How do you feel about the other storylines in Away? Especially the last few episodes. To me, the story bits focused on Emma and Ram’s relationship before/after they went on the spacewalk was kind of cheap storytelling just to keep the show/drama going.

I’m trying not to be too vocal about it but I was just not a general fan of Ram at all. I was already rolling my eyes at his “oh, I’m a womanizer, aren’t I so naughty, but ACTUALLY I just don’t want to get too close to people because of my tragic past” characterization but the way he then handled the Lu/Mei gossip? Nahhhh. And his selfishness in telling Emma, “I needed you to know”, right, right, YOU needed it. 

Having said that, it feels like the main point of the show IS this kind of drama, the Mars journey is just to facilitate it. Like, I was rolling my eyes at getting both Emma/Ram AND Melissa/Matt, but that feels like more their main priority than the space stuff. Everything they do, Ram’s mono, the lack of water, Misha’s blindness, it’s not about the space aspect but how it’ll affect the characters and their dynamics. Which, super not my thing, but again, that’s how we got Lu/Mei, soooo, I can’t be super mad about it. Like, not every show has to be my thing. It never set out to be a space thriller, the posters and trailer were accurate, it’s a Lifetime/Hallmark series set in space. I’m sure for the people who want that, it fed them.

When the show found out about Lu and Mei’s relationship, the china crew leader mentions that she found a slip of paper with her handwriting on it, which I found kind of strange because it could’ve been written by anybody from their crew. Do you think they said that to move the story on quicker or were there too few crew members from the China team to have pinpointed it directly to their only astronaut representing the country?

Well, I figured it’s like any handwriting, it can be pretty distinctive? Is that not the case? Especially as Lu’s a talented calligrapher, I’d imagine her writing for an ILY would be prettier than what most people could manage?