Recommended Sci Fi TV: Science fiction and fantasy shows from the past couple of years or so that we believe are worth checking out.
About: Missions is a French-made series (with English subtitles) that follows a European expedition–that is partially funded by a wealthy philanthropist–to Mars with a multi-national crew. Once they arrive there, though, they make an amazing discovery that changes everything they know about the Red Planet.
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Starring: Hélène Viviès, Clément Aubert, Mathias Mlekuz, Arben Bajraktaraj
Created By: Ami Cohen, Henri Debeurme, Julien Lacombe
Where You Can Watch It: The first two seasons are available on AMC’s streaming service Shudder.
Bottom Line: Missions delivers an intriguing science fiction series that starts with a space exploration focus but then heads into 2001: A Space Odyssey style cosmic themes.
Why It’s Worth Watching: The synopsis provided above is brief and mostly spoiler-free because the twists and turns come early and quick in this series. It reminds me some of 2009’s Defying Gravity (you can read more about that one at this link), though with less of the soap opera subplots. It does start out rather heavy on the interpersonal drama, but that is just to establish a baseline with the main characters and it shifts heavier to a science fiction tale pretty quickly. The CGI for this one is decent considering it likely does not have the same budget that U.S.-made streaming productions typically enjoy. And as the show progresses, it seems to introduce supernatural elements, but sticks with science as the basis for most explanations. This is where it starts to get into 2001-style profundity, though that never causes the story to unravel. The second season arrived with almost no notice in Fall 2019, and takes the story on a new set of twists and turns. But to explain any of that would be to spoil the first season, so you will have to watch to see how the story proceeds
The episodes are only about 25 minutes or less and there are ten eps in each season (no word yet on if a third season is in the works). If you don’t want to shell out the money for a subscription to Shudder (it’s only five bucks a month), you can do the one-week free trial and binge the show pretty quickly. I went ahead and paid for the first month and checked out some of the other offerings on the service (it has a horror/suspense focus) which included Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stories and a few other shows and movies of interest. Missions is definitely worth checking as a decent science fiction entry, and I am hoping that a third season will follow to further explore this rather complex story.
Stream Missions Now on Shudder
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