Negative Return
8 months To Mars
With state of the art communications, episode 2 of Away begins with our crew live-streaming their journey to Mars back to Earth. Even better, each of the crew members manage to communicate on separate feeds to their loved ones. Back on Earth, Lex wakes up to a text message from her Mother. Melissa’s there ready to greet her and introduces her daughter Cassie. After their welcomes, she heads to the hospital to check on Matt. Unfortunately, after his stroke he’s lost feeling in his legs.
Another Problem
Onboard the ship the crew run into another problem in the form of a non-functioning solar panel. With Misha convinced this problem is mechanical, the group decide to wait it out and see what mission control have to say. Finally they get the message and both Misha and Emma get ready to do a space walk to fix the panels. With Misha an expert at EVAs and mechanical know-how, he takes control of the situation.
Flashes To The Past
In the midst of this, we jump back in time and see a much younger Misha entertaining his daughter with a puppet. With a full head of hair and speaking his native Russian, her’s happy and enjoying life. This is a far cry from what’s happening now as he live-streams his daughter back home. She’s less than enthused to see him and all he can do is ask Natasha for forgiveness. Unfortunately she hangs up after an indifferent exchange of words. As we soon learn from another flashback, this resentment comes off the back of him promising not to leave her again. Obviously he has and this is where the disdain stems from.
The Space Walk
With Kwesi praying for them, both Emma and Misha sit in decompression and prepare for what’s to come next. As they step out onto the side of the ship, Mission Command catch wind that there’s an electrical problem. They tell the two astronauts to hold tight. However, Misha decides to improvise and create one long tether to get past the obstacle. It works too and as everyone breathes a sigh of relief, the next challenge comes from fixing the wire that’s holding the solar panel out. The only way to get to the other side is to un-tether. Emma decides to take a huge risk but Misha is not so sure this is a wise move. He bites his tongue and watches though, as Emma takes a leap of faith.
Success
Recklessly heading round to the other side, Emma manages to untangle the wire but the blast sends her sprawling back. Misha comes to her rescue though and the mission is a success Back inside, the group toast to their small victory. Ram however tells Emma that she was reckless and doesn’t take too kindly to what she did.
The Episode Review
If there’s one thing this show gets right – it’s the sound. Those pockets of silence out in space are wonderful and eerily capture the deep void of nothingness in space. Sadly, these are way too infrequent. Of course the live stream feeds and crystal clear videos undermine the mental side of this mission and to be honest, it appears they have better wi-fi signal than most of the people I know. The space walk was quite good though and definitely a little tense too. The character drama is quite good though and especially seeing more of Misha’s past, which is definitely welcome. Understanding his family set-up is a nice touch and allows him to mellow out from the gruff demeanor we saw last time. For now though Away continues to deliver a pretty decent slice of drama but a pretty poor dose of sci-fi. Stay for the former, abandon the latter. This is a family drama in space and if that’s your jam, Away will be right up your alley.
