AWAY: BIG NAMES CAN'T HIDE FLAWS

The international crew of Mars-bound Atlas on Away.

As an author of science fiction romance I’m always on the lookout for new television shows that depict character-driven science fiction, focusing on the people, not just the far-out ideas or the futuristic technology. So I was pretty excited when I saw the previews for Netflix’s original series AWAY, starring Oscar-winning actor Hilary Swank (BOYS DON’T CRY, MILLION DOLLAR BABY). The series, which just uploaded its first season on Netflix, follows the fictional drama of the first international crew mission to Mars, a premise that holds plenty of promise.

By setting the show in the near-future, the show’s creators got around a few obstacles, notably the current stumbling block of any trip to Mars—the fact that it’s a one-way trip, since we lack the technology to engineer a return. We also have no permanent base on the moon from which to launch the three-year round-trip. The show assumes we have solved those technical problems and have also achieved the high level of international cooperation which would be required to pool expertise and resources on a combined mission.

Anyway, the Atlas crew is what you’d expect for a mission of this great historical import (and dramatic flair). You have your representatives of the major space-faring nations—the grizzled Russian veteran Misha (Ukrainian Mark Ivanir, with an extensive character-acting resume and several languages to his credit), the tough Chinese astronaut and only other female member of the crew, Lu (Chinese-American actor Vivian Wu), the naïve Afro-British botanist and space newbie Kwesi (Ato Essandoh, lately seen in ALTERED CARBON) and the dewy-eyed Indian physician/second-in-command Ram (British actor, writer, producer and director Ray Panthaki). All are led by American Commander Emma Green (Swank), who has worked her way through NASA’s astronaut corps to be there.

Now, because this is character-driven SF, we learn quite a bit about the members of the crew as the episodes roll along, many times in flashback, but just as often as each person interacts with their family members back home via video chat or email.

Each of the characters gets an episode, or a significant portion of an episode, to reveal and develop his or her backstory. Some of the episodes are outstanding on an emotional level, particularly “Half the Sky,” which details the relationship between Lu and her secret lover Mei, and “Space Dogs,” in which Misha enlists the entire Atlas crew in helping him produce and perform a Christmas puppet show for his grandchildren via video.

Other attempts to pluck at our heartstrings fail, either because they are shoehorned into genuine scientific/technical crises occurring onboard the ship, or because they aren’t really based in believable emotion. Ram, for example, seems to have developed a crush on his commanding officer. But that emotion has come out of nowhere, not to mention it’s completely inappropriate. Fortunately, Commander Green shuts that nonsense down.

There are legitimate technical emergencies onboard which must be dealt with—the failure to deploy of a solar sail, the breakdown of a crucial water recycling system. But the show seems to use these as an excuse for more relational drama than the kind of scientific problem-solving SF fans are accustomed to.

In fact, the crew bickers, complains and pouts to the point of near-mutiny, leaving one to wonder what the hell has happened to the cool, calm and collected spacers we’re used to from the days of Mercury, Apollo and even the International Space Station.

The problem, as identified by the crew, is Commander Emma Green, and, so far, I’d have to agree with them. Captain James T. Kirk she is not. Green’s leadership style is hesitant, unsure, uninformed, distracted. And did I mention she’s got a shuttle-load of problems going on at home?

AWAY almost lost me in the first episode with its presentation of Green’s character. In that episode we see her as a loving mom who attends her teenage daughter’s soccer games and celebrates small triumphs with her family. We learn her husband, Matt (Josh Charles) is also a member of NASA’s astronaut corps, but he was grounded because of a serious genetic brain disease that makes him prone to strokes. And yet, NASA selects her as the commander of the first manned mission to Mars (unlikely) and she accepts this mission (even more unlikely). This means she will be away from her family for three years, unable to communicate intimately with her husband or teenage daughter, exposed to all the untold and unpredictable dangers of space. But, hey, hell yeah, sign me up!

The central problem here is that the writers didn’t set Green’s character up as a hard case, someone who never had time for her daughter’s games or concerns—which, by the way, is not inconceivable. Lots of busy parents exist out there all points of the gender continuum who can’t be bothered to leave work on time or have family dinners or participate in their kids’ lives. But they chose not to craft the character that way. She was supposed to be an ambitious astronaut with dreams of going to Mars and an involved, caring mom. Somehow, the writers didn’t see that three-year gap in the middle of her daughter’s high school life as a problem. As the mother of two daughters myself, I couldn’t help but view it as a disaster waiting to happen.

Then, of course, there is Green’s husband, whose brain disease acts up just as the Atlas crew prepares to launch from the moon to Mars, leaving him paralyzed on one side from a stroke. What woman would continue the mission under those circumstances? Who could leave their paralyzed husband and 15-year-old daughter at home and go off for three years with the very real possibility she wasn’t coming home at all? If NASA would even allow her to continue as commander under those conditions?

At the very least NASA would insist any crew members selected for this dangerous three-year mission would have a strong family backup system at home. Commander Green does not meet even that basic minimum. She leaves her husband and daughter on their own, with no grandparents or aunts and uncles and cousins but only a family friend as backup.

And the situation at home very obviously affects Green’s decision-making ability on Atlas. This is because the writers want it to, of course, not because it necessarily would in real life. But it demonstrates a weakness in the character they have created. Is Commander Green a sensitive, emotional type, in which case she should have stayed home? Or is she a clear-thinking, hard-driving astronaut commander, in which case she might have gone ahead, but wouldn’t have let things at home distract her to the extent they have on the show. This is a big flaw with AWAY, in my opinion, one they’d better fix before Season Two, if they hope to improve on the dismal 6.5 rating they’ve currently earned on Imdb. And, even more, if they hope to keep this science fiction fan watching.

Cheers, Donna