Netflix’s Challenger: The Final Flight Review

The first five minutes of Challenger: The Final Flight, the newest limited docu-series from Netflix, centering around the infamous space shuttle launch in 1986, is the most terrifying thing committed to film this year. It features an unrelenting look at the build-up to the launch, all of the hope worn on each of the crew’s families that were present, and the schoolchildren watching from afar that were supporting NASA’s vision to prove that space travel will not be limited to just astronauts. And that home was taken away in 1 minute and 27 seconds.

Challenger: The Final Flight is comprised of 4 episodes offering a comprehensive examination of the space shuttle program as it develops throughout the late 70s and early 80s, the crew members of the Challenger mission, what went wrong during its explosion, and the aftermath that delivered swift and somewhat questionable justice. These episodes are well structured, complete with ample information about what it took to get a shuttle into space and funded properly by the government. While they are rich with interesting facts, well-edited talking heads of surviving family members, and near-insurmountable odds that are overcome in order to get the shuttle off the ground, it is lacking something very important that would easily push this docu-series to greatness – the crew.

1986 was not the era for social media, cell phone videos, and large-scale media coverage which in this case severely hurts the series’ attempts to bring viewers closer to the seven crew members who lost their lives. Their family members do a good job at providing a better understanding of who these people were when they weren’t at their day jobs, however, it simply isn’t enough to emotionally connect to the series as a whole. It was a national tragedy and that should never be diminished but after spending four hours with the very people both at NASA and at home that spent years of their lives with the crew, it only leaves a keyhole picture of something seemingly larger and more interesting but just out of reach. The crew was and is the single most important aspect of this disaster and yet they quickly take a backseat to the scandal that was attempted to be covered up and the subsequent finger-pointing shortly after the explosion.

In the end, Challenger: The Final Flight is a decent docu-series by Netflix but in many moments it feels rushed or unfinished as if the camera focusing on the talking heads, whether from NASA or the sister or widow needed to linger on them for just a second longer in order to get that more meaningful dialogue that seemed to be vacant from the entire product. That is not to say the interviews and information aren’t prudent or even relevant for this current era but where other series would lean into the more emotional standpoint of a story marred in tragedy such as this, Challenger instead focuses on the hubris and building up of gross negligence across a decade that lead to the inevitable.

And yet, one can’t help but come back to the opening moments – where the image of parents and children gasping in horror but unable to look away as the trails of the Challenger explosion cross the sky. Challenger: The Final Flight is powerful and moving and worth the investment.

still courtesy of Netflix

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