Space travel does weird things to the human body and the mind.
NASA researchers have found astronauts can grow up to 3% taller living in microgravity and also are likely to experience vision problems associated with Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome (SANS). Studies have also found that astronauts can experience cognitive dysfunction, difficulties sleeping, anxiety, depression and other mental health issues. Then there are the reports of astronauts and cosmonauts claiming they’ve seen or heard inexplicable things, like NASA astronaut’s Story Musgrave saying he saw eel-like tubes “swimming” through space.
The Apple TV+ limited series “Constellation” pulls its inspiration from the aforementioned elements, not to mention films ranging from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “Interstellar” to “Gravity” to “Lucy in the Sky,” and oh, it’s a feast for conspiracy theorists to boot. This is the very definition of science FICTION, and while the shifting points of view and the jumps along the timeline and the sometimes maddening twists and turns will test your patience, showrunner Peter Harness has created a visually stunning, often disturbing and quite chilling psychological thriller.
On multiple occasions, certain jump-scares and reveals gave me actual, full-body chills. You almost get mad at how effective this series is at pushing the shock buttons.
“Constellation” kicks off Wednesday with a sequence set deep in the wintry woods of Northern Europe that won’t make sense until many episodes later — and even then, in keeping with the deliberately tricky nature of the series, we are almost never entirely certain whether what we’re seeing is real or is in the mind of one of various unreliable narrators. (This is a story treading in the liminal state between possible worlds, kind of like … “The Twilight Zone.”)
The action then shifts to the International Space Station, where astronaut Jo Ericsson (an excellent Noomi Rapace) is FaceTime-ing with her 11-year-old daughter, Alice, played by twins Rosie and Davina Coleman. (Seeing as how there’s no way to determine which girl is in which scene, one can only conclude they’re equally marvelous in handling a role that grows more complex along the way.) After a devastating explosion results in the death of Cmdr. Paul Lancaster (William Catlett), three of the surviving crew members return home in an emergency vessel, which only holds only three, with Jo remaining behind to race against the clock to repair the second emergency vessel and defy nearly insurmountable odds as her oxygen supply rapidly depletes — but she does it. She makes it.
Jo is home, reunited with her beloved Alice and with her husband, Magnus (James D’Arcy), who seems almost conflicted about being reunited with Jo, and this is our first indication something is awry.
Everything in Jo’s world seems … different from what she remembered. The car that was red is now blue. Items in the cupboards have been rearranged. (Some of the interiors in “Constellation” are dark and muted; others are bathed in vibrant colors. This serves to enhance the feeling we’re bouncing between different worlds.) There’s now a piano in the house, but Jo doesn’t know how to play the piano — and yet when she sits down, her fingers dance across the keys as she plays a Rachmaninoff prelude flawlessly.
Even more disturbing, Alice doesn’t smell like Alice to Jo, and the girl seems frightened of her mother, while Magnus eventually reveals to her that they were on the verge of splitting before she left on her mission. As Jo struggles with her grasp on reality and the viewer wonders whether this is all in her mind, we also follow the equally perplexing experiences of Cmdr. Henry Caldera (the great Jonathan Banks), who runs the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory and is obsessed with a mysterious device that Jo managed to bring home — a device with the usual “this can change EVERYTHING” ramifications.
Then there’s Henry’s brother “Bud” Caldera (also Banks), a Buzz Aldrin-type former astronaut who once walked the moon but is now a bitter alcoholic traveling the convention circuit and fending off questions about what REALLY happened on his mission. (In the world of “Constellation,” Bud was on Apollo 18; in real life, the Apollo 18 mission was scrapped by NASA). Are Henry and Bud two different people, or the same person, living in alternative universes? And what’s the deal with the Russian space chief Irene Lysenko (Barbara Sukowa), who might or might not have been one of the first women in space back in the 1960s?
As we go back and forth through the looking-glass (it’s surely no coincidence Jo’s daughter is named Alice), “Constellation” at times feels more like a ghost story than a sci-fi thriller — but there are so many occasions when we can’t trust that what we’re seeing onscreen is really, really REAL. Thankfully, the finale provides some legitimately earned answers, while also keeping things open for a potential second season. With a challenging premise, smart writing and strong performances, “Constellation” is well worth the eight-episode investment.
