At least one of the astronauts somehow wasn’t given a backstory.

Big dramatic conflicts are introduced fairly frequently - a choice between two candidates for the last crew position, a technological failing with the shuttle, a severe budget deficit - and then, without showing the key resolving scene, the drama jumps forward a few months to new points of conflict. The show doesn’t especially care what you “want” from it, hence the lack of terraforming by the third episode. Sean Penn Attempts Trip to Mars in Trailer for Hulu Space Drama 'The First' Other characters have similar personal issues - strained marriages, ailing parents - that come to the surface as Laz, driven and prickly and probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum, tries to mobilize resources before the next available launch window, in 24 months. He’s butting heads - not disrespectfully - with LisaGay Hamilton’s Kayla Price, whose leadership position he usurps, and he’s struggling with his daughter, Denise (Anna Jacoby-Heron), an addict still grieving over the mysterious loss of her mother ( Melissa George, wonderful in flashbacks).

Soon, Tom is rounding up a new group of astronauts, including characters played by Keiko Agena, James Ransone, Rey Lucas and Hannah Ware. Tom is still deeply invested in the mission and becomes more so when the liftoff doesn’t go as planned. Watching from his New Orleans home is the team’s former commander, Tom Hagerty ( Sean Penn), who has been excluded for reasons that will unfold very gradually. Set in a not-too-distant future of slightly improved VR technology, expanded automation and few other tangible details, The First begins on the brink of the first manned journey to Mars, a launch orchestrated by Laz Ingram’s (Natascha McElhone) Vista, a private corporation with some government funding. Admirably, Hulu isn’t advertising The First as some sort of blockbuster, though trailers don’t lack for footage of igniting rockets - taken mostly from the first half of the pilot.

Keiko agena measurements