Hulu's The First excels by telling its space story primarily through images instead of dialogue

Vulture

"The First is a rare TV drama that tries to make its points through image and sound whenever possible, rather than have characters just walk onscreen and spit out reams of exposition that tell you what you’re supposed to take away from a scene or episode," says Matt Zoller Seitz of the space drama from House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, starring Sean Penn. "Although all of the main players are articulate, and not at all shy about talking to each other when something’s gnawing at them, the show explores their problems by watching them do things, whether it’s training for zero-gravity underwater or while suspended from wires, or having a messy argument about some bit of family business they’ve been tiptoeing around for years. Very often, you learn more about characters from watching their faces as they talk than from listening to their words, which, in the manner of real talk, are loaded with unexamined assumptions and often create more problems than they solve."

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• The First's abrupt shift in focus away from Sean Penn is jarring, as if it changed the channel on itself
• The First provides an essential perspective by mining the often grim practical, bureaucratic, political, financial, and emotional realities of space travel
• The First is frustrating because it's all countdown, but no launch: "This isn’t a show about Sean Penn on Mars. Or Sean Penn traveling through space to Mars. It’s Sean Penn getting ready just to board the spaceship."
• Beau Willimon's The First and House of Cards are linked by a certain pretentiousness, with a focus on egoists
• No one can rescue the show from Willimon's Capra-esque arch sentimentality
• You have to meet The First on its own terms -- it's not a big-budget adventure about actually journeying to Mars
• The First feels endless with its attempt to be profound, but it doesn't feel emotionally or narratively essential
• Willimon says of his unusual take on space exploration: "It was important to see the stakes, to see tragedy right from the start, to remind the audience that people are putting their lives on the line"