SERIES 1 missiOns
Lost In Space
UK Broadcast BBC Four, finished (also available to stream on Shudder) Episodes Reviewed 1.01-1.10
Is this really French television’s first live-action drama set in space? We think it might be, you know. This is almost as surprising as it is unsurprising that it takes just six minutes before we’re presented with two astronauts making love. Honestly mes amis, at least try not to live up to your national stereotype...
When a European team funded by a Swiss billionaire arrive in orbit around Mars, they find that a leap forward in engine technology in the 10 months since they left means an American venture led by another billionaire has beaten them to it. After it turns out that vessel was ill-fated, a third ship then arrives, bringing some gun-toting heavies.
Hugely inauthentic as all this feels, it’s plausible compared to what they subsequently discover on Mars, with a cosmonaut who burned up re-entering Earth’s atmosphere in 1967 just the tip of the impossibility iceberg. Though co-creator Julien Lacombe says they considered the likes of Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke when writing the scripts, Lost seems to loom larger – an influence the script has the decency to acknowledge via a jokey reference. As with that show, Missions’ piling up of enigma can be frustrating; by the time people start talking about Atlantis, you may feel ready to throw in the towel. When the series isn’t busy bamboozling you with its mysticism, some of its dramatic situations feel rather rote (the old “Let someone in the airlock or not?” conundrum; the deadly planetary storm), and some of the characterisation feels a tad hackneyed – does the computer expert have to be a virgin?
On the plus side, the real-life story of Vladimir Komarov – who piloted Soyuz 1 knowing full well that it was a suicide mission – is a fascinating thing to weave into fiction. The role doesn’t exactly stretch actor Arben Bajraktaraj, but he certainly gets top marks for intense glaring, and Komarov’s relationship with ship’s shrink Jeanne Renoir (Hélène Viviès) is intriguing. The Vangelis-esque score is prettily soothing. And on a technical level, the series is solid – so long as you can forgive the fact that a reliance on CGI means no one can ever be seen getting in or out of a craft... So while it might be overly enthusiastic to declare “Missions accomplished”, it may well mark a giant leap for French television. Here’s hoping it’s just a staging post for further deep space exploration. Ian Berriman