Todd Buckingham

I wouldn't give this a full 5 stars as there is room for improvement (4.5 ish). But other than The Martian, this is the strongest bit of film-making covering a Mars mission so far. I would argue it is a whole lot more ambitious, not only because it is a series, but the themes are lot more interesting to explore the pure survival. In some sense it is like if you combined Lost, and the Martian. Flashbacks allow us into the minds of the characters. And thankfully they have done a more successful/respectful job creating Russian, Chinese, and Indian characters than I have seen in this type of project before. Their scenes/flashbacks felt right, as though they might have actually spoken to people from these cultures (or had a writing staff that had these experiences) and actually incorporated the feedback. And these characters grow and change in realistic and satisfying ways. As for the science, other than launching from the Moon which makes no sense as LEO refueling would always be preferable, and ignoring the time delay in the early episodes, it is largely successful. Easily the most faithful depiction of gravity seen yet. I am including all film.Most films ignore gravity the second astronauts walk into a moon habitat for example. In Away the Moon's micro gravity extends even into habitats. A small detail, that should be standard going forward even if it is expensive. Really hoping Netflix renews the series.