I know! It streamed so well. I guess they just couldn’t justify even the lower expense for s2 compared to s1 when they added the covid safety measures back on, which seem to run into half a million extra per ep. I really do wonder, for a lot of these, couldn’t they just do a movie to round off things? The cost of one maybe 1.5 eps and like, bring so much goodwill and closure and at least be able to say you have these complete series in your library for new viewers… I don’t know, I just don’t know what’s driving their decisions.
What do you think they’re gonna do for Away to make room for COVID?
Welp. I saw this earlier when it came in and jokingly thought to myself that the covid situation for Away genre of asks was more popular than I expected except I just saw that it was cancelled so now I’m just sad. Wtf. It was super popular?? In views, anyway. So really, it’s like, what can a show do to succeed if female led and diverse? It can’t be really good but not that watched, like TBH. It can’t be really watched but not that good, like Away.
And like, they wouldn’t even have had to account for the zero gravity for this season, they could have just faked low gravity out in the desert. Damn…I didn’t expect that. I really wanted to see more of Lu and Mei… I mean, if this treacly family friendly popcorn watching can’t make it, what can? It has to legit just be such a huge unlikely success or it’s done?
if Away will be affected when filming control room scenes, wouldn’t it be the same for For All Mankind too? I think they stopped filming because of covid
Yes, but it probably makes a huge difference that FAM stopped with just a couple of episodes left, compared to a show that has the full season left to shoot AND write. Whatever concessions FAM were going to make for covid, it’d have to work with the plot already written and the eps already shot. Most of what they needed would already have been rented or bought and planned out for and in weighing what to do, they’d have to take into account that the bulk of the season was already done, as opposed to not started at all. As a bunch of renewed shows not yet taping found out when they had the renewal rescinded. And as a matter of fact, I think FAM’s already gone back and finished shooting the leftover eps.
Considering Away s2 hasn’t even been written yet, they’ll have to make wholesale changes from the very start. FAM might have, for example, removed a scene here or some people there, but Away won’t even write them in to begin with.
I had an idea. What if in season 2 they devise some sort of system for Mei and Lu to talk privately without the CNSA knowing? Like they communicate using someone else’s tablet or something? Like maybe through Matt like he could hide it since he works at NASA.
I kinda hope we get more of the other characters next season. Like I want other character’s loved ones showing up as like in their imaginations like Matt did for Emma. And I wanna know how it’s affecting the other families too and the other kids.
I had an idea. Maybe they could all band together and decide not to do a specific task unless Mei rejoins the mission? I could see that. They all love Lu and know how much it would hurt if they weren’t able to talk to their loved ones again and they’ve already risked international incidents like twice haha. They’d have to reinstate her if they used a United front.
Maybe they’ll just meticulously plan out the scenes everyone is in like two weeks in advance and have them quarantine ahead of time so that way they can still shoot scenes but also stay on schedule? (About Away)
I think these are all from the same anon, they all came together, if not, my apologies.
I feel like both the idea to communicate by secret and to force NASA/CNSA to reinstate Mei are great, but I also think they’re too easy to get where we want and skip a whole lot of the drama the show’s deliberately going to want to include. But the communication idea, huh, that might be something they do, during Mei’s part of s2, because they gotta progress her story somehow. I don’t think we’ll get much of Mei back but I would LOVE to be proven wrong. I just feel the show’s not prioritizing them as much as we are.
But yes, definitely, the second ask about seeing the other families, that should definitely be one of the justifications for another season, to see more of the rest of them. Like first seasons tend to be about the lead and setting up further exploration into the side characters, then subsequent seasons elaborate on that, that’s what I’m hoping happens here.
And you’re probably correct on how they’re going to do the shooting, it seems to me that they already plan things out in pretty close detail, which actors and props and crew and sets they’ll need when, they just have to use that to now coordinate who’s interacting with who and for how long. I say “just” but it was already probably such a complex web and now this is a huge factor to include and you hear of sets immediately shut down as soon as someone does test positive, so it’s gonna be a learning experience for everyone.
just finished watching the third episode of away… and wow that broke me
It was so well done! I’ve said before that I wanted more of them, and I absolutely do, but in a way, it was almost like a one-off from an anthology, their full story and leaving it at hope for their future. That last phone call especially, and with the piano playing, they really made it as lovely as possible and the actresses were so good. Though for all of Mei’s very expressive and believable crying, Lu’s restraint and that final whispered “until then…” got to me the most.
i wish we’d have gotten more of Mei and Lu :/ they were cute and i kinda hope we get a time jump or something next season
Saaame. As much as I love what we got of them and Lu overall, if I hadn’t watched it and just read about it, I’d be sideeyeing it pretty hard for just sending Mei off completely after the third ep. When I reskimmed the first two eps it was so nice to see her as their CAPCOM, just let her stay there! D:
I don’t really expect that we’ll skip through the whole of the time on Mars, but I wonder what kind of focus we’ll get, if it’ll be random things going wrong each ep and then them finally taking off in the finale? Or will that be left for a third season (if they get one)? But they must know we don’t really want to see a full season of them traveling home either…not when it’ll be a repeat of this season, in a way. I expect they’ll still work flashbacks into it, because they can’t really keep these characters totally separate from their people on Earth. I just hope we’ll at least get some more Mei that way. Although…I wonder if they’ll work her back into the mission somehow.
I mean for the flashbacks those were mainly small scenes too so they can probs just have them quarantine too before flashbacks since they usually only involved a few people (I DEFINITELY wanna see more Lu and Mei flashbacks haha)
Hmm, true, true, but it just means the circle grows larger, right? Maybe not in poor Mei’s case who ends up mostly interacting with Lu, but she was in the middle of mission control before, I’d hate for them to cut out meaningful scenes for convenience. And of course Matt and Lex interact heavily with Emma, but then everyone else they interact with becomes part of that? Well, as you said, maybe they’ll just quarantine the people entering the smaller bubbles and try to figure out something else when they’re part of larger scenes.
And another anon:
I assume for the mission control scenes maybe they’d just have less people in the scenes or they’d have them more spaced out or they’d just write in the pandemic for mask reasons or they could just do close ups so it’s only a few people at a time.
I guess…it’s gonna be so interesting but kind of sad to see how media handles this in the upcoming TV season. Some shows already tried to do eps with mostly video conferencing, some tried animated, some wrote it into the plot, some are having just a few actors on screen (and set) at one time. 😡 Like, every time we see scenes with just a couple of people we’ll be like, I wonder if this was because…? And will often be right.
And another anon:
The only issue I could see is that apparently Away is one of the most expensive shows Netflix has ever produced. But the showrunner is super optimistic and apparently there’s been whispers about season 2 and also they’ve already bought the spacesuits and stuff so that may make it cheaper? The showrunner said they have a multi season plan and that it’s worth the price tag. Plus I don’t see why Netflix would spend so much money on a show not to renew it. They clearly believe in it enough.
Wow, was it? I suppose the space sfx but I remember seeing in one of the Expanse BTS that it wasn’t THAT hard or difficult to mimic no gravity, just wires and then CGIing them out, similar to what this show’s doing, I’d assume. Maybe not, with the bigger sets and the different angles… That’s a good point about Netflix actually wanting to showcase this one, that does indeed bode well for it. Fingers crossed, anyway! I need that Lu/Mei endgame.