In Review: The Right Stuff (S1 – Ep4) Advent

Synopsis: This week on The Right Stuff. As the advent of 1960 approaches, a humiliating rocket launch throws the future of NASA into question.

The Story

Christmas of 1959 sees the Mercury Seven program start on the fast track to getting a man into space. With the Russians having successfully taken photographs of the far side of the moon via an unmanned ship. Bob Gilruth has little choice, but to take drastic measures and brings in Nazi Rocket Scientist Werner Von Braun. When Von Braun’s rocket fails to launch. John Glen seeks to use his political contacts to try and mitigate the situation.

Meanwhile, Gordo’s wife becomes concerned about the safety of their marriage when she finds some torn up cards from Gordo’s former mistress in the garbage.

Elsewhere, Alan Shepard takes custody of his niece when his sister tragically passes away.

The Acting

We get an episode this week, which is full of solid acting performances. First off we get a brilliant performance from Eric Ladin as Chris Kraft who takes exception to Gilruth having to bring in Von Braun. We get a great scene between Kraft and astronaut Deke Slayton (Micah Stock) as the latter tries to be supportive of Kraft who is pissed off with Brauns’s attitude.

We also get a rather moving performance from Jake McDorman as an emotionally distant Alan Shepard welcomes his niece into the family.

Overall

Although, we haven’t seen any of the manned missions yet. This series is managing to remain compelling by taking a real deep dive into the lives of the Mercury 7 astronauts. Furthermore, we also get a little more of a deep dive into the ground crew as well as the politics of the time.

Thus far. For my money, this show continues to exhibit the right stuff and is managing to keep me entertained while simultaneously educating me about some of the things that I didn’t know about the first American flights into space.

You can check out last week’s review here.