Date of airing: May 3, 1998 (HBO)
Nielsen ratings archive: 2.288 million households
This episode turned from a depiction of the Apollo 14 mission into a biography of Alan B. Shepard Jr., which seemed like it was the right thing to do, just for the sake of getting away from the docu-drama-type storytelling. FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON has not been known to specifically focus on the characters, because it looked like the missions and the dramatic reenactments were more important to the writers and producers, but now that all the major historical events have been breakfasted throughout the show and there aren’t any more “Firsts” to get into and celebrate them with patriotism as major historical and scientific facts, the writers finally got an opportunity to focus on the people behind the mission and give them depth, and maybe even get into the science of the missions.
And holy cow, did Alan Shepard have depth in this episode. From being the first American in space who gets ridiculed and roasted for being in space for only 15 minutes, gets confused for John Glenn, gets made fun of during banquets for the little work he has done to become part of spaceflight history, to the fifth human stepping foot on the Moon, it’s kind of astounding to see the story of this man and to witness him succeed, especially when you bring his medical history into the story and how there was a chance he would never fly again, becoming a caricature of himself, as the once-celebrated American astronaut was poised to turn into a forgotten footnote in American history. According to this episode, he must have had a tense life, not just because he was being made a joke out of, thanks to him being the first American person in space and therefore being a famous person who can never be anything else than that. It’s almost like he had to prove to the entire world that he was still an astronaut and a pilot by taking part in the Apollo program and making himself available to step on the Moon. Alan Shepard was actively trying to write his own legacy. The entire episode makes for its own biographical drama in the world of features, and even though this episode exists, Hollywood maybe should think about making a movie about Shepard’s life.
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| He can't drive that car today. |
Watching this episode, I realized that Shepard is an interesting personality for a biopic in the vein of FIRST MAN, simply because of the fact that he was going through some medical troubles and then had to show everyone off at the end, becoming the hero he wanted to be. Besides that, the auto-abort drama right before the descent made for another spaceflight thriller, and once more I realized how much I am getting out of FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, not having known about all the little problems the crews had faced during their spaceflights.
The notion of an on-board computer being manipulated into thinking it’s already in auto-abort mode when it really wasn’t, gave me chills. Something in the coding of the software must have happened for the computer to force Antares into an auto-abort, and something must have happened to the computer when Shepard and Ed Mitchell were rewriting the software while waiting to descend to the lunar surface. Damn, that is some kick-ass technology-making here – I would sweat all my salty waters out of my skin, knowing I had to rewrite a software on the fly (not just literally) while also preparing to land on the Moon, and all this within less than an hour, because a) the Antares was closing in on the far side of the Moon, and b) the ship was probably not allowed or capable to be in orbit for this long. It does tell you how focused the astronauts must have been, and how the missions were never easy, let alone free of certain hiccups. At the end of the day, the explosion on Apollo 13 was just a hiccup, but one that happened to create a ton more hiccups. The Apollo 14 flight only had one hiccup, and lucky for the astronauts it only troubled them during the time before the lunar descent and didn’t create a string of additional hiccups.
Meanwhile, the biographical bits and pieces of Shepard’s life were interesting. I laughed when the secretary put the “mood of the day” picture of Alan’s pissed-off and angry face on the door (that had running-gag potential), and I was worried for the guy when he didn’t know whether he would fly or not, including the scene on the training grounds, when he had to tell his crew they were grounded from Apollo 13. I mean, here is a guy with a questionable health record and because he never gave up on flying again, he stood with the program and essentially had to be grounded again, with two of his crew who were perfectly healthy and ready to fly. Shepard’s ego almost might have killed the career and spaceflight aspects of Mitchell and Stu Roosa, but I guess all these astronauts were professionals and they didn’t take it personally when the health issues of one of them grounded them all.
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| The Lunar Open have begun. |
That makes me think, was Ken Mattingly only replaced with Jack Swigert because Apollo 13 was to launch in a few days, and if the fear of Mattingly getting rubella had arrived earlier, the entire crew would have been swapped? There is a clear difference between a crew months away from a launch and a couple of days away from launch, but why wasn’t Alan given the opportunity to step back from his own crew to give them the spot on Apollo 13 and fly with another crew on 14? Was NASA hesitant to split up teams that way? Hey Deke Slayton, maybe you should get into it a little, because it’s an interesting thing to talk about.
