Initially I was extremely put off by the fiction portion, because it was so extremely unrealistic and unbelievable. Especially since they put it side by side with real actual facts.90% of those supposed astronauts would not have made it past day one of selection.But the the later portions changed it up a bit, and made it somewhat more realistic.I am extremely curious how a second season (if it happens) turns out.

I really don't know what to say about it. I really was in thrill to see this, looked really good, pseudo-documentary style mixed with dramatization in future, great ideas, even Elon Musk is here :-)But that's it; instead of good sci-fi futuristic show, I've got babbling idiots (still better than teams in Prometheus, Martian and Covenant), professionals who say basic stuff, non-professional behaviour, odd interviews and messages...For the Dawkins sake, they're meant to be professionals! So why on interviews they are responding like people in "Big brother show" if asked whom to remove from villa? Camera-work is its part for itself; mix of real shots from SpaceX missions with dramatized is a great idea, but... that is not the thing helps show to be great. Because it is the only thing trying to do it so. Otherwise, it's space-opera's-like extreme closeup shows, long shots to eyes, long shots to nearly crying faces... If you want A GREAT example how to do sadness, bitterness, just check Interstellar, when the main guy hears about his daughter as if she's in the same age like him when he left. That was heartbreaking, greatly played. Because the characters were real, as if they can be (praise the Nolan), here -- characters are fairly fine (as characters and people, not scientists), but their inter-person chemistry simply doesn't work properly, so any of artificial-added drama doesn't work, because people don't interact realistically. And that is sad, because it could be a great show, only if they didn't want to make another soap-opera in space :-/

First of all, of course is an advertisement for Musk, NASA and whatever else, what content isn't these days? Ya know, it's all about the money!Now, I enjoyed the real part of the show and was extremely disappointed by the "drama" part. The real part is nice, like a SciFi with real grown up people who share their dreams, definitely not doable though at least in the next hundreds of years. Just imagine the human testing it needs. I'm not going to even write an idea on the engineering part, that is an entirely different constellation of unknown data and dangerous small details. It's a mess and we're not there yet technologically speaking. But why the craziness in the drama part? OK 15 or 25 years in the future humanity will solve some stuff like a better suit to move in the space (although is a stretch) or fast transmissions between Mars and Earth. But why not imagine something closer to reality? I mean are you kidding me, they didn't plan for the worst that can happen on the basic life needs? "Oh we get money, let's send more and more rockets and people there"? What kind of mad man thought about this? And if you decide to make a character go nuts why not someone who is believable? That middle aged pedo-bear face with a crazy look obsessed with little plants? That's not a professional botanist, is a nightmare waiting to happen, I saw it after 2 seconds looking at that guy. Really predictable.Anyway, nice show but better take out the "real" part because that is a dream that will never happen. Even in 50 years we're still gonna be here killing each other and spending billions each year on guns and other crap...

My expectations were sky high for Mars, a national geographic mini-series produced by Ron Howard that promised to be the definitive word on Man's first mission to the Red Planet. The subject has fascinated me since I was a kid, watching the Spirit and Opportunity rovers land on the surface of Mars in 2004. As someone interested in the material, I saw this new Mars documentary as an opportunity to catch up on the most current thoughts about a manned mission to Mars. However, this National Geographic mini-series squanders the opportunity, providing precious little in the way of concrete information about a mission to Mars, and providing far too much in the way of ponderous melodrama.The series is split between a documentary-style exploration of the newest technologies and theories regarding a Mars mission, and a fictional story of what a Mars mission might look like (Titles cards "2016" and "2033" note the changes). In the right hands, this structure might work, but even with a big name like Ron Howard attached, Mars is a thorough failure in both ways.To begin with, it should be noted that while the series is split between two stories, the attention given is not 50/50. The 2033 story takes up about 75% of the series, and that is a two-folded problem. One, the 2033 story is totally uninteresting, and two, it limits what the 2016 story can tell. The result is a documentary that has nothing to teach. The entire 2016 portion of the series is made up of nebulous pontificating about the importance of a manned mission to Mars. We get a non-stop barrage of lines like, "We look to the stars" "It is our destiny as human beings", "A paradigm shift for humanity", and so on, without a single word about the science or engineering challenges of such a mission. Even the scenes such as the SpaceX launch or the spotlight on astronaut Mark Kelly, where the series should be able to provide some facts, Mars uses as an opportunity for more pretentious melodrama. I want to know how a SpaceX rocket would land on Mars, I don't care about what Elon Musk felt like when he launched a prototype. I want to know what an astronaut would do during a flight to Mars, I don't care what his daughter thinks about him while he's up there.Nowhere is the melodrama more apparent than in the fictional 2033 section of the series. It is apparent from the first 10 minutes of the first episode, that Mars' fictional section has no interest in realism. The "diverse" cast is made up of walking cartoons (How many tough foreign women and Africans are we sending to Mars?), and they apparently spend the entirety of their trip in cartoon action scenes. The way this series handles deaths on Mars is somehow both outlandishly juvenile and stupefyingly pretentious (The scene where the plant guy goes crazy and kills a bunch of people is one of the stupidest things I'll ever see). What makes matters worse is the look of the 2033 sections. Mars has never looked uglier. Barren as it is, the real Mars has a kind of untouched beauty. With director Everardo Gout, Mars has the oppressive gray sheen of the worst that digital videography has to offer. Even with a noticeably expensive production, Mars is a horrible visual experience where it should be great.National Geographic's Mars is a monumental disappointment for me. I was ready for a big-budget update on the continuing struggle to put a man on Mars. Unfortunately, this series is all melodrama. Mars is not interested in educating anyone about the Red Planet or how we might get there. What we get is a self-important mess, a lecture about nothing, a terrible documentary and an embarrassing drama. If you are looking for a series with actual information about a manned mission to Mars as well as a fictionalized account of such a mission, check out Mars Rising and Race To Mars. Neither are perfect, but they are a world more substantial than this National Geographic series.23/100