Who knew space travel could be this boring?
Set in the near future, Hulu’s “The First” stars Sean Penn as an astronaut on the first manned mission to Mars, in theory a daring feat of human invention and optimism that hasn’t been seen since man first walked on the moon in 1969. Yet it’s portrayed here as a lame slog of politics and marital squabbles. It’s hard to make something as naturally captivating and ethereal as space travel dull, but “The First” (streaming Friday, ★½ out of four) has done just that.
Long-winded, tedious and full of metaphors, allusions and symbols piled on top of each other in a literary garbage pile, “The First” is an unintentional parody of the expensive, self-important shows that somehow get the label “prestige TV.”
Creator Beau Willimon (“House of Cards”) bypasses most of the the science fiction and adventure tropes that often make space drama captivating and opts instead to make a workplace and family drama that can’t be rescued by Penn. Instead of elevating the material, he simply scowls his way through overwritten lines and poor facial hair choices for eight interminable episodes.
The series begins with a tragedy that sets the Mars mission back years and forces Tom Hagerty (Penn), who was pushed out of the initial mission after personal problems, to come back to the fold and create a new team. The episodes follow the team’s training and personal drama under the watchful eye of Laz Ingram (Natascha McElhone), a tech CEO who nabbed the multibillion-dollar government contract for the Mars expedition.
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