I can live with the technical goofs. It's pretty much impossible to have drama in space fiction without taking short cuts with things like gravity and time delays. And people do impossible or improbable things in movies of all types. As an audience we have to give a little when it comes to a suspension of disbelief.

But yeah, the trope of misfits in a confined situation really can't work in such a highly selective endeavour. I understand why writers want to do this but it really doesn't work in this situation.

But what really killed it for me, and I did persevere as far as Ep 4, was the realisation that these guys could just have easily have been accountants sent on a work seminar to Nebraska. I really don't care that the kid got a C on her test. Most kids get C. That's what it means; an ordinary pass. And what is the point of caring about a guy who is debilitated by a genetic disease. Sure, that's unfortunate, but what, as a passive viewer can I invest in that? Not like we can root for the guy to have different genes. And the taikonaut having an inappropriate workplace relationship? Seriously? Dressing it up as an anti gay thing doesn't get around the sheer unprofessionalism of that.

Bottom line is that there is a lot of stuff going on here that has zip to do with space travel. Presumably Netflix had an algorithm that pointed to wrapping up a social drama in science fiction because that is a popular genre on the platform. But as a SciFi fan I feel cheated by that wrapping. And really, if you wanted an audience to actually relate to the characters and the stories (and there are way too many of them here), putting them in a context almost none of us will experience or even comprehend is really stupid. Here's a clue writers: if you want people to relate to characters, put them in believable situations that we have some hope of identifying with.

Sci Fi is a successful genre because it is nothing at all like real life. Good Sci Fi happens when in that fantasy we can still learn something about our ordinary lives. Filling it with mundane, ordinary, and even stupid things , kills any hope of that.

@AnAwe said:

1. Video chat doesn't have any lag
2. Everybody is a drama queen
3. They have been training for 2 years but seems like they met yesterday
4. They should be the best of us, but most have the emotional intelligence of a 10-year-old

1. They didn't know how to plug the hole after drilling and ran away. It is easy to plug that hole.

@AnAwe said:

1. Video chat doesn't have any lag
2. Everybody is a drama queen
3. They have been training for 2 years but seems like they met yesterday
4. They should be the best of us, but most have the emotional intelligence of a 10-year-old

OMG stop lamo!! i thought this was me posting.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Bottom line is that there is a lot of stuff going on here that has zip to do with space travel. Presumably Netflix had an algorithm that pointed to wrapping up a social drama in science fiction because that is a popular genre on the platform. But as a SciFi fan I feel cheated by that wrapping. And really, if you wanted an audience to actually relate to the characters and the stories (and there are way too many of them here), putting them in a context almost none of us will experience or even comprehend is really stupid. Here's a clue writers: if you want people to relate to characters, put them in believable situations that we have some hope of identifying with.

Sci Fi is a successful genre because it is nothing at all like real life. Good Sci Fi happens when in that fantasy we can still learn something about our ordinary lives. Filling it with mundane, ordinary, and even stupid things , kills any hope of that.

Netflix is not the only production company that mixes contemporary drama with science fiction. Nowadays it also happens in many other shows produced by other companies.

@wonder2wonder said:

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Bottom line is that there is a lot of stuff going on here that has zip to do with space travel. Presumably Netflix had an algorithm that pointed to wrapping up a social drama in science fiction because that is a popular genre on the platform. But as a SciFi fan I feel cheated by that wrapping. And really, if you wanted an audience to actually relate to the characters and the stories (and there are way too many of them here), putting them in a context almost none of us will experience or even comprehend is really stupid. Here's a clue writers: if you want people to relate to characters, put them in believable situations that we have some hope of identifying with.

Sci Fi is a successful genre because it is nothing at all like real life. Good Sci Fi happens when in that fantasy we can still learn something about our ordinary lives. Filling it with mundane, ordinary, and even stupid things , kills any hope of that.

Netflix is not the only production company that mixes contemporary drama with science fiction. Nowadays it also happens in many other shows produced by other companies.

Netflix got a mention because this show originated there and they're probably the biggest of the players. In the days of network TV, SF reached a crisis point by the late 90s and 00s because the audience demographic were quick off the mark to watch 'pirated' episodes online. A lot of shows would crash and burn (Flash Forward, Surface, Threshold) not because the shows weren't liked, but because the economics of it went sideways.

I don't pretend to understand how Netflix (and you are probably right about other content providers) go about commissioning shows but it seems to me there is a lot of box ticking going on as to how many eyeballs on screens they will get. In the context of 'Away' this seems to result in shows that look like SF shows but really aren't. It reminds me of how Roddenberry, somewhat fraudulently, sold the idea of Star Trek to the network as a 'western in space'. Only now we have the reverse of that happening.

@Jacinto Cupboard said:

Netflix got a mention because this show originated there and they're probably the biggest of the players. In the days of network TV, SF reached a crisis point by the late 90s and 00s because the audience demographic were quick off the mark to watch 'pirated' episodes online. A lot of shows would crash and burn (Flash Forward, Surface, Threshold) not because the shows weren't liked, but because the economics of it went sideways.

I don't pretend to understand how Netflix (and you are probably right about other content providers) go about commissioning shows but it seems to me there is a lot of box ticking going on as to how many eyeballs on screens they will get. In the context of 'Away' this seems to result in shows that look like SF shows but really aren't. It reminds me of how Roddenberry, somewhat fraudulently, sold the idea of Star Trek to the network as a 'western in space'. Only now we have the reverse of that happening.

Agreed.

@AnAwe said:

1. Video chat doesn't have any lag
2. Everybody is a drama queen
3. They have been training for 2 years but seems like they met yesterday
4. They should be the best of us, but most have the emotional intelligence of a 10-year-old

Mars > closest pass = 38.6 million miles > speed of light = 186,000 mps > delay = 3.46 minutes ----------- Moon > average distance = 238,855 miles > delay = 1.28 seconds