Watched through Season 2, Episode 3:
There is a lot to like about the production values and overall story in this series, but it suffers from several really bad scientific gaffs. The worst of these is in the episode where an exterior door is opened by a delusional member of the crew resulting in the violent venting the atmosphere out of one wing of the colony habitat, destroying the wing and killing several people. Even if such an idiotic design existed (there was no airlock), the pressure inside the wing would have made it impossible for the door to be opened by a simple lever. Other gaffs include the ultimately fatal injury of a crew member who, after months in zero G tries to climb up into the spaceships control room against a 5 G force when the only sane thing to do would have been to go to the lower end of the ship and ride out the landing. The individual falls, suffers a ruptured spleen and cardiac tamponade yet manages to walk nearly 50 miles in this state. Both are medical emergencies requiring immediate surgery. Another individual dies in transit to Mars due to a meningioma (a non-cancerous tumor that even today can be easily treated and rarely leads to death). Lastly, a pipeline is built on the planets surface to transfer water from one colony to another over a great distance. As the surface temperature of Mars drops way below the freezing point of water at night, the pipeline would be destroyed on the first night by expansion of the water as it turned to ice.
Apart from that, there is a fair amount of PC spread throughout both the fictional and documentary elements of the program. The fictional part portrays one group, run by a corporation, much like the military is portrayed in many anti-war pictures. The documentary portion is actually more even handed.
Follow up on completing season 2:
Sorry to say that the last three episodes of season 2 jumped the science shark on two major points. First, in episode 4, "Contagion," the lack of a proper biohazard containment system when dealing with unknown organisms is laughable. Further, the rapidity in which the organism infects and kills is off the charts (it makes an ebola infection seem like slow motion). The rapidity in which an antibiotic cures those infected, despite severe lung damage, is highly improbable. In the final episode, the sudden loss of power to the mining colony leads to an absurdly rapid loss of breathable oxygen. Contrast this with the first season where the scientific colony lasts for months with inadequate power due to a protracted dust storm. Lastly, something I did not mention earlier: the biggest issue facing the scientific colony in the first season was needing to get underground to avoid radiation exposure. This issue nearly resulted in failure of the colony. Meanwhile, the commercial colony is situated entirely above ground. Very inconsistent to say the least.
The PC goes over the top in these last three episodes. The "Earth" portion of the program becomes an almost continuous attack on industry and mankind in general. Scientists are all altruistic (never mind that many of them work in industry - the dark side must have taken them over). The fictional portion also makes the corporation out to be revolting, but is not as extreme. And some of the scientific colony members do recognize there culpability regarding spread of the contagion.
Consider these caveats as to whether you want to spend time on this series when you are looking for some down time The overall production values and SFX are good, much of the science is accurate but there are some rather frustrating issues you will need to overlook.
There is a lot to like about the production values and overall story in this series, but it suffers from several really bad scientific gaffs. The worst of these is in the episode where an exterior door is opened by a delusional member of the crew resulting in the violent venting the atmosphere out of one wing of the colony habitat, destroying the wing and killing several people. Even if such an idiotic design existed (there was no airlock), the pressure inside the wing would have made it impossible for the door to be opened by a simple lever. Other gaffs include the ultimately fatal injury of a crew member who, after months in zero G tries to climb up into the spaceships control room against a 5 G force when the only sane thing to do would have been to go to the lower end of the ship and ride out the landing. The individual falls, suffers a ruptured spleen and cardiac tamponade yet manages to walk nearly 50 miles in this state. Both are medical emergencies requiring immediate surgery. Another individual dies in transit to Mars due to a meningioma (a non-cancerous tumor that even today can be easily treated and rarely leads to death). Lastly, a pipeline is built on the planets surface to transfer water from one colony to another over a great distance. As the surface temperature of Mars drops way below the freezing point of water at night, the pipeline would be destroyed on the first night by expansion of the water as it turned to ice.
Apart from that, there is a fair amount of PC spread throughout both the fictional and documentary elements of the program. The fictional part portrays one group, run by a corporation, much like the military is portrayed in many anti-war pictures. The documentary portion is actually more even handed.
Follow up on completing season 2:
Sorry to say that the last three episodes of season 2 jumped the science shark on two major points. First, in episode 4, "Contagion," the lack of a proper biohazard containment system when dealing with unknown organisms is laughable. Further, the rapidity in which the organism infects and kills is off the charts (it makes an ebola infection seem like slow motion). The rapidity in which an antibiotic cures those infected, despite severe lung damage, is highly improbable. In the final episode, the sudden loss of power to the mining colony leads to an absurdly rapid loss of breathable oxygen. Contrast this with the first season where the scientific colony lasts for months with inadequate power due to a protracted dust storm. Lastly, something I did not mention earlier: the biggest issue facing the scientific colony in the first season was needing to get underground to avoid radiation exposure. This issue nearly resulted in failure of the colony. Meanwhile, the commercial colony is situated entirely above ground. Very inconsistent to say the least.
The PC goes over the top in these last three episodes. The "Earth" portion of the program becomes an almost continuous attack on industry and mankind in general. Scientists are all altruistic (never mind that many of them work in industry - the dark side must have taken them over). The fictional portion also makes the corporation out to be revolting, but is not as extreme. And some of the scientific colony members do recognize there culpability regarding spread of the contagion.
Consider these caveats as to whether you want to spend time on this series when you are looking for some down time The overall production values and SFX are good, much of the science is accurate but there are some rather frustrating issues you will need to overlook.