In the film _Apollo 13_, Tom Hanks' character makes a comment about how everyone involved in the program felt the pride and reward from the successful moon landing. What this episode does is go into detail on one group of people in particular: the people that decided on the orbital rendezvous idea and how they built the moon lander itself. It's an amazing journey from the narrated opening to the pathway taken by the contractors who built the landers. It wasn't easy, of course, and it wasn't just about the design. Informative and entertaining, this is one of the best episodes of the series because it explores an area few viewers would really have any knowledge about prior to watching. Most of the other episodes, we all know the stories. This one, not so much. But again, illustrating the pride—and love—each person involved with the Apollo program felt for their little piece of the puzzle is highlighted here, and that in itself is a rewarding experience for the viewer.
3 Reviews
Awesome episode, from start to finish: informative and entertaining
Solnichka10 February 2016
Warning: Spoilers
One episode got it right!
pmike-113121 August 2022
"Spider" is the one (and only) episode in the mini-series that got the gist of the story correct. Yes, it was simplified and compressed, and the story "Hollywooded" a little bit, but what needed to be there was. As a lifelong follower of the early (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo) space program, I found this story refreshing and enjoyable. It gives an (albeit simplified) indication of the problems that had to be overcome and the new materials and processes to be invented for the successful outcome of this outlandish vehicle. I've read Tom Kelly's book on the subject and this episode does a good job of telling the story in less than an hour.
Interestingstuff is flat-out wrong about this episode. The CONCLUSION is that after all the obstacles of designing, building, and testing the LM, IT WORKED! And did so every time. What more do you want?? Geeeesh.....
Interestingstuff is flat-out wrong about this episode. The CONCLUSION is that after all the obstacles of designing, building, and testing the LM, IT WORKED! And did so every time. What more do you want?? Geeeesh.....
An episode without a real conclusion
interestingstuff21 November 2022
Everyone says this is the best episode of this series but I'd rate it about 5/10.
This is another episode of this show without a true conclusion. Basically we have a problem statement, bunch of meetings between engineers and scientists to offer possible solution ideas, none of the original ideas seem to work so they realize that they will have to think outside of the box to fix this problem.
The issue is WE NEVER SEE THE SOLUTION. We just see a montage clip of engineers and scientists work hard at fixing the issue with dramatic music in the background and their celebrations at the end. We have as much idea about how the issue was solved at the end of the episode as we did in the beginning of the episode, so what was even the point of this episode other than having dramatic effect?
This is the biggest problem with this show actually, not just this episode. They spent 12-hours going through motions, showing engineers and scientists "solving" problems to make moon journey a reality without actually explaining any of the solutions. At the end of the day, 99.999% of viewers will have ZERO clue how those issues were solved other than being shown montage clips in each episode with dramatic music and just have faith that things got somehow solved since our scientists are celebrating in the background.
How did they solve these problems you ask? Well you'll have to watch an actual documentary or read a book for that instead of wasting your time with this poorly made soap opera that pretends to be docu-series.
This is another episode of this show without a true conclusion. Basically we have a problem statement, bunch of meetings between engineers and scientists to offer possible solution ideas, none of the original ideas seem to work so they realize that they will have to think outside of the box to fix this problem.
The issue is WE NEVER SEE THE SOLUTION. We just see a montage clip of engineers and scientists work hard at fixing the issue with dramatic music in the background and their celebrations at the end. We have as much idea about how the issue was solved at the end of the episode as we did in the beginning of the episode, so what was even the point of this episode other than having dramatic effect?
This is the biggest problem with this show actually, not just this episode. They spent 12-hours going through motions, showing engineers and scientists "solving" problems to make moon journey a reality without actually explaining any of the solutions. At the end of the day, 99.999% of viewers will have ZERO clue how those issues were solved other than being shown montage clips in each episode with dramatic music and just have faith that things got somehow solved since our scientists are celebrating in the background.
How did they solve these problems you ask? Well you'll have to watch an actual documentary or read a book for that instead of wasting your time with this poorly made soap opera that pretends to be docu-series.
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