Mad Men has enjoyed a successful run on AMC over the last few years, pulling in impressive ratings and slews of awards in the process. Its creators have done a fabulous job glamorizing the lives of 1960′s advertisers, but what about another important face of American history that happened at roughly the same time, namely The Space Race?
The show’s creators are reportedly pitching a brand new series that revolves around the early days of NASA and America’s interest in space exploration. Not only will it cover the astronauts and mission controllers, but the series will be told through the viewpoint reporters who were lucky enough to have been around to experience it first hand.
With the critical success of Mad Men changing how we view the romantic and sleazy side of American business, could this be the publicity NASA really needs to motivate people to get interested again? Audiences glamorize what they see on TV as a reality, but in the case with NASA, this actually happened and can happen again with the right support.
Wouldn’t it be just so American if all it took was a solid fictional drama to reinvigorate our interest in space? Between the end of the Shuttle program and the successful landing of the Curiosity Rover, the timing seems right for a fictional retelling of humankind’s greatest achievement.
“Space is hot right now,” NASA’s multimedia liaison Bert Ulrich told Wired in their interview.
The show is just in the pitch phase, but crews are scouting for locations along Florida’s Space Coast. Hopefully we get a pilot episode and the show lifts off.