From the Earth to the Moon

I've never gone wrong with an HBO miniseries before, but going into this one I knew it would at least test that untarnished record. Twelve hours of dramatization of the Apollo program? Even to a minor space geek like me, that sounded like a whole lot of time to spend on very little variety of content. How could that possibly not get old? The first episode was fairly impressive and packed with a rundown of the early part of the space race. By the sixth one, Apollo 11 had successfully landed on the moon. And that still left six more episodes of... repeat visits to the moon. I'll admit, it did get old. But I give credit to the miniseries for managing to frame each episode in a different way and from a different context. After the Apollo 11 episode dealt with the historical importance of that crew and their mission, the Apollo 12 one is fairly light in tone and focuses on an overwhelmed and appreciative young astronaut who enjoys every minute he spends on the moon. Future episodes specifically focused on things like the importance of collecting the right kinds of moon rocks and the public pressure the wives of all the astronauts had to face back at home. Out of respect for the movie Apollo 13, this miniseries didn't even use its Apollo 13 episode to focus on those astronauts at all, but instead on the people on the ground in Houston and the media's fast and frantic reaction to the crisis. It was a bold move and even though I didn't appreciate it - come on, show me the men whose lives are in danger! - I respect the gutsy decision all the same. Ultimately this was a fairly niche miniseries that I can only recommend to space nerds and aeronautics buffs (I certainly work with a few of them - also, looking at you, Sween) but it was a well-made and enjoyable program nonetheless. And I expected nothing less from HBO.