ONE STRANGE ROCK

  • 28 Sep - 04 Oct, 2019
  • Mag The Weekly
  • TV TIME


Featuring Darren Aronofsky and Jane Root as its big-name producers, One Strange Rock builds its narrative spine around commentary from an assortment of astronauts, people whose time in space ranges from eight to 160 days and gives them a unique perspective on our planet. The astronauts – including Chris Hadfield, Nicole Stott, Jeff Hoffman, Mae Jemison, Leland Melvin, Mike Massimino, Jerry Linenger and Peggy Whitson, for space-travel aficionados – discuss their experiences on the International Space Station, share certain amounts of scientific expertise and offer the sort of macro view that comes from watching electrical storms, silty river delta deposits and burgeoning dust storms from 240 miles above the Earth's surface. Episodes focus broadly, with a lot of topical wiggle-room between ideas. The first hour is, as Smith's musings might tell you, on oxygen, specifically on what our ability to breathe has to do with the Amazon rainforest and microalgae, among other factors. The second episode focuses on how the violence of the cosmos led to our relatively stable planet, though also how an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, so maybe not so stable. And the third episode, titled Shield, basically focuses on why the sun doesn't fry us. It's not until that third episode that One Strange Rock gets explicitly ideological and even then, it's no more political than, "Remember how we fixed the hole in the ozone layer? Our planet is fragile. Let's not wreck it." One Strange Rock is a show that cries out to be watched on the biggest possible television in the highest available resolution to marvel at the ice climbers on Crack Baby in Switzerland or a nighttime candle ceremony celebrating the balance of life at the Wat Phra Dhammakaya in Thailand. Feel free to fast-forward through (or simply ignore) Will Smith. There's plenty to get hyped for in One Strange Rock without the After Earth star's giddy ebullience.

In light of the drastic climate changes, it is a must watch.

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