Missions: Mars gets deadly on BBC.
BBC Four is to air the French TV science fiction series Missions.
The ten-part series will be the channel’s first international drama acquisition with a sci-fi theme.
In the not-too-distant future, the first ever manned mission to Mars is launched by the eccentric Swiss billionaire William Meyer (Mathias Mlekuz). Meyer himself forms part of the eight-strong crew, which also includes a famous married Astronaut couple (played by Giorgia Sinicorni and Christophe Vandevelde) plus mission psychiatrist Jeanne Renoir (Hélène Viviès, pictured) – a last-minute addition to the team.
After 10 months of space travel, the crew is one day away from reaching Mars when they receive bad news – they’ve been overtaken by a rival American mission, and will no longer be first to land on the planet. When a message of distress is then received from the American crew, the French team’s exploration mission becomes a rescue attempt.
After a chaotic landing on Mars, the team discover a survivor. But he is not from the American mission. He’s Russian – a cosmonaut named Vladimir Komarov, who died on a mission to space in 1967…
Cassian Harrison, Channel Editor of BBC Four, told SFcrowsnest, “After travelling the globe with our international dramas, it’s exciting to now head off into space to a planet as yet unexplored. Missions is tense, taught drama at its finest and it’s a real honour to be showing it on BBC Four.”
