The First, review: Sean Penn's mission to Mars failed to launch
It’s been a time of firsts. In cinemas, First Man has traced the story of the 1969 moon landing; on Channel 4, The First imagined a future manned mission to Mars. Or at least it did for 15 not especially tense minutes, before the rocket took off then burst into flames, in a manner horribly reminiscent of the real-life Space Shuttle disaster of 1986.
Sadly, it was the only time the opener of this eight-part series flared into life. It was slow-moving stuff. Sean Penn played the astronaut Tom Hagerty who should have captained the mission but stayed behind to do some shirtless jogging, hug his dog and hold back his druggy daughter’s hair as she vomited into a bin.
Natascha McElhone, who plays Laz Ingram, the CEO of the company behind the mission, meanwhile, provided the episode’s biggest surprise, with an accent so unusual – a sort of Manc Irish Yorkshire with a dash of Surrey – that it could happily take its place alongside Dominic West’s Baltimore brogue in The Wire as a character in itself.
The mini-power play between the two – Tom arrived at the launch site soon after the accident to comfort the families of the crew members, then called Laz a coward for hiding in meetings rather than confronting their anger and grief – wasn’t enough to raise the action above ponderous.
It was all the more surprising that the series was created – and its first episode written by – the former House of Cards showrunner Beau Willimon, who’s had a lot of practice at grabbing people’s attention and not letting go.
He was clearly concentrating on establishing character – Tom, warm, internal; Laz, cool, brittle – while setting the scene for Tom to take his place on the launch pad for another crack at a mission to Mars. Maybe the set-piece tragedy was intended to be so dramatic that it would give Willimon time to do lots of colouring in, but unlike the opening plane crash in Lost, the spiralling blast, though spectacular, seemed inevitable.
The series may well develop into an absorbing character-led take on humankind’s dream of exploring the solar system, but Willimon seemed to be relying on the audience having a bite at the second episode before deciding. Modern audiences aren’t like that.