It's a...little Prestige TV in that the first part of the first Season is watching half the US astronaut core go into an alcohol and misogyny-fueled death spiral over the Soviets getting to the moon first.
There's some 60s 70s "Things were different then" edginess, and the Soviets are framed as oppressive in an annoying way (season 2 has a very cringe sub-plotline about a defector) but really they do nothing worse than the US does.
It's just heavily focused on the USA and you only get occasional peeks in at what the SU is doing (winning because they still have the Chief Designer, the PoD (from what the showrunners say) is that Korolev didn't go to the gulag, so didn't have the enmity with the engine makers, and so he doesn't get cancer and the N1 succeeds.)
It's a big production trying to be a big thing so a little bit of prestige is certainly there but mostly just in the production value of it all. Not much boning going on for the most part and I can vaguely remember one torture scene over the course of three seasons and it's nothing very graphic. There isn't an evil smirking sociopath, most conflicts are either internal/interpersonal or humans vs nature driven, sometimes humans vs machine and of course in the background there is this more abstract humans vs human other (Soviet) thing going on. While they never really go into the pornographic, there is a whole lot of 'look at this big fucking rocket' phallic worship type of deal going on so I dunno if that bothers you
deleted by creator
It's a...little Prestige TV in that the first part of the first Season is watching half the US astronaut core go into an alcohol and misogyny-fueled death spiral over the Soviets getting to the moon first.
There's some 60s 70s "Things were different then" edginess, and the Soviets are framed as oppressive in an annoying way (season 2 has a very cringe sub-plotline about a defector) but really they do nothing worse than the US does.
It's just heavily focused on the USA and you only get occasional peeks in at what the SU is doing (winning because they still have the Chief Designer, the PoD (from what the showrunners say) is that Korolev didn't go to the gulag, so didn't have the enmity with the engine makers, and so he doesn't get cancer and the N1 succeeds.)
deleted by creator
It's a big production trying to be a big thing so a little bit of prestige is certainly there but mostly just in the production value of it all. Not much boning going on for the most part and I can vaguely remember one torture scene over the course of three seasons and it's nothing very graphic. There isn't an evil smirking sociopath, most conflicts are either internal/interpersonal or humans vs nature driven, sometimes humans vs machine and of course in the background there is this more abstract humans vs human other (Soviet) thing going on. While they never really go into the pornographic, there is a whole lot of 'look at this big fucking rocket' phallic worship type of deal going on so I dunno if that bothers you
deleted by creator