In 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 was struck with a endless succession of devastating bad luck, worthy of the number 13. Twenty-five years later Ron Howard brought the exciting story to the big screen. Almost as amazing as the story itself was the fact that, a mere 25 years later, so few people remembered, or even knew of the disaster. And even fewer knew of the hundreds of other story highs and lows that tracked our journey from the Earth to the Moon.
Tom Hanks recognized the importance and served as Executive Producer in bringing as much of this ignored history to televisions with excellent results. Based on the epic story, chronicled in Andrew Chaikin's book, "From the Earth to the Moon", the story was broken into 12 hour long episodes. Hanks was very present, writing and directing episodes, acting as a French cameraman, even serving as a host to introduce each episode.
One of the things that makes this experiment so grand, is that they recognized each story on its own merits. Individual episodes may be handled as drama, or comedy, documentary or behind the scenes. With different directors handling the specific contributions, we see stories focusing on our space travelling voyagers, about their wives, or about the countless technician's who gave of their lives to make this dream come true. One episode even focuses on a geologist who has a great influence on the astronauts.
One of the most interesting episodes returns us again to Apollo 13, so brilliantly explored in the big screen 3 years earlier. That film turned a regular space launch into a claustrophobic nightmare where the astronauts are cut off from the earth and those they love. To tell that story again, they flipped it. This time we focused on those back on firm ground wondering if we will even see them again with no video from the capsule during the entire episode.
The actors on screen are some of the best at the time and joined by excellent directors and musical composers. this series is a great document of the Apollo program. It even stands up well when combined with THE RIGHT STUFF and APOLLO 13 for a binge of the journey from the earth to the moon.
