Marte

I thought this was horrible. I love The National Geographic Channel, they have some amazing programs. This is not one of them. To be fair, I have only seen the premier episode but from slugging through that I am not 1 bit interested in watching another episode.

They tried a new concept of mixing present day education of space travels past, present and possible with a fictional drama of an actual mission to Mars. The show bounces back and forth from documentary or classroom to fiction moving from past present to future, it's very disjointed. I think I would quite enjoy the documentary part on it's own. I would not enjoy the fictional drama on it's own because it's just plain bad. If you want to see a fictional mission to Mars there are several good Hollywood movies that cover this subject and they do a much better job, watch one of those instead.

The dramatic part of the show is incredibly slow moving, things move along so slowly I had trouble keeping my eyes open, it made me want to take a nap. The filming of the dramatic section was weird, the camera was too close to the actors, I suppose the director thought that would impart a feeling of claustrophobia and cramped spaces, I could have gotten the same idea if the camera had been pulled back. Being so close to everything kind of creates a dizzying effect and made me even more uncomfortable watching.

I was so excited to see this series so when I actually saw it and how bad it was it was extra disappointed. I felt like the Drama part was very unrealistic, it seemed like they got a lot of things wrong, I never felt like the actors were actually on Mars, it looked and felt like they were in a desert in Arizona or some such place.

Oh dear, where do i start? While i was really excited for the premise of a mars colony series, this isn't what i was hoping for.

At first the documentary-style segments give it an authentic feel. Yet after a while it really interferes with the pacing of the story. Whenever the situation gets dramatic, there is a cut to Elon Musk or Neil Degrasse Tyson blue-balling us with another scientific explanation. They should have stopped this after the first episode, as it really comes across as filler after that.

What i also couldn't take was the huge character discrepancy between the real life astronaut and his fictional counterparts. While Scott Kelly is a warm and controlled guy, who takes the one-year- separation from his family in a laid-back "it's my job"-attitude, the protagonists of the series seem to get emotional at the slightest mishaps. Add to that the fact they act more like teenagers than professionals with decades of experience.

And finally this seems like the worst space voyage in human history. A blind and hesitant ground control, hardly any reserves, moronic hiring philosophy... If any real mars trip would be happening like this, they would fire the management and drop the whole project.

I loved the premise of the show in season 1 but now it seems to be a pulpit for activist. The story is getting more political and left-wing fringed then it is enjoying.

I was really looking forward to this series. Like "Red Planet" and "Mission To Mars" but without the fictional hooey. Like "The Martian" but in grander scale, with many scientists doing their thing, not just one. Bah; I was quite wrong.

Apparently, in the year 2033, we've completely run out of scientists, and instead sent a bunch of backstabbing, whiny hipsters to Mars. If they had any formal training in science, they forgot it all. They certainly don't mention anything scientific in their dialogue with each other. They do not even appear to be doing any scientific work once they arrive - just bickering over their mission, and passive-aggressively hiding useful information from each other, causing bonehead accidents.

What can you do, when you see great frontiers being explored, and cool hardware brought to bear, and you want to smile and enjoy it ... but the people doing it are always upset, depressed, or appallingly unobservant?

Three episodes in, and I quit, because I realized I was actually _dreading_ the next episode, not anticipating it. I was just waiting for them to have their next unnecessary argument or make their next totally avoidable mistake.

How could man's next great frontier be so ... joyless??

I think it was a very good series, albeit a little slow. As for the "preachyness", if you're going to make a realistic series about Mars colonisation, climate change and corporate greed are topics that are unavoidable. Climate change is not "left wing", it's just a fact. In fact, far too many movies and TV shows tip-toe around the issue, so it's refreshing someone actually having the balls to address the issue. And the politicised science usually are the one trying to disprove man-made climate change, not the other way around. The only thing that bugged me about the show, was the use of lights inside the helmets, which would impair their vision because of all the reflection. But it seems the norm for most Hollywood movies, so I guess it's forgivable. But all in all a good watch, unless you're too sensitive about the reality of climate change.