Must-watch: Nat Geo's groundbreaking new series Mars

Written by Tashi from the blog Tashi's TV on 10 Nov 2016
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If you enjoy having your mind blown then I'd highly recommend catching Mars, a new six-part series by National Geographic which starts on the channel this Sunday (13 November 2016) at 20h05.

I've seen the first episode and loved it. These are my Top 5 reasons to watch:

1. It's a sci-fi series that's actually real. It deals with the planned mission to Mars by SpaceX, a company that was created to get humanity onto the planet to ensure that we don't go instinct when something happens to earth.

The crazy thing is that we've seen these sorts of stories in so many movies and shows but in this series it isn't fiction because the goal is real. The series is set in two time zones: now and in 2033.

2033

The action in 2033 is a scripted drama that imagines what it will be like when the first crew lands on Mars to set up a base camp for humanity. The organisation that goes isn't SpaceX but a mix of two fictional organisations.

Elon Musk in 2016

The action in 2016 features interviews with people who are currently working on getting to the planet and includes astronauts, lots of NASA brains and Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX.

The interviews explain the difficulties and challenges facing the project and mission. The 2033 scripted drama shows these challenges in action when the mission eventually happens.

2. It's essentially a whole new genre of TV show because I've never seen a series mix reality and fiction in the same way. You'll see what I mean when you watch.

3. Elon Musk is a South African born mega-wealthy engineer who relocated from Pretoria to Canada shortly after he turned 18. According to Forbes, he has a net worth of $11.1 billion in 2016 which makes the 94th wealthiest person in the world.

4. The special effects and acting are top notch.

5. It confronts you with the trippy question: where will you be in 2033?

Channels in this post: National Geographic Channel

1 Comment

Tashi
16 Oct 2018 12:04

Tashi edited on
10/16/2018 2:49 PM

BACK...

Mars returns for Season 2 next month for another six-episode season.

It starts on Sunday, 11 November 2018 at 20h00 - on National Geographic again - and it's set five years in the future after Season 1 ended and the crew arrived on Mars.

Here's more about it, with facts about Mars (in real life) afterwards:

Mars picks up five years after the conclusion of Season 1, following the successful maiden mission to the Red Planet when the original International Mars Science Foundation (IMSF) crew struggled to safely land on and create an initial settlement.

It’s now the year 2042, and IMSF has established a fully-fledged colony, Olympus Town, but they cannot finance the Mars expedition alone.

Doors of opportunity have swung wide open to the private sector, but tensions arise among original mission-driven scientists and miners sent by the for-profit corporation, Lukrum Industries, which create a new world of challenges for everyone on the Red Planet.

The fiction

On the scripted front, the series tackles seemingly everyday occurrences - pregnancy, break ups, new romances, epidemics, breakdowns, power outages, injuries, exercise, mealtimes and socializing.

But when they occur approximately 54.7 million isolated kilometres from Earth - where there is no escape - they are anything but ordinary.

And while the mission-driven scientists, who first set foot on Red Planet nine years earlier, initially are alarmed by their new neighbours, some soon find themselves understanding and co-mingling with ‘the other side.’

The facts

The Mars cast is comprised of returning actors from Season 1 along with several newcomers, including JiHAE (Mortal Engines), Jeff Hephner (Chicago Med, Code Black) and Esai Morales (Ozark, NYPD Blue).

On the documentary front, present-day vignettes draw parallels to the future happenings on Mars by looking at some of the dire issues facing Earth’s last frontier - the Arctic.

This includes a spectrum of events that currently are compromising life on Earth - and could plague us in the future as we become an interplanetary species: drilling, glacial melting, rising sea level and indigenous health epidemics which surface when the permafrost melts.

On-camera experts - dubbed the show's Big Thinkers - once again navigate the audience through the struggles and opportunities awaiting humans on Mars.

This group includes Elon Musk (SpaceX CEO), Ellen Stofan (former NASA Chief), Michio Kaku (theoretical physicist and futurist), Casey Dreier (director of space policy at the Planetary Society) Antonia Juhasz (leading oil and energy expert) and Naomi Klein (bestselling author, activist and award-winning journalist on climate change).

Facts about Mars (the planet, not the series) from National Geographic

- Launch Rate: Missions to Mars from Earth have become increasingly rare. After 23 launches in the 1960s and 1970s, there have been just 10 global spacecraft launches of Mars in the new millennium.

- NASA is planning to create an 'Earth Independent' Mars colony by the 2030s.

- Just more than 1,000 people from 202,000 applicants will be selected for the Mars One project, an initiative that aims to create a human colony on Mars in about 10 years.

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