Review: Earthly Drama Propels 'Away' to the Stars

Hilary Swank stars as the commander of an international mission to Mars in the Netflix original series "Away."

The series feels like an extension of shows produced by and starring women, such as Halle Berry's short-lived 2014 series "Extant" – an earthbound family drama involving a mysterious pregnancy and a first contact situation – and Katee Sackhoff's 2019 Netflix show "Another Life," in which another female commander faces shipboard skepticism and alien threats.

There are no aliens in "Away" – nor flaming meteors, solar flares, or other such threats as have spun up the adrenaline on mission to Mars movies like 1953's "Conquest of Space" or 2000's "Red Planet." It makes sense to avoid those well-worn tropes, but it means the series relies on character interplay for much of its dramatic tension – not that technical problems don't arise on occasion, along with space-borne health afflictions.

But the predominant preoccupations, at least early in the series, is a sense of dissent among the small crew of the Atlas a ship that's meant to carry five astronauts on a three-year mission to Mars and back. Season One is all about the outward journey, which takes about eight months. Two of Commander Emily Green's crew – Russian engineer Misha Popov (Mark Ivanir) and Chinese mission specialist Lu Wang (Vivian Wu) – witness an emergency while en route to the Moon, where Atlas is set to launch, that causes them to doubt Green's capabilities. Botanist Kwesi Weisberg-Abban (Ato Essandoh) and surgeon Ram Arya (Ray Panthaki) have a different take on the crisis, and stand firmly by Green.

Back on Earth, a medical emergency involving Green's husband, Matt Logan (Josh Charles) almost causes Green to bow out of the mission at the last minute, rather than leave Matt and their 15-year-old daughter Alexis (Talitha Bateman) to deal with the crisis on their own. Green's hesitation only deepens the mistrust and divisions in the crew.

It's a long mission, however, and as time goes by the astronauts begin to learn how to work well with one another despite various emergencies and revelations. There's an LGBTQ storyline that causes a homophobic reaction from certain of the Atlas astronauts (and prompts unprofessional responses from some of the ground crew back on Earth); there are familial tensions between various of the crew and those they have left for the duration; and there are calls, voice mails, and texts throughout. After all, it wouldn't be possible for these people to bring their Earthbound problems into space with them if not for 21st century communications technology.

The show resolutely avoids emphasizing special effects, though the ones we see are well done. There's a space walk or two; there are establishing shots of the ships flying by; and every episode manages to present realistic looking microgravity conditions on board Atlas, as crew members soar and float around or thirstily chase blobs of vodka.

There's a fine line between wringing drama out of more or less realistic predicaments, though, and wringing your hands. The show mostly gets it right, but there are some strained beats: Nascent romantic feelings between shipboard colleagues are paralleled by equally problematic feelings among the folks back on Earth; mother/daughter friction is multiplied to some degree thanks to the constant presence of fellow astronaut Melissa Ramirez (Monique Gabriela Curnen), who washed out of the Mars mission program years earlier when she became the mother of a sweet special needs child, Cassie (Felicia Patti).

Then there's the lodestone of all family dramas: Alexis, being a teenager, discovers boys – specifically, Isaac (Adam Irigoyen), a dirt bike-loving, slightly older teen whose father, an Army medic, died in service overseas. Matt, being an engineer for the ground control team, has to divide his attention between the various difficulties experienced by Atlas, not to mention his own health issues, and Alexis is more or less forced to assume a more adult role in the family, herself, all of which makes Matt's fatherly impulse to keep boys away from his daughter all the more difficult for him to parse.

This isn't the sort of testosterone-driven space program drama that "For All Mankind," last year's Joel Kinnaman-starring series, was; "Away" has a more pastoral tone about it, one that can more easily be translated into the experiences of viewers who might find the demands of professional lives competing with familiar obligations for their limited time and attention. There's a much more authentic and human sensibility in the storytelling here than in either "Extant" or "Another Life." Indeed, except for the lack of gravity, the increasing time lag between text messages, and the inherently dangerous nature of space travel, "Away" could almost belong to a better class of suburban domestic drama.

All ten episodes of "Away" are streaming now on Netflix. For more information, go to https://www.netflix.com/it-en/title/80214512