The return of the passionate and adventurous documentary?!🥹

Not one to usually post on here but I am feeling a rare moment of inspiration having watched the first episode of Channel 4’s ‘Mission to Space with Francis Bourgeois’. The type of programme that inspired me to get into TV and the type of programme I’d fall over myself to work on in the future.

Caroline Frost at the Radio Times wrote ‘that there are green shoots of fresh geek-dom on our screens.’ Having cut my teeth in the wonderful and important world of medical documentary series and been partial to a number of zeitgeisty true crime obsessions of the last ten years I am genuinely excited to see a documentary series that simply celebrates passion, knowledge, expertise, kindness and adventureousness of humanity.

It’s easy to speak to any of my friends and family who are often too quick to tell me “there is nothing on” or “I don’t watch tv I only watch Netflix” (newsflash gang, Netflix is tv) and part of the underfunded landscape of the last few years has meant fresh programming has been put even further on the back burner as channels and streamers rely on old reliable and sellable IP but HURRAH is there light at the end of the tunnel? Are we making shows that excite again? Shows that exist on their own and don’t need formatting?

Whilst the premise of the show essentially rests with “do we dare to dream?” Which has been told in countless ways it feels like the natural graduation for the current generation of on-screen talent. It was so infectious to see how seriously Francis took his role as presenter and student in this series and do his knowledge of engineering justice. The access was exciting and felt like I was being given the keys to an unknown and changing space kingdom - other access docs have felt…Samey the last few years. I don’t know how many times I can go behind the scenes of a well known retail chain or highly stressed hospital - and I almost entirely work on these shows 🤪 (they have their place - I just want points of difference as a viewer!!)

The shooting style of the show was rightfully fresh (the shot of him riding his bike through the Houston rain will stick with me) and means that rougher footage from socials seamlessly fits in and doesn’t jar with old style mid shot tv. What could sometimes have felt like overly produced sequences were carried over the threshold and then some by the genuine emotions Francis was happy to convey, positively and negatively. I defy you to not to jump for joy at how happy experiencing zero gravity (first) made him.

It’s clear to even the viewer now (“why is everything just repeats?”) that the commissioning crisis in the UK and globally NEEDS fixing and we don’t want to see “our money” regurgitated on the same old access, story and characters we’ve seen for the last decade. Our commissions should offer new, educate more, platform ever more diverse stories and people for stories sake - not just to make a sale.