It doesn’t always lift off but Nasa drama’s a blast
The Right Stuff Disney ★★★✩✩
DISNEY+ has been coasting for a few months now. The Mandalorian kicked off the streaming service with a must-see show, for Star Wars fans at least – but since then there’s been very little you could class as justifying the monthly fee. The Right Stuff looks to change that.
It focuses on the astronauts who made up the Mercury Seven in the early days of Nasa and the Space Race. The pilots are competing to be the first person in space, all the while boozing and keeping their philandering from their dutiful wives. Sound a bit Mad Men? It is and it isn’t. The show’s budget is high enough that it captures that 1950s America authenticity – but it is less a scathing critique of toxic masculinity and more a plucky underdog story.
The closest thing to Don Draper is Alan Shepard (Jake McDorman), who spends the first two episodes making good use of his flight stick and feeling bad about it. His fellow astronauts follow a similar pattern – except for Patrick J Adams’s John Glenn, the Mr Sensible of the crew, who jumps to the front of the pack with his clean image and media savvy.
But The Right Stuff is at its best when it turns its focus away from the pilots and to the skies. Seeing the beginning of Nasa (all dilapidated warehouses and lo-tech equipment) is fascinating, and it does a very good job of capturing the wonder of space and what would make men risk their lives in a rocket with as much tech as a calculator. We’re left with a show that may not quite blast off – but is hardly Apollo 13 either.