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35 Hours Until Launch
In the vast void of space, episode 1 of Away begins with Commander Emma hopping across the grey desert of the Moon’s surface. As we soon find out, there was a problem on the way to the Moon. Something happened on that spaceship. She refuses to answer any more of Putney’s questions though and signs off.
2 Weeks Earlier
We then cut back 2 weeks to find Emma and her partner Matt cheering on her daughter Lex while she plays soccer. While their daughter refuses to take the shot, Emma however does not. Along with several other astronauts from different nations, she steps out on stage to rapturous applause. Through a series of expository-driven dialogue, we learn more about the different astronauts. China, Russia, the UK, America and India are the countries being represented here. The focus inevitably turns to family and it turns out Emma’s husband is one of the men in Mission Command and responsible for engineering the ship. However, the 50/50 survival rate is something that holds heavy sway over the family. Thankfully, Emma puts that aside for now as she and her husband make love.
The Lunar Base
After the accident on the ship before, Emma heads off to the base. As she feeds back to Darlene the situation (who seems to be in charge of Mission Control), Emma gets into the airlock and thinks back to what happened in the past. A brief scene in the ship shows our crew talking about a small fire onboard. If it wasn’t for Emma’s quick thinking they’d all be dead. Each of the astronauts are interviewed by Darlene via video cameras surrounding this incident. Each of the different crew members discuss what happened including gruff Russian Misha and Lu scrambling to contain the leak. Only, all of them have a different story which causes a bit of a headache down on Earth. In Mission Command, the Russians and Chinese want Emma replaced.
An Accident On Earth
While Matt cooks, struggling to contain his anxiety, Lex talks about the Mars Launch party. Unfortunately Matt collapses midway through with a stroke. When Emma finds out, she immediately phones home and manages to get through to Matt’s Doctor, urging him to check on her husband. Emma somehow patches through to Lexi soon after and they discuss Matt’s condition. She asks her Mother to head back home. Obviously that’s a bit difficult given she’s currently on the moon. The rest of the crew start to rebel too and sense she’s itching to go home. Speaking to Darlene doesn’t help either and Emma mulls over what to do.
The Accident
Speaking to Putney, Emma finally admits what happened. The crew were less than 10 hours from touching down and a chemical leak forced the alarms on. Kwesi opened the panel but the acid leaked out and blinded him. With fire imminent, Emma tried to put it out with her shirt but it was covered in sweat and acted as an accelerant. Lu and Misha worked together to extinguish it though and saved the day. Back on Earth, Lex learns that Matt is out of surgery and rings her Mum to give the good news. Emma makes her choice and decides to give up the mission and head home. Given the trip will take 4 days, she’s decided this is the right call. However, Matt is the only one to see sense here and tells her to go to Mars. On the back of this, Emma starts getting ready as Lu and Misha outright express how much they don’t trust her. As the episode closes out, Emma delivers a message for the world before preparing for launch.
The Episode Review
The mission to Mars is something that will require able-bodied and smart people. No one here is level-headed and Emma is not the sort of person you’d want leading a mission. It also doesn’t help that the episode is chock full of exposition. We’re told everything about these astronauts rather than shown. It’s a bit clumsy but it’s just about salvaged by some nice editing though and an intriguing mystery. The science is obviously way, way off. If you go into this one expecting something realistic you’re going to be disappointed. Video cameras are perfectly in-sync as if its on the same planet. Audio is perfect too and there’s tablets and all sorts on this moon base that seem to have perfect wi-fi. It’s incredibly melodramatic and does feel very much like Another Life at the moment. Hopefully this one can grow to become something better.
