User Reviews

I started watching this series with an early tinge of excitement ( because of the subject matter) and also a bit of trepidation because of the diversity of the cast and soon saw the only white male being killed off early in the second episode much like Hillary's crew of Wasserman Schultz, Elizabeth Warren, and Donna Brasille surreptitiously killed of the only white male survivor in the Demo primary. Obviously these writers ( women I believe) set out to construct a form of reality that is truly questionable and with an emphasis to promote and enable female heroes. So and if that story line is the most important factor ( ignoring the actual history of space exploration )then I am done with this poorly scripted and erroneously depicted series. With all the special effects available the producers chose to ignore them and allow the banality. Boo hoo

Yes getting to Mars will be tough. My 1970 Peter Fairley's Space album says we'll be there by 1985 - we'll looks like we've missed that window.

Production wise it obviously suffers from a smallish budget - the monitors in ground control just look like standard home television sets mounted together while for some reason cameras - both for TV and journalists - have bucked current trends and got bigger.

So far - unless there's going to be flashbacks - none of the long journey to Mars was shown except the landing (interior shots only).

Interesting drama has been added as the - rather big - spaceship has landed over 70 kilometres from its intended target - a preconstructed base.

I will be following the series because even if the sections set in 2033 prove not to work that well then there's always the real interviews with scientists - authors and entrepreneurs from the present day giving their views. At the very least it's holding my interest because if we don't get there by the 2030's I might not be around to see the momentous landing.

I hope we do make it.

Watched through Season 2, Episode 3:

There is a lot to like about the production values and overall story in this series, but it suffers from several really bad scientific gaffs. The worst of these is in the episode where an exterior door is opened by a delusional member of the crew resulting in the violent venting the atmosphere out of one wing of the colony habitat, destroying the wing and killing several people. Even if such an idiotic design existed (there was no airlock), the pressure inside the wing would have made it impossible for the door to be opened by a simple lever. Other gaffs include the ultimately fatal injury of a crew member who, after months in zero G tries to climb up into the spaceships control room against a 5 G force when the only sane thing to do would have been to go to the lower end of the ship and ride out the landing. The individual falls, suffers a ruptured spleen and cardiac tamponade yet manages to walk nearly 50 miles in this state. Both are medical emergencies requiring immediate surgery. Another individual dies in transit to Mars due to a meningioma (a non-cancerous tumor that even today can be easily treated and rarely leads to death). Lastly, a pipeline is built on the planets surface to transfer water from one colony to another over a great distance. As the surface temperature of Mars drops way below the freezing point of water at night, the pipeline would be destroyed on the first night by expansion of the water as it turned to ice.

Apart from that, there is a fair amount of PC spread throughout both the fictional and documentary elements of the program. The fictional part portrays one group, run by a corporation, much like the military is portrayed in many anti-war pictures. The documentary portion is actually more even handed.

Follow up on completing season 2:

Sorry to say that the last three episodes of season 2 jumped the science shark on two major points. First, in episode 4, "Contagion," the lack of a proper biohazard containment system when dealing with unknown organisms is laughable. Further, the rapidity in which the organism infects and kills is off the charts (it makes an ebola infection seem like slow motion). The rapidity in which an antibiotic cures those infected, despite severe lung damage, is highly improbable. In the final episode, the sudden loss of power to the mining colony leads to an absurdly rapid loss of breathable oxygen. Contrast this with the first season where the scientific colony lasts for months with inadequate power due to a protracted dust storm. Lastly, something I did not mention earlier: the biggest issue facing the scientific colony in the first season was needing to get underground to avoid radiation exposure. This issue nearly resulted in failure of the colony. Meanwhile, the commercial colony is situated entirely above ground. Very inconsistent to say the least.

The PC goes over the top in these last three episodes. The "Earth" portion of the program becomes an almost continuous attack on industry and mankind in general. Scientists are all altruistic (never mind that many of them work in industry - the dark side must have taken them over). The fictional portion also makes the corporation out to be revolting, but is not as extreme. And some of the scientific colony members do recognize there culpability regarding spread of the contagion.

Consider these caveats as to whether you want to spend time on this series when you are looking for some down time The overall production values and SFX are good, much of the science is accurate but there are some rather frustrating issues you will need to overlook.

I enjoyed Mars, mainly because I like space exploration and the tech involved. The mixing of documentary footage, interviews of real people and then hopping forward in time to the fictional mission worked quite well. What I didn't like were the implausible series of disasters besetting the crew.

During the Apollo era every activity to be undertaken either in the spacecraft or on the surface in EVA suits was meticulously planned and rehearsed hundreds of times. How likely would it be for a situation to arise on Mars where they would bungle sorting out their power supply, and have that happen right when the worst dust storm in history occurs... Like they would not have seen the weather system developing in time to bring forward the power cable work, or have extra people out there for such a mission critical EVA?

And the lack of dual airlocks in the plant laboratory for dramatic license when the plant guy goes bananas... Not to mention that no one noticed he was that far over the edge until too late.

A real shame they did not focus on the science on Mars and the real issues, rather than trying to make it into a TV movie.

I gave up on the first season because of a lot of science and the "we are humans therefore we must do very stupid things" attitude.

This continued in the second season.

First off there was the blatant disregard for human life when Lukrum arrives and debris from their landing capsule almost kills two people in suits on the surface as well as taking out an installation.

Their scientific excuse: They could not know where it would land. Wrong: they know exactly in what area it would land. Maybe not down to the last meters but they will know the area the debris will impact. We can do this for planes that breakup in the air on earth and make a predictable area of where to search for debris.

Second off. The CME. Solar storms do not travel with the speed of light. There are hours of warning before the storm arrives in case of a carrington event. On Earth. That warning time is about 24 hours and is essential to put satellites and more into safe mode so that they do not get damaged even in small solar storms.

Third. The fact that they cannot navigate the Martian landscape without GPS (supposedly knocked out by CME) is unbelievable. Astronauts on Mars would have made sure to have a backup plan. Navigating by the stars seem to be an easy one for a computer.

4th. The rover just have to little power and to little air for a vehicle of its size. I event think the astronaut only brought 1 tank of oxygen for her suit but i cannot remember that clearly now.

5th. If a persons body temprature is 29 degrees: They would be passed out in deep coma.Here from wikipedia that seems to be credible

31 °C (87.8 °F) - Comatose, very rarely conscious. No or slight reflexes. Very shallow breathing and slow heart rate. Possibility of serious heart rhythm problems. 28 °C (82.4 °F) - Severe heart rhythm disturbances are likely and breathing may stop at any time. Patient may appear to be dead.

Instead she is breathing heavily and talking and very conscious about Lukrum not f... up her samples. all that at 29 degrees body temperature.

I gave up again.

It is some pretty basic stuff they dont display correct.