Rupture

Fantastic series marred by a storyline that lays on the maudlin misery thick and fast, and then lays on more of the same. You could distil this one down to five minutes for the key points that move the plot along. A real let-down.

I love that this show focuses on several strong female characters. We need more shows like this.

The writers got bored with their own premise. The writers can't find enough legitimate drama in the space premise, so they start inventing this absurd melodrama all over the place. This is little better than a daytime soap. Hey! What if an astronaut has a long lost twin? And that twin was raised in RUSSIA and he's a COSMONAUT. Oh, and then we can do an amnesia plot, everyone loves those.

The premise is solid, and they just fowl it up with this bad and overworn melodrama. It's like if Mad Men lost half it's IQ. If not more.

Following Shane's accident, Karen agonises over the unenviable decision whether to tell Ed, isolated and alone on the moon. Another fabulous performance by Shantel VanSanten as Karen who flips from stiff upper lip to weeping to organising busy-work.

A heartrending episode.

This show has felt mostly hollow to this point. Most Apple TV series, for some reason, take quite a while to grab you with something to care about.

While I don't particularly care for Ed or Karen or really anyone else on the show, this episode really brings home the practical drama and pain of distance when it comes to loved ones. The feeling of helplessness and the guilt of pursuing one's own ambitions at the expense of everything else.

The show had more superficial examples of these dichotomies, but it needed something somber and shattering to really drive it home. This episode reminds me of the movie First Man, which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest astronaut biopics ever made.