Mars: Season Two

[Blackstar]

More spoilers here. Do you care? Did you watch that episode of Gilligan's Island? You know, the one with the Harlem Globetrotters and the robot? Was it good? Did they get off the island?



Marvin the Dog is saved!

Hana and Robert have made it back to the IMSF base. Oh, and Javier went outside at the IMSF base and jammed a paper clip into the fuse box and restarted the power to the Lukrum base, which allowed them to turn their oxygen back on at the last moment and save Marvin the Dog. Marvin is next seen on the phone with his agent, complaining about how he's being treated and demanding that they get him off this stinking planet.

Hana relieves Mike of command, and he's a little surprised to learn that Lukrum has been in full meltdown since he cut the power and turned off his phone. For a guy leading a mutiny, he didn't plan things very well.

Meanwhile, there has been some political intrigue on Earth that's rather boring and hard to figure out. Apparently Russia, which was a member of IMSF, has signed an exclusive deal with Lukrum to gain access to Lukrum's mining rights for Mars. This has everybody upset and the head of IMSF decides that they need to impose sanctions on Lukrum. It would have helped if the show had bothered to explain what Lukrum is earlier in the season, because apparently Lukrum is like the biggest oil company on planet Earth, and they have a lot of influence on governments around the world. The head of IMSF thinks that this is a terrible situation because Lukrum is going to control Mars. And she wants the other IMSF member countries to sanction Lukrum. There's a boring vote and she loses. Lukrum is just too powerful.

And this is where the black hole in the plot shows up again. Who is going to buy the resources? Right now the only thing that Lukrum may get on Mars is water. Who are they going to sell that to? The only other people on Mars are at the IMSF base and they have their own water. Maybe there's this expectation that lots of other people will head to Mars once there is water, but that's not an existing market now, it's a possibly maybe market at some point in the future. The show Mars really mirrors the space activist/enthusiast community in not answering the "and then a miracle occurs" part of the equation--people talk about mining water on the Moon to supply a thriving space-based economy that does not exist. The show is repeating this same fallacy. (I really need to come up with a clever name for this fallacy, don't I?) Question for all you space enthusiasts who sent money to Planetary Resources a few years ago so they could mine asteroids: when do you expect to start seeing returns on that investment?

There's also some other soap opera-type drama. Amelie experiences contractions two months early and they have to perform a Cesarean to remove the baby, who is not crying (and might be dead?). How they are going to deal with a premature baby I have no idea, because they require tremendous resources. (And in fact, this could have been a really interesting story for them to address: what do you do with a severely injured crewmember who requires more resources than you can provide? Triage in such circumstances can get really icky.)

Also, back at the IMSF base, Robert has indicated that he's going to go work for Lukrum, which actually wants to build stuff, as opposed to IMSF, which is just sitting in their hole. He announces to Hana that this is great because they can now start having a relationship. They have a very unenthusiastic kiss and Hana tells him that there's no chance of a relationship, because she's committed to the mission and

                     KJWEQRNMASFDMN
                        LKJWEJKWE
                     SADLSKJ23AA

Oh, sorry. I was so bored that I fell asleep and my forehead hit my keyboard. There is zero chemistry between these actors, and we know nothing about Robert other than he wants to build stuff and very little about Hana other than she's depressed about her sister's death. So who really cares?

Next week: apparently the Lukrum base collapses and IMSF has to pick up the pieces.

[YesRushGen]

<de-lurk>
Just a short note of thanks to Blackstar for writing these recaps. My wife and I are really enjoying the show, and I look forward to reading your posts after we've watched the current episode!


Thanks again,
Kelly
</de-lurk>

[Blackstar]

<de-lurk>
Just a short note of thanks to Blackstar for writing these recaps. My wife and I are really enjoying the show, and I look forward to reading your posts after we've watched the current episode!


Thanks again,
Kelly
</de-lurk>

I want to like the show. Just to repeat myself (which I tend to do, repeat myself, that is): I think the documentary segments are excellent. The dramatic segments are limited by a bunch of things, starting with poor choice of actors. And so far, nearing the end of the second season, Kurt is the only one who seems to be having fun.

It's hard not to compare this to The Expanse, which has done a far better job with dramatic storytelling, and has some incredible acting.

Two other observations:

They actually do a pretty good job of linking the documentary segments and the drama segments, and it would be interesting (to me at least) to know how they actually do that. Do they go film the documentary stuff and figure out the story they are telling with them, and only then write the drama stuff? As somebody who spends a lot of time writing stuff, I know that this can be a difficult thing to work out.

One limitation for the dramatic segments is that they are only half of a 42-minute show. A typical hour-long drama, which is really only 42 minutes when you take away the commercials, gives writers some flexibility. It's still very limiting, because you have to hit commercial breaks and follow a three-act structure and all that. But 42 minutes is a lot more than the 21+ minutes that these drama parts have. I think that part of that explains why the characters are generally so superficial. What do we know about Robert after 11 episodes? He's from Africa. He's an engineer. He likes challenging projects. And he likes the beach. That's about it. Nothing about his family, his hobbies, his annoying personal habits. And so if he gets blown out an airlock next episode, nobody is going to care.

[su27k]

This latest episode really jumped the shark. So the Mars mining company (Lukrum) signed a deal to sell Mars resources to Russia, and suddenly the leader of the international Mars whatever organization (IMSF) flips out and want to sanction them. The reason? No idea. Maybe she think her organization needs to control Mars and has veto on all Mars related matters, which is ludicrous since nobody owns Mars. Seems to me she should be glad someone wants to buy stuff from Mars, since this means more money for Mars, but no, despite the fact she agreed to form a partnership with the mining company a while ago. How else does she expect the mining company to justify its expenses on Mars? Duh.

The whole situation is crazy, an analogy would be Nanorack signed a deal with Russia to sell ISS rack space, then the NASA administrator flips out and wants to put sanction on Nanorack for selling stuff on ISS. And the whole ISS crew becomes upset, because we can't have companies selling stuff willynilly on the station, no, it must be about science. Of course this analogy is imperfect because NASA at least has partial ownership of ISS, while the international Mars organization has no ownership of Mars.

In our reality NASA would be glad to have companies selling services on ISS, that's what it is supposed to do. And NASA is dying to have commercial companies picking up some of the tabs on ISS maintenance. This show's premise is so completely opposite of the reality that it's not even funny anymore.

The documentary part is not much better, lack any resemblance of balance. Also disturbing is some senior NASA scientist basically says human are too greedy and we shouldn't be allowed to go to Mars unless we are less greedy. No wonder NASA is nowhere near sending humans to Mars.

[Rocket Science]

Finale tonight!

[Blackstar]

I thought it ended strong. Not brilliantly strong, but still pretty strong.

[Dalhousie]

The documentary part is not much better, lack any resemblance of balance. Also disturbing is some senior NASA scientist basically says human are too greedy and we shouldn't be allowed to go to Mars unless we are less greedy. No wonder NASA is nowhere near sending humans to Mars.

What "senior NASA scientist"?

[Blackstar]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3643/1

Mars: Bringer of ennui (part 1)

by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, January 21, 2019


Two years ago, the National Geographic Channel debuted its first scripted television show. Mars had an unusual structure for TV, alternating between documentary segments, expert talking heads, and dramatic segments set during the first human mission to Mars in 2033. (See: “Red Planet blues: popular entertainment and the settlement of Mars, part 2,” The Space Review, December 5, 2016, and “Red zeitgeist: popular entertainment and the settlement of Mars, part 3,” The Space Review, January 16, 2017.) The first season, consisting of six episodes, featured some excellent and insightful documentary segments and commentary, but the drama segments, which were closely tied to the documentary stories, were grim and depressing. Now, two years later, season two has aired. Unfortunately, that same dynamic was repeated: often stunning documentary segments and intelligent commentary interspersed with tedious and uninspiring drama. If National Geographic has a message about the human exploration of Mars, it is that nobody will have any fun.

[Blackstar]

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3650/1

Mars: Bringer of ennui (part 2)
by Dwayne A. Day
Monday, January 28, 2019

Note: Part 1 was published last week.

"One of the problems inherent in depicting humans on Mars is that all of our reference points are here on Earth. Certainly, humans will bring many of their same traits and foibles with them to the Red Planet. But Mars is a different place. The reasons people go, the type of people who go, and the challenges they will encounter there, will be unusual and unique. Other dramas about relatively near-term space exploration, like The Expanse, skip over the early years and jump to more fully-developed societies and economies. But in the early years of human missions to Mars, humans will go in small numbers and will not bring their entire society, culture, or economy to Mars.

That was certainly an obstacle that the creators of National Geographic Channel’s Mars had to face. But the struggle that the show had with imagining humans on Mars reflects the struggle that many space advocates and enthusiasts have in doing the same today. If entrepreneurs, engineers, and activists cannot figure out how people will live on other planets, let alone make money there, why would we expect a TV show to figure it out?"

[Lar]

If entrepreneurs, engineers, and activists cannot figure out how people will live on other planets, let alone make money there, why would we expect a TV show to figure it out?"

Maybe the  entrepreneurs, engineers, and activists have figured it out but it doesn't make good TV.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/human_mars/status/1141013847303774208

Russian 3D artist Dmitry Azarov has made some concept renders of human colony on #Mars for @NatGeoChannel's "MARS" TV series.
All of his concept images HERE: https://www.humanmars.net/2019/06/mars-colony-concept-by-dmitry-azarov.html