Wednesday 26 July 2017

Cloud Zombie Reviews - Mars (The TV Series, not the planet)

I'm a person who has an incredible love for Science fiction. Specifically, the whole "moving to another world and starting a colony" part of sci-fi has always turned on my geekiness.

Everyone on this planet, I would guess, has dreamed about what could be out there, what it would be like to live on a totally new planet and the hard changes that would be involved in the move. If you haven’t, then that’s fair enough and this might not be for you, but nevertheless I will continue in the hopes that some curiosity blooms inside you as you read, and encourage you to do the same.

When I first heard of this series I was a little wary because it was a documentary/science fiction series. I don’t usually mind a documentary but it really has to hold my attention enough to continue watching it. I don’t want old balding men talking at me for an hour while they show me various angles of the moon landing or photographs of Mars that are really grainy.

That has been done and is just really tired, I wanted something new and a little different and this is what I got.

The science fiction part of the series sets Mars in the not too far future of 2033, where a crew of women and men are sent to Mars aboard the first working rocket shuttle. As the series goes on you follow them through their journey to the red planet and how they learn to survive there.

The documentary side of the series talks about NASA and SpaceX’s plans for the future and what they have been working on. There are images from rocket experiments and we get to see the inner workings of these two companies that are leading Earth to a new era.

Mars has been written incredibly well. I feel the writers/creators of the show have worked very closely with the experts of NASA and SpaceX to really bring this show to life. This isn’t a half-arsed sci-fi flick from the past, and it’s not Star Trek futuristic with all the screens and flashy lights.

The insides of the shuttle look very much how they look now, a traveling life support machine, so don’t expect anything flashy like in The Martian. It’s just futuristic enough to get you excited on what we could conceivably achieve in the next twenty to thirty years.

The characters are believable and you actually become attached to them over the course of the six episode long series, after each one I wanted to know more about them and how they were coping with living on Mars. They didn’t even try to make space travel and colonisation sound remotely flashy, it’s a scary business and every step of it should not be taken for granted.

Personally, I give this series a solid 5 out of 5. It’s informative, educational and a breath of fresh air to colonisation science fiction. You can pick it up from most large entertainment shops as well as Amazon/Amazon Prime. I also hear whisperings that Mars may get a second series, I shall look forward to more news on the matter.


Kat (aka Cloud Zombie) is a daydreaming enthusiast and self-professed Minecraft/Sims junkie from Kent, England.

She blogs about her passions over at cloudzombie, covering everything from video games, movies and TV all the way to baking.



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