"From The Earth To The Moon" Part II: Apollo One.

An intense and heavy look at a disaster which happened very early on in the Apollo mission. Astronauts White, Chaffee, and Grissom were suited-up, and sealed in a capsule atop an Apollo rocket booster. The spaceship was put entirely on its own power systems, to make sure the ship was functioning properly on its own resources. This is called a "plugs out test". A flash fire swept through their capsule - too intense and too fast to make escape possible. White and Chaffee and Grissom died.

This episode dramatizes this event, and the subsequent investigations, hearings, and follow-ups - spearheaded by Walter Mondale. Completely different in tone than the first episode, "Apollo One" builds on the first installment’s under lying theme of making the program work against all the odds, and vividly shows exactly what kind of pressure these people must have been under to "get it right".

"Apollo One" features an immensely powerful scene in which Astronaut Wife Pat White comes home to find another Astronaut’s Wife waiting on her doorstep. Next to nothing is spoken here- the power of the silence and the expressions they share say all that needs to be said. Really a sobering moment, and a good tone setter for the tensions and desperations that later fill the episode (many people on the Apollo project were haunted by the accident on Apollo One. Indeed, its legacy is repeatedly evident throughout the first episodes of the series).

Very heady and thought-provoking. Less educational than insightful, "Apollo One" does a very nice job bringing depth and humanity to what could have been a cold and clinical tale of intrigue, investigation, and governmental "witch hunts".