Disaster follows an astronaut back to Earth in the thriller 'Constellation'

Transcript

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Today, Apple TV+ premieres the first three episodes of its new eight-part drama series "Constellation," starring Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks. The remaining episodes of this science fiction story, in which Rapace plays an astronaut on an ill-fated space mission, will stream weekly. Our TV critic David Bianculli has seen all of them and has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "Constellation," the new drama series streaming on Apple TV+, starts in outer space with an astronaut struggling to survive and return safely to Earth after things go horribly wrong. This has long been familiar film territory, from the orbital collision in "Apollo 13" and the deadly stowaway in "Alien" to the twisting perceptions of reality in "Gravity." "Constellation," created and written by former "Doctor Who" writer Peter Harness, borrows a bit from all of those. It's a very tricky story to follow, but in the end, and by the end, it's a very moving one.

In "Constellation," the International Space Station, with a handful of astronauts aboard, is in orbit when it collides with an unidentified object, crippling most of the onboard systems. That's the "Apollo 13" part. An emergency evacuation leaves a single astronaut waiting behind to repair and pilot the craft while time, space and memory seem to shift, as does reality itself. That's what Sandra Bullock's astronaut went through in "Gravity." And finally, there's something mysterious and otherworldly onboard, something potentially lethal. So there's "Alien," sort of. But in "Constellation," while the spacebound scenes are thrilling and creepy, there's less frantic action in this series overall and more underlying tension. It's a slow build and takes several episodes to establish what may or may not be really going on here, but the clues make more sense as you go along, and the more you watch this "Constellation," the more profound and disturbing it becomes.

Noomi Rapace from "The Girl In (ph) The Dragon Tattoo" and a previous outer space thriller, "Prometheus," stars here. She plays Jo Ericsson, an astronaut on the space station who, in this early scene, is communicating with her 10-year-old daughter, Alice, who's back on Earth. Their conversation is a jumble of perspectives, the daughter's as well as the mother's, interspersed with scenes of previous chats between the two. The daughter asks the mother to read her a story, and it's very personal.

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NOOMI RAPACE: (As Jo Ericsson) Hi. I'm Johanna. I'm an astronaut, and I work for the European Space Agency. I live on the International Space Station. I'm going to be up here for a whole year. And I got a very special bedtime story. It's called "The Little Rocket Girl." Do you want me to read it?

ROSIE COLEMAN: (As Alice Ericsson-Taylor) Yes.

RAPACE: (As Jo Ericsson) So it goes like this. Up and out in space, it's very cold. The stars move fast, and the sun burns hot just to try to stay warm. Up and out in space, it's very quiet. But the worst thing about up and out in space is that it can be very, very lonely.

BIANCULLI: That exchange, where Jo admits to being very lonely in space, happens before the orbital collision that rips everything apart. The daughter, Alice, is played by twin actresses, Rosie and Davina Coleman, who rotate in the role. So I don't know which one acted in that scene or in the other scene I'm about to play. But that's fascinating to know here, and somehow fitting because after a while, Jo the astronaut begins to suspect that her daughter isn't the same little girl she left behind. And Jo isn't the only one with suspicions or identity issues.

Jonathan Banks from "Breaking Bad" co-stars as a former astronaut named Henry Caldera, who is now a scientist with a top-secret experiment aboard the endangered space station. At times, he acts like two different people, and there may be a reason. Psychologists in the space program believe that both Jo and Henry suffer from high-altitude psychosis, which explains - to them - the astronauts' post-mission bouts of confusion, memory loss and paranoia. But Henry is seeking another explanation, one he explains slowly and patiently to Jo's daughter when they finally meet.

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JONATHAN BANKS: (As Henry Caldera) Have you ever heard of quantum physics?

COLEMAN: (As Alice Ericsson-Taylor) Yes. I don't know what they are.

BANKS: (As Henry Caldera) Would you like to?

COLEMAN: (As Alice Ericsson-Taylor) Sure.

BANKS: (As Henry Caldera) For a long time, the way that we understood the world was governed by what is called classical physics. You know what that is?

COLEMAN: (As Alice Ericsson-Taylor) Kind of.

BANKS: (As Henry Caldera) It is a basic way of measuring and predicting things. Then along came people - people like Albert Einstein. Have you heard of him?

COLEMAN: (As Alice Ericsson-Taylor) Yeah.

BANKS: (As Henry Caldera) Yeah. He started to look into really small things, like atoms, subatomic particles, waveforms, and it began to look like classical physics didn't apply anymore, which is mysterious. It's not predictable in ways we currently understand. For example, the same thing can be in two different states at the same time. You could have a particle, for instance, the exact same particle - there's a world in which that particle is black and a world in which that particle is white. And there's a kind of point of liminal space between those worlds where the particle is black and white at the same time, and they don't seem to want to decide which state they'll be until someone looks at them.

BIANCULLI: Complicated? Absolutely. Over the eight installments of "Constellation," perspectives change; stories change; even people change. Scenes that look one way and mean one thing in Episode 1 are turned inside out when they return in Episode 6 or 7. It's a story full of unreliable narrators and a TV show where the images are more important and revealing than the dialogue. And because the visuals are crucial throughout, the directors of this series are crucial, too.

Oliver Hirschbiegel and Joseph Cedar direct the later episodes stunningly, but the mood and look are established in the all-important first ones by Michelle MacLaren, who directed some of the most brilliant episodes of "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul." Watching "Constellation" takes commitment, patience and attention, but you'll be rewarded for that effort with a haunting story that, at its center, is about the love between a mother and a daughter. It really touched me, at least, it did in this universe.

MOSLEY: David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University. He reviewed "Constellation," the new series, on Apple TV+. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, New York Times journalist Alan Feuer joins us to break down the mounting legal challenges of former President Donald Trump. As Trump seeks to gain the Republican presidential nomination, he faces 91 felony charges across four states and several lawsuits, many with dates in court that run right up to the presidential election. I hope you can join us.

To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram - @nprfreshair. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salit, Phyllis Myers, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Ann Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner, Seth Kelley and Susan Nyakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. For Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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