The Astronaut Wives Club - Season 1

This summer ‘The Astronaut Wives Club’ premiered, a series based on a Lily Koppel novel with the same name, which tells the true stories of the first US astronaut wives. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a Dutch review about the pilot episode, and back then it was really hard for me to form an opinion based on all the events that occurred during this episode. I decided to watch the whole series to give it a fair chance and to be able to review it in a way it deserved. The final episode has just been aired so it’s time to give my final judgement.

The show revolves around the ‘Mercury Seven’ women, the wives of the first American men in space. Louise Shepard (Dominique McElligot, ‘Hell On Wheels’), Betty Grissom (JoAnna Garcia Swisher, ‘Reba’), Rene Carpenter (Yvonne Strahovski, ‘Chuck’), Trudy Cooper (Odette Annable, ‘House’), Annie Glenn (Azure Parsons), Marge Slayton (Erin Cummings, ‘Made in Jersey’) and Jo Schirra (Zoe Boyle, ‘Downton Abbey’) are ‘The Astronaut Wives Club’. They are the most important, but certainly not the only characters in this series. That’s actually one of the first special things about this show, the many characters involved make this series so believable and realistic at the same time. In the beginning it can be quite overwhelming, learning all the names and new faces and getting to know each and every one of them. But fortunately this is something that gets better with each episode and as the series progresses, eventually, you hardly notice it at all.

History comes alive on the small screen with beautiful footage from back then mixed with ‘new’ material.

There are a lot of time jumps in ‘The Astronaut Wives Club’. The story starts in 1959 while the last episode mostly takes place in 1970. An unusual way to tell this story, but it works! Mainly because of the specific subjects in each episode and the clear explanations given during the story lines. You grow alongside the women while watching, and start to love them more and more as the show moves along. I found it very special to have such a well-known story still make such an impact on me. History comes alive on the small screen with beautiful footage from back then mixed with ‘new’ material. The tough marriages, women and black people fighting for equality, the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights and the death of one of the ‘Mercury Seven’ men… It’s all in there, even though the series only has ten episodes in total.

The ‘Mercury Seven’ crew: Alan Shepard (Desmond Harrington, ‘Dexter’), Gus Grissom (Joel Johnstone), Scott Carpenter (Wilson Bethel, ‘Hart of Dixie’), Gordon Cooper (Bret Harrison, ‘Reaper’), John Glenn (Sam Reid, ‘Hatfields & McCoys’), Deke Slayton (Kenneth Mitchell, ‘Jericho’) and Wally Schirra (Aaron McCusker, ‘Shameless’), are cast perfectly as well as their wives. They all bring such a convincing life story which makes for a strong base. But that’s not all, a quick search on Google shows that images from interviews and historical events from back then have been copied to perfection to make the series as realistic as possible. Even though the story might not be very spectacular, I have to say that it touched me deeply. I don’t think a show has made this much impact on me in a while as ‘The Astronauts Wives Club’ has. I felt goosebumps, had tears in my eyes and so many emotions while watching this show. And because it’s based on true events, it is even more touching, knowing people actually lived through it all.

ABC has tried very hard to bring this story to life in the best possible way, and has succeeded tremendously doing so in my opinion.

While ‘The Astronaut Wives Club’ might not be for everyone, people who like American history, the space programme and women equality issues will probably love the show. Families who have had it with all the unrealistic story lines that most series nowadays show, will probably fall in love with this fun and very well made series as well. This fairly new genre in the TV world has made a big impact on me, and also taught me a lot about the USA and NASA. The final episode ends with an account of what happened to all of the couples after 1970, which gives the series the ending it deserves. I have to say that my opinion changed a lot since I watched the very first episode of this season. ABC has tried very hard to bring this story to life in the best possible way, and has succeeded tremendously doing so in my opinion.