AWAY, Season One. A Review

There’s a new show that is all the rage on Netflix. It’s called AWAY, and it’s about the first crew of astronauts to attempt to land on Mars. Pam and I were excited to watch anything about space travel and those crazy engineers who run NASA. A couple of nights ago we finished season one. So much for The Right Stuff, or even Apollo 13. This was more like This Is Us in space. It looks like the folks at NASA have gone through sensitivity training and gotten in touch with their feelings. I hated it.

So, the story revolves around the multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-gendered, multi-sexually orientated crew of five, led by an American woman, Emma. We are led to believe that she wouldn't even be on this mission had not her husband, Matt, fallen ill with some genetic disorder that has left him in a wheelchair back in mission control. The rest of the crew checks off all the correct 21st century boxes, there’s the carefree second in command, Rahm—from India, Lu, the Chinese officer who gets outed as a lesbian barely 24 hours into the mission, the surly Russian cosmonaut, Misha, the most experienced guy on the crew and the only one with an old school spaceman personality, who naturally, goes blind during the trip and gets transformed to a fuzzy teddy bear right before our eyes. Finally, there’s the botanist from the Sudan, Kwesi, who has never been in space before, but serves the important purpose of not only representing the African continent, but also the community of faith, when we discover that he is the only crew member who believes in God via his “what are the odds” devout Judaism!! Back in Mission Control, the leader of NASA is a gray haired woman who is hailed as a great leader despite the fact that she shows zero qualities of leadership beyond frowning at people who bring her bad news and suggesting that everyone meet in the conference room immediately! Meanwhile, Matt seems to be the hero of the show since he is constantly coming up with Jerry-rigged solutions to the constant stream of malfunctions that plague the ship, all the while having to deal with his constantly disobedient 15 year old daughter and her Latino boyfriend. If that’s not hard enough, poor Matt has to fend off the growing affections of the stand-in mother, hand picked by NASA, to look after said daughter. Not to be outdone, we discover that Rahm has the hots for his commanding officer, Emma, setting up the question in all viewers minds...Which of them will be unfaithful first??

This show, in only ten episodes has broken the all time tear count set by its inspiration—This Is Us—by a country mile. Every five minutes, these highly skilled, meticulously trained scientists burst into uncontrollable sobbing at the slightest provocation. Emma, the commander, is the leader of these water works, constantly provoked to tears by her daughter, her husband, and her own feelings of inadequacy. Somehow, this woman has been chosen to lead this historic mission, to command the most significant human endeavor ever attempted by man and womankind, despite the fact that she clearly would rather turn the ship around and head back to earth to council her daughter about the dangers of premarital sex. She is a hot mess of regret, indecision, and self doubt...you know...the Right Stuff.

This is the thing I don’t understand about Hollywood. These are the people who are constantly lecturing the rest of us about our intolerance, our racism, our hopelessly provincial misogyny. And yet, this is what they serve up as an example of a strong woman...Emma. It is not possible to overemphasize just how uninspiring she is as a leader and a woman. When her flailing, mutinous  crew desperately needs a firm decisive leader, Emma gives them weakness, indecision and petulance. She is constantly having to be reassured by her husband back home that she’s going to be ok. It’s pathetic. Hollywood, it turns out, doesn’t know a damn thing about what a strong woman looks or acts like. I do. I grew up with a bunch of them. My sisters would have had the crew of Atlas doing their jobs without any belly-aching in five minutes, never mind my mother, who would have mopped the floor up with them the first time she heard any whining. Oh, and try challenging her authority? Good luck with that.

The worst scene in season one comes as the ship is about to be incinerated by what appears to be an unavoidable series of failures. We are treated to Emma and Rahm, sitting side by side in the control room plotting the proper coordinates to try to avoid disaster...and we are asked to believe by the script writers that they have time for a ten minute side bar about their nascent feelings for each other??

Houston, we have a problem!

We won’t be watching season two.