It’s liftoff for the Oscars race
“First Man” is among films reaching for the sky.
Who knew space travel could be this boring?
Set in the near future, Hulu’s “The First” stars Sean Penn as an astronaut on the first manned mission to Mars, in theory a daring feat of human invention and optimism that hasn’t been seen since man first walked on the moon in 1969. Yet it’s portrayed here as a lame slog of politics and marital squabbles. It’s hard to make something as naturally captivating and ethereal as space travel dull, but “The First” (streaming Friday, ★g☆☆) has done just that.
Long-winded, tedious and full of metaphors, allusions and symbols piled on top of each other in a literary garbage pile, “The First” is an unintentional parody of the expensive, self-important shows that somehow get the label “prestige TV.”
Creator Beau Willimon (”House of Cards”) bypasses most of the the science fiction and adventure tropes that often make space drama captivating and opts instead to make a workplace and family drama that can’t be rescued by Penn.
Instead of elevating the material, he simply scowls his way through overwritten lines and poor facial hair choices for eight interminable episodes.
The series begins with a tragedy that sets the Mars mission back years and forces Tom Hagerty (Penn), who was pushed out of the initial mission after personal problems, to come back to the fold and create a new team. The episodes follow the team’s training and personal drama under the watchful eye of Laz Ingram (Natascha McElhone), a tech CEO who nabbed the multibilliondollar government contract for the Mars expedition.
There are plenty of opportunities for good storytelling in “The First,” and nearly every one of them is wasted. Scenes, especially after the initial catastrophe kicks it off, lack propulsion, and an entire episode is set in congressional hearings in which Laz and Tom try to regain funding for the mission. It’s all even less entertaining than the reallife hearings on cable or CSPAN.
The writers struggle to create welldrawn and interesting characters to populate the mission. Sadie (Hannah Ware), a scientist shunted from the Mars team on Tom’s order, is a blank slate with no emotional resonance. The troubles facing Tom’s daughter, Denise (Anna Jacoby-Heron), and his late wife, Diane (Melissa George), who’s seen in flashbacks, remain shrouded in secrecy for half the season.
The show has a bland, sanitized feel, no matter how hard its cheesy score tries to heighten the inspiration at every turn. The best sci-fi stories, underneath the robots and space flights, are great human stories.
But “The First” writers have somehow made their show both too human and not human enough. Boring and poorly drawn characters get too much screen time, and its adventure story is a lame afterthought. Neither the story nor the characters are enough to draw viewers, and an unearned self-important style makes the series so grating its nearly unwatchable.
“The First” is meant to take viewers to the stars, but this is one mission that never achieves liftoff.