s sole parent, you can tell that she has confronted this devastating reality. She doesn’t seek to deny it, as Emma does, and that enables her to focus on the mission, gaining the crew’s admiration and respect. It’s not the only time that Lu feels like the true commander of the Atlas, offering a look at a more compelling version of the series, one in which its leader confronts their demons head on instead of being in perpetual denial.
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The ovvious reason why the Chinese get to step on Mars first is because Hollywood is an unapologetic sellout and we need all that Chinese cash.
but it’s not a gritty sci-fi drama like Star Trek: Picard.
Neither was Star Trek: Picard.
I take your point, but Picard was on the gritty side of the spectrum if you’re only counting Star Trek shows.
I concede Star Trek is… topical these days, but otherwise why would you even use Star Trek as an example of a gritty sci-fi drama? It’s just not.
Based on its shitty production design I’d say it was more on the Crate & Barrel side of the spectrum.
Picard didn’t know what it was, which was part of the problem. One moment we had old dying depressing Picard, Then we had GoT level Romulan incest. Then we had some Borg stuff. Then we had silly holograms of the same person chatting. Then we had drug addiction and loss. Then we had a time they all dressed up in funny costumes and Picard had an eye patch and silly french accent. It was a mess and it makes me sad.
I watched it thinking they were trying to write characters that would survive the lead character’s death. Picard isn’t going to be a 5-6 season show when Stewart is 80.I watched it feeling like they were throwing Patrick Stewart a bone for the first few seasons but eventually they’ll throw out his character and rebuild something more long term.Which made the whole show feel pointless.
I actually stopped watching it :(I thought the main girl was just a terrible actress and had trouble getting past that even for my one true love Allison Pill
By any metric, it’s a very poor, inaccurate descriptor.
thatsthejoke.gif
Seemed written earnest enough to me.
That’s the most hilariously wrong-headed description I’ve seen in some time!
absolutely right
I winced when i saw Picard described as “gritty sci fi drama” but I wince every time I see that show mentioned at all, basically.
“It’s more West Wing: NASA”*closes tab*
*extremely ponderous yet oddly graceful spacewalk-and-talk*
*long space monologues that people post on Facebook saying “This is how real (space) politics should be!”
*Astronaut gives snarky yet profound monologue that tears down strawman NASA bureaucrat who exists only be monologued at, leaving everyone in awe of the Astronaut’s rightness and smartness*
*All the astronauts are so smart and quick they can anticipate what others are saying before that person has finished speaking, preemptively cutting them down with snarky efficiency*
“10 … 9 … 8 …”“Yeah yeah 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 we get it, liftoff”“NO YOU IDIOT IT’S NOT READY” *KABOOM*
Totally Macgruber the whole mission. Like it.
Could be worse; could be ‘Studio 60 on the NASA Strip’.“Well that’s swell, Tom, but your little brother is standing in the middle of Mars!”
Did you hate The Martian? ‘Cause that was West Wing in Space, too.
“hate”Never change, Internet, never change.
Sure, blame the Internet.
Yes but it had CGI starving Matt Damon! And redheads! So you know it was serious!I kid but the book was so much better, and the book is 90% science.
Yeah, I’m mainly a fan of the book, too, but the movie was good enough for my kids, who aren’t yet old enough for the book.
…it’s not a gritty sci-fi drama like Star Trek: PicardI do not think that word means what you think it means.
This review leaves so many unanswered questions. Why is astronaut Hilary Swank married to Josh Charles, when she had clearly gotten together with Aaron Eckhart after restarting the earth’s core? Are the astronauts going to Mars because the core has once again stopped working and humanity needs to find a new home? Has DJ Qualls stopped hacking the planet?
Well played sir, well played. You earned your star. I recently re-watched The Core which is a guilty pleasure fave of mine so your comment made me actually laugh out loud.
I love THE CORE so much, scientifically it may not be wholly accurate but it is unpretentious entertainment and everyone is giving it their all.
What I love about it is it actually references writing grant proposals at one point. Which is what scientists do more than anything cool or glamorous. It’s weird that that they got that one bit of realism in there among all the insanity.
It seemed to be on permanent rotation on cable TV in Sri Lanka around 2013, I think. I believe I’ve ultimately ended up seeing most if not all of the film but definitely not in the correct order.
“Scientifically it might not be accurate” is hilariously understated.I also love the movie, don’t get me wrong.
I first watched it after reading some old website that tracked science stuff in movies go off on THE CORE as the most wildly inaccurate movie ever made, they couldn’t believe what was happening. Which is true, but besides the point.
Far from stopping, he’s literally hacking the planet to keep in contact with Stanley Tucci, who’s somehow still alive in the Earth’s core.But…did you really think Aaron Eckhart and Swank was a long-term thing at the end of The Core? I mean, sure, she’s not hard on the eyes and anyone will do when you think you’re about to die in a sea of magma, but she still let Tcheky Karyo die, and Eckhart’s the kind of guy who always has options. I’m betting their relationship didn’t last three months past the world being saved. I have no trouble thinking that Swank hooked up with Josh Charles on the rebound, as people are wont to do.
But Josh Charles is still with Sabrina Lloyd, right?And I would absolutely believe Tucci is still alive, using magma to light his smokes.
So obviously, Tucci’s the one masterminding the plan to nuke the dead center of Mars, in the hopes that will somehow turn it into a spinning iron core that can create an electromagnetic shield for the red planet… Oh no. I think we’ve just co-written the treatment for The Core II: Electromagnetic Bugaloo.
Bwahahahaahaha, this has to happen now if only for “Electromagnetic Boogaloo.”
.
That was Josh Malina
I think “Speed” said something about relationships formed in intense circumstances…something that was borne out by Keanu not being in Speed 2, now that’s some real “serial” monogamy
She left Eckhart after he lost half his face and went insane.
“It’s more West Wing: NASA”You mean the women are all totally incompetent as an excuse for the men to do all the important stuff?
women drivers! *shakes fist*
Yes, see Sam Seaborn’s takedown of Ainsley Hayes … oh, wait.
Surprised no mention of Hulu’s The First or Apple’s Mars series. Can’t believe somehow Amazon Prime is the only streamer to not have an astronaut series, given Bezos and Blue Origin (though I guess The Expanse kind of counts).
I was just looking up the name of Apple’s series minutes ago. It’s “For All Mankind”.
FAM was a fun show. I’m from the beginning of Gen X, and as kids we all loved astronaut stuff. Then we all got apathetic and listened to Pixies records.
I had been under the impression it was more serious/idealistic rather than fun.
I find stuff like that fun. I guess I should have been clearer.
The really sounds like a second season of The First
people watched past the first episode of For All Mankind?
I never made it past the AV Club review.
You want perspective from a review? Whaddya think this is, the old-school AV Club?
I really liked ‘The First’. I was the one.
I liked it too! I hate Sean Penn as a rule and thought he was terrible in it, but I loved the premise. The episode when we see the mom commit suicide (not a spoiler) was so well done. It’s the most memorable episode of the series, IMO. It did drag a bunch in the middle. It could easily have been a movie. Replace Sean Penn with Ed Harris and it would be a blockbuster movie.
I normally find Penn to be an insufferable ass, but I liked him in it. I also liked how the near future world worked. Stuff that I’d clearly expect in about 10-15 years.
When is The Expanse coming back?
after they recast alex
Yeah, that’s very good-news-bad-news. Good news being a Mars exploration series (yay!) with Swank (yay!). Bad news being the focus on whiny family drama.Heartbreakingly enough, the bad wins there. I’ll have to pass.Also, would they have made a series with a male astronaut perpetually whining about not being home with his family ?
I’m slightly confused about something: the headline indicates that Swank is mediocre at best in the show, but I’ve read through the review a couple times now and can’t find any actual assessment of her performance – just sounds like the character is badly written, if anything. I’m probably the only one, though.
The headline makes it seem like Swank pollutes the show with her performance but in the review, it’s her character that’s the problem. Ah, well, get them clicks.
might have to watch just because I miss having Will Gardner on tv.
Yep, looking forward to some Josh Charles.
YOU MEAN SPORTSNIGHT’S OWN DAN RYDELL??? I assume that’s who you meant over a month ago.
Netflix put a Chinese astronaut as the first person on mars because sucking up to genocidal dictators is hot in 2020
Or because it’s a plausible scenario that makes for good drama?
No, it isnt. As the review notes, there is no way that america would primarily fund, build and launch a mars mission and then let someone from our greatest geopolitical foe be the first boot on the ground. And its frankly gross that netflix would do this to suck up to a country engaged in genocide
Must have a lot of subscribers there.But yeah…never happen.
Is there Netflix for China? Considering state censorship, how can they watch anything that does not offend the corrupt unelected authoritarian mass-murdering regime?
I was being cheeky, because it seems like every crappy decision like this is related to access to that market. Honestly, probably not. Too much risk of subversive comment sneaking through, as you point out.
I agree, but do we know for sure that America is the main funder/builder/etc. in this series? I can see a situation where the only way to fund a Mars mission is by partnering with another country, and the compromise that makes it happen is that one country gets mission command and the other gets the big photo op. Then again, negotiating that sort of thing sounds like a more interesting bit of space wonkery than anything this show has to offer. I mean, the idea of Swank as a reluctant mission commander sounds painfully far-fetched—NASA can put up with a lot of crap, but I don’t see them tolerating an indecisive person in command, ever.
Couldn’t they all just hold hands and jump down together?
The Searching for Bobby Fisher solution? That’d take some advanced thinking most nation-states aren’t capable of.
The reviewer says that in the show that america is the primary financier and developer of the mission, so unless that’s a lie, then what other reason would there be but pandering to get access to a foreign power that is known to blackball people who criticize them and reward those who are sycophantic?
The review isn’t all that great (for example, there’s no mention of the various other recent shows treading similar ground) so I suspect that “primarily U.S. funded” might be an assumption by the reviewer, rather than an explicitly stated fact. I don’t know that there’s any level of pandering that would have American taxpayer dollars make a foreign national the first person to set foot on another planet without the backlash against that being the dramatic center of the show. In any case, Netflix has no presence in China last I checked, so they have less reason than, say, Disney to suck up to that market.
Wat recent shows are you referring to?
Hulu’s The First treads pretty much the same ground (IIRC, instead of the international angle, reluctant mission commander Sean Penn has drama because he took command away from his second-in-command, LisaGay Hamilton). National Geographic/FX’s Mars a couple of years back, had a documentary talking heads angle, but was also a scripted drama about the first manned Mars mission. Apple’s For All Mankind has a higher concept, but is also a drama set at NASA. And, of course, on the big screen there’s The Martian, whose success probably got all of these shows greenlit.
This is what happens in Biden’s America.Vote Trump. America First!
Didn’t realize the mission in the show was American with foreign astronauts on board.However, there’s no WAY this wasn’t a decision of the writers and not an edict from Netflix in order to “suck up.”Gimme a break.
do you live in a cave that you aren’t aware of the outsized influence of the chinese government on entertainment companies? the lead of Mulan is a literal fascist, but disney was ok with that because they want to tap that billion person market. i’ve lived in modern china, that is what sells to their middle class
there’s no way that america would elect an openly racist sociopath for a president, stand idly by as children are put into cages, a pandemic is ignored, and science is turned into a dirty word as we all hurtle toward an open race war where the government backs the wrong side
yet, here we are
I mean, I can’t think of a politician that would risk doing that for China, but current POTUS would do it for Russia if he got the chance. and then 2 days later it would be out of the news for 5 other scandals.
This is what happens in Biden’s America.Vote Trump. America First!
NASA is the USA and Canada, so maybe Canada and China funded this more than the USA? China has a lot of money and a lot of interest in space. A taikonaut being the first person on Mars doesn’t seem that implausible to me.
It’s certainly possible that the detail was at least partially motivated by pleasing an audience that represents >1 billion potential customers, but there’s precedent for countries to set aside their earthly differences and work together in space. I just recently read this article about a mission to dock an Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft that happened right in the middle of the Cold War.https://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollo-soyuz-cold-war-thawed-little-180975321/
This is what happens in Biden’s America.Vote Trump. America First!
at first I thought they went for North Korean…
The header photo … does it look like Hillary Swank is marveling at a giant burrito or am I just hungry.
The moon is made of cheeseMars is made of Chipotle
Can’t unsee, and now I’m hungry, too.
BONG
Mmmm… giant space burrito…
I think Hillary Swank should guest star on Season 3 of Cobra Kai since she is part of the Karate Kid canon. Certainly would be more entertaining than what you described as “West Wing in space”.
Wow, Swank’s career is one of the big mysteries of my lifetime. I’ll never understand why Hollywood was pushing her so hard that they gave her the Karate Kid franchise. She won two Oscars and then kind of disappeared. The only part of it that makes sense is that Boys Don’t Cry was a heartbreaking film that deserved awards (Million Dollar Baby much less so), but it’s a bizarre outlier in her career. You almost want to credit Kimberly Peirce for her success, but Peirce hasn’t done anything as powerful as Boys Don’t Cry, either.Is Swank the worst two-time best actress winner, ever?
I had the same question. I don’t feel like digging into the list of multiple Oscar winners to find out. But she’s certainly the first name that comes to mind.
If you have time to waste, here’s the list:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_actors_with_two_or_more_Academy_Awards_in_acting_categoriesOffhand, I don’t see anyone clearly weaker than Swank with two Best Actress wins. I’m completely ignorant of the career of Luise Rainer, and I’ve never been the biggest fan of Jane Fonda, who’s the only two-time winner I might see in Swank’s reach, but I’ve seen Fonda be good in more movies than I have Swank. Expanding it to include Best Supporting Actress brings in another couple of actresses I’m relatively ambivalent about, Jessica Lange and Renee Zellwegger, but I think they’ve both had better careers than Swank.
I think she is going to to either this season or next
They need to do SOMETHING to salvage Cobra Kai after that awful season finale.
I didn’t mind it but I did get some CW drama vibes from it. All it needed was some of the teens dressed like various DC heroes.
At times, it feels as if it’s set 15 years in the past, or at least the pre-COVID-19 past: People gather in crowds to watch their kids play soccer. Schools and churches are open. Friends hug and serve each other drinks at parties. That all seems very far away now.I feel like the only one who doesn’t cringe at crowd scenes or hugging on tv like so many people say they do. Like…there was a point where close contact wasn’t so risky, and there will be one again, eventually. It’s not like seeing a doctor smoke in the examination room or something we used to think was fine but was always super inadvisable.
You’re not, I find this thinking absurd.
Came here to post the same thing. I don’t need a reminder of the current real life shitshow, just like I don’t need any more commercials set to atmospheric piano telling me we’re all in this together while selling me housewares. The music alone sets me off. So yeah, if I’m going to watch fiction about people going to Mars then give me normal human behavior.
I don’t cringe, exactly. It was weird living in LA during lockdown and watching Insecure. It made me want to get out and go to DTLA Art Walk, among other things, and I really don’t know when I’ll be safe or comfortable doing that again.
The likelihood of one person wearing a mask passing it to another wearing a mask is very small, in the order of 2.5%, and that’s with personal proximity. So the risk isn’t zero, but if you’re outside and everyone’s spread out and masked up then it’s not a reckless risk.
Sure, but the problem with Art Walk is that it can get very crowded, a lot of the art is indoors and currently there are a lot of assholes not wearing masks. While I may find that risk acceptable for some things, something will have to change for me to brave it for Art Walk alone.
I’ll fully cop to not being familiar with art walk – it sounded like an outdoor activity. If not then conditions do change, but possibly something organizers could manage by having manned entry points w/ masks required.
They’ve been doing that a lot here. There’s been a bizarre amount of fatalism that I think is intended to be snark but comes off as depression. I think someone needs to arrange a welfare check, because half of the articles any more come off like one of those Billie Eilish PSAs.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely think 2020 and beyond will be much different than 2019 and before. Maybe that’s what the author is trying to say? Masks are going to be a common thing from now on even in America with our bullheaded idiots making the news. If I get the flu or a cold I’ll be wearing one out in public, even if Coronavirus isn’t a thing anymore. So seeing a show that doesn’t have people wearing masks in big gathers might take you out of the show.Maybe it’s similar to movies in 2002 being released with the twin towers still in the background? Remember when Munich digitally edited them out because it was so upsetting to audiences to see them?
Why did they change the NASA logo for the show?I see that it says “Mars Joint Initiative” below it to represent the mission, but previous missions didn’t drive changes to the agency’s logo — the missions themselves received their own logos.I wouldn’t expect it to be a rights issue since it seems like every clothing company is making t-shirts and accessories with the “meatball” and “worm” logos for hipsters.Could it be that, in this show’s universe (solar system?), NASA has abandoned all of its other work (LEO, unmanned exploration, aerodynamics, earth science, etc) and focused solely on putting “boots on Mars”?
Or am I thinking way too much about an inconsequential detail?
Space Force took NASA’s logo like a bully taking the 90 lb weakling’s lunch money, so they had to go get themselves a new logo?
Super late to the party, but my guess is the A is highlighted for the “Atlas mission”, and circled in red for the Mars. Not that the redid the NASA logo, just this is the derivative logo for the Atlas Mars initiative at NASA, and the rest of NASA still uses some other (meatball, hopefully) logo.
This series sounds as pointless in artistic terms as a manned mission to Mars would be in scientific ones. Given sufficient expenditure and innovation, could we land a few humans on the planet for a while, and even bring them back? Possibly, yeah. Would we learn anywhere near enough to justify the expense and risk? Hell, no.
That’s kind of the issue with manned space travel in general. Especially now with advances in robotics and VR, it just seems silly to send an actual person when it can be done far cheaper and safer with robots. But I get it. People seriously think we are going to colonize Mars or something. We won’t. And the whole vastness of space means going to exoplanets that might actually be livable (unlike Mars) is also pretty unlikely. Don’t get me wrong, I love Star Trek and the like. I just don’t think it is any more plausible than The Lord of The Rings.
They should shuffle her over to Netflix’s hit show, Cobra Kai.
If you haven’t seen the PBS series “Mars” there are currently two seasons and hoping for a third. This is an excellent series with really good acting and mixed in with true and current information about going to Mars someday.
You know how the Pentagon finances and supports gung-ho war movies? I wonder if NASA is behind these pro-NASA series. In the real world its becoming obvious that NASA’s Mars plans are the world’s most pointless, expensive boondoggle. So we’re seeing these rah-rah space booster productions. ‘The Martian’ even kowtowed to China for the big finale because China was a backer.
Or, you know, the movies follows the book? The source material is the reason why The Martian brings in China and their space program, not “kowtowing to China”. Movies do that a lot now, but I wouldn’t assume the author of The Martian was getting paid by China.
Was China a backer of the novel that The Martian was based on? All the China stuff in the movie was also in the novel.
sorry, i’m just loving “her supervisor darlene…”
“Okay, I’m sending you something now…”“What am I looking at, Darlene?”“It’s a video of a cat sneezing and it’s just the most darling thing I’ve ever seen!”
Swank was also arguably the least interesting crew member in The Core. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying it. This and The Boys drop the same weekend? Lookout!!
Dear reviewers: can you please stop pointing out that TV shows and movies are not set during a global pandemic and feature scenes without social distancing? Thanks!
sounds boring as fuck!
Gabrielle Rose, hurray for Atom Egoyan movies!Funny the reviewer brings up the pandemic, with respect to a movie made before a pandemic for one thing, but also because look at the plot: everybody on earth is living a normal life in each other’s presence, Swank’s character has been exiled because of duties related to her job, which is onerous but she’s supposed to be thankful for, because of that she has to bear depression and isolation and be blamed for not bearing it as well as the people around her who are praised for being less emotional. Maybe the viewer would be more sympathetic if Swank’s character was stop-lossed or deployed for some reason she couldn’t control, but right now we are all kind of on our little space stations, seeking praise for bearing up, stiff upper-lip, instead of being a mess and human, which might be healthier. Or maybe they made her whiny, I don’t know, haven’t seen the show.
I’m 2/3 of the way through it now and have accepted that it’s space soap opera, not space drama. The turning point was seeing a couple hundred feet of tinsel garland hung up all over the ship – even 15-20 years in the future, they aren’t going to have room for that shit! I also seriously question who let some of these people on this mission.
BUT it’s still enjoyable – as long as I view it as soap opera, not science.
Binged it yesterday, also had the same thought immediately upon seeing the tinsel. Not to mention, wouldn’t there be a huge risk of any shedding of the little strips (tinsel always sheds some!) and having them float into some important port? I’d think tinsel would be a hard no on the load list.But overall, I liked it.
the pilot, with the bizarre choice to show a committed astronaut wavering at the last minute due to family problems, feels like the “but can women really have it all?” deal I thought 30 Rock had killed off.and that’s a really strange way to kick off a modern space drama. didn’t help that the ending speech was written blandly.
The character of Misha shows there’s no asshole filter in astronaut selection. How the fuck does a social monster like him get anywhere in life? He’s a morale black hole. Experience is a fart in the wind when everyone that can benefit from it loathes you for good reason.Lu is acting like she’s a spy sent to sabotage the mission or she’s a secret serial killer. The emergency in the first episode showed Emma is an incompetent leader, or that the years of training they went through covered nothing. She should know every chemical on the ship and how to counter it. Gas station attendants and fry-cooks have more knowledge of their work-places than the leader of the mission. Also, if she made a mistake, she should talk to her team about it, not cryptically, passive-aggressively brush it off.TV writers universally hate Star Trek: The Next Generation. They hate it because it breaks the rule that all TV characters must constantly bicker like children. Yet weirdly, it was the most successful science fiction show of all time. I’m annoyed with this cast of characters instantly. Where is the teamwork and respect? I worked retail, and we worked together better than these people. These people trained together for years, and they’re acting like a reality-show cast in the first episode. This isn’t West Wing in space. This is Real Housewives in space.
why do they float in some scenes and in other scenes climb the ladders? Why is this a show. Sci Fi it’s not. Garbage is what it is
This schmaltzy, overwrought melodrama wore down my defenses, and I was a weepy mess by the last episode. As a father to a difficult teenage girl, a lifelong obsession with the space program, and just getting older and more emotional, this show pushed enough buttons to break me down. It made me feel like what I imagine women feel like watching those Hallmark movies.
SO unrealistic! Starting with the press conference in Episode 1, when have you EVER seen an astronaut crew that witty and sassy? They’re total PR robots most of the time in public. And all the subsequent backstabbing and trash-talking after the chemical leak episode was ludicrous… Astronaut Crews are rigorously screened to avoid just that kind of incompatibility. It’s the Number 1 priority in manning a space mission.
There may not be crying in baseball, but apparently there is plenty of crying in space.Also, on Earth. This show may set a new record on the amount of tears spilled on a Netflix show.Having said all that, I kinda enjoyed it. Acting is top notch and it’s quite the gentle, family-friendly viewing experience.
Is Emma Green in Away, Rachel Green´s daughter (Emma Geller Green)??