With Away, Jason Katims failed to produce another tearjerker

BuzzFeed News

"Katims seems to know his own power," says Elamin Abdelmahmoud. "He’s aware that audiences turn to his shows for tears, though he is coy about doing it intentionally...Friday Night Lights was a reliable tear extractor. Parenthood had a comforting rhythm, where tensions would flare — and stakes would get high — and then be resolved within a three-to-four episode arc. Often, they were resolved with hefty emotional payoff. It never mattered whether the shows were occasionally corny, it just mattered that they had heart and delivered the good stuff. So you can imagine my excitement, then, for Away. Gonna cry some tears…in space. It made it even more exciting that the show was created by Andrew Hinderaker, a writer for a previous Katims project (Pure Genius). The showrunner, Jessica Goldberg, previously created The Path, a Katims production. It was basically the Avengers of the Katims Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, in Away, Katims and company do not stick the landing. It’s an overly wooden show that is so hurried to lead with its maudlin schmaltz ambitions that they forgot to pack in the heart. Begrudgingly, once an episode or so, I cried a little."