From the Earth to the Moon is
HBO's 1998 miniseries from the team behind
Apollo 13, which dramatises
NASA's attempts to reach -- and, ultimately, various missions to -- the Moon.
Part One, titled
Can We Do This? and directed by executive producer (and, of course, film star)
Tom Hanks, covers the broadest spectrum of time, going from the Soviet's first spacewalk in 1961 to the end of the
Gemini program in 1966 -- essentially, it's setup for what's to come: the
Apollo missions to the Moon. As a summary of this period it's a slightly unusual mix of real contemporary footage, fake contemporary footage, and dramatised scenes. It still functions as a narrative, but it does enhance the feeling that it's a summary to get viewers up to speed for the real meat of the series -- the Apollo missions.
Part Two is simply titled
Apollo One. As its title suggests, it covers the tragedy of
Apollo 1: during a routine test, a fire broke out in the command module and killed three astronauts. Though more of a standard dramatic narrative than Part One, the episode still makes use of flashbacks to convey what the crew were like while moving forward with an investigation that could potentially shut down the entire space program.
With their different feels and self-contained stories, these opening episodes suggests how this miniseries will play out: not a twelve-hour story divided into twelve segments, but rather a series of twelve one-hour stories, each with their own focus and style, that build up into a chronological telling of NASA's attempts to reach the Moon. If they all maintain this level of quality, it'll be a pretty fine series.
