:dprk-walk:
It's sad and predictable that they depict the astronaut as being abandoned by the DPRK, but this is still more props than just about any Western fiction would give the DPRK in any circumstance.
It's kind of implied there was a plan to get them back on the Soviet ship. They just didn't know he was even alive and aren't about to say "hey we crashed a guy into mars"
In an alternate timeline in 1969, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes the first human to land on the Moon. This outcome devastates morale at NASA, but also catalyzes an American effort to catch up. With the Soviet Union emphasizing diversity by including a woman in subsequent landings, the United States is forced to match pace, training women and minorities who were largely excluded from the initial decades of U.S. space exploration. Each subsequent season takes place ten years later, with season 2 taking place in the 1980s, season 3 taking place in the 1990s, (and as revealed in the season 3 finale) season 4 taking place in the 2000s.
Ronald D. Moore explained how history had been different in the series: "Sergei Korolev was the father of the Soviet space program; in our reality, he died during an operation in Moscow in the mid '60s. And after that point, their Moon program really never pulled together.... Our point of divergence was that Korolev lives, ... and he made their Moon landing happen."[8]
My snout descends
Do they also mention how the USSR brought the first minority astronauts into space as well? Cuss the USSR is responsible for the first black cosmonaut as well.
If the DPRK landed on Mars, why would everyone not know about it? The whole point of landing on Mars is to do the propaganda afterwards!
I think it's because no one knew one of the Koreans survived. It wouldn't have been a propaganda win to say that they killed two astronauts on Mars.
Landed in a secret Soyuz derived "unmanned" probe. And then lost transmission due to the hard landing.
Is this worth watching? I enjoyed BSG back in the day but I don't really follow producers from show to show.
I'll give you a careful yea kinda,
if you like space stuff, if you don't expect good politics, if you can stomach some American Hoorah - it's pretty fun slop and you might even be pleasantly surprised here and thereBasically, yea. In reaction, the hastily (re-)established women's astronaut program is a whole storyline though, and I don't want to spoil the whole thing
How bad is the politics? Is it Stranger Things levels of liberalism? Like the USSR is portrayed as comically evil?
I haven't seen Stranger Things, no idea. There's a bunch of liberalism in there for sure, but also some implied nascent critique of imperialism and privatization - overall, it's a mixed bag, honestly. USSR portrayal is also a mixed bag where you notice the writers going kinda back and forth a bit over the seasons on just how much they dare to humanise different soviet characters and how they portray the soviet state overall... All that being said, the main narrative revolves around american astronauts and that only really changes in the latest season. So don't expect too deep a look at the soviet side of things at all really
I found they cast a pretty kind light on Reagan which was a bit :disgost:
There's definitely some west wing energy in their portrayal of republicans generally, but I found you can tune most of that out and still have fun, at least so far. :shrug-outta-hecks:
It's a...little Prestige TV in that the first part of the first Season is watching half the US astronaut core go into an alcohol and misogyny-fueled death spiral over the Soviets getting to the moon first.
There's some 60s 70s "Things were different then" edginess, and the Soviets are framed as oppressive in an annoying way (season 2 has a very cringe sub-plotline about a defector) but really they do nothing worse than the US does.
It's just heavily focused on the USA and you only get occasional peeks in at what the SU is doing (winning because they still have the Chief Designer, the PoD (from what the showrunners say) is that Korolev didn't go to the gulag, so didn't have the enmity with the engine makers, and so he doesn't get cancer and the N1 succeeds.)
It's a big production trying to be a big thing so a little bit of prestige is certainly there but mostly just in the production value of it all. Not much boning going on for the most part and I can vaguely remember one torture scene over the course of three seasons and it's nothing very graphic. There isn't an evil smirking sociopath, most conflicts are either internal/interpersonal or humans vs nature driven, sometimes humans vs machine and of course in the background there is this more abstract humans vs human other (Soviet) thing going on. While they never really go into the pornographic, there is a whole lot of 'look at this big fucking rocket' phallic worship type of deal going on so I dunno if that bothers you
