REVIEW. Brilliant second season of MARS on National Geographic an improved and utterly binge-worthy, addictive dramatic space adventure.

The brilliant second season of MARS starting Sunday at 20:00 on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220 / Cell C black 261) for 6 episodes is a much-improved and utterly binge-worthy and addictive dramatic space adventure.

I watched the entire new season after National Geographic made made all 6 episodes available to TV critics ahead of the second season before its release starting Sunday, and with new showrunner Dee Johnson, MARS, that was already a good enough sit-though during its first season, is now engrossing and spectacular.

Toning down on the real-life experts interjecting - and with a much bigger and better focus on the dramatic narrative aspect - MARS is absolutely terrific.

The second season is centered around the planetary pitfalls and the human conflict story as it plays out in the fictionalised Olympus Town science colony, and the new members of the exploitative private company Lukrum corporation who make their unwelcome arrival.

Fans of Star Trek and The Expanse will absolutely love watching the stellar second season of MARS on National Geographic with a much bigger emphasis on dramatic character development. In addition, MARS is is done scientifically right but not sacrificing narrative tension for boring facts.

The blending between the scripted part and real-world experts sitting in chairs talking to camera is much improved, toned down and much the time devoted to it much less. Viewers can immerse themselves more into the story, with less disruption.

The 6 "subjects" of the new MARS episodes are all anchored in very real possible situations but could just as well be ripped from the plots of the very best science fiction space adventure TV series.

Very interesting and dramatic stories in MARS this season range from an impending solar flare and someone stuck outside alone, the new Lukrum arrivals getting their power cut off, a clever political-industrial power struggle playing out on Earth in the boardroom, the outbreak of a mysterious illness, and even romantic entanglements and medical problems.

There's also a very big disaster, the ongoing search for water, shifting alliances and dictatorial conduct on Earth and on Mars, people keeping friends close and enemies closer, as well as the diplomatic wrangling and interpersonal relationships that come into play when trying to work out some sort of a peaceful co-existence between the diverging interests of scientific exploration and corporate greed.

The character development in the second season of MARS is ramped up, causing the central characters to be much better defined and fleshed-out, making them feel much more real, personable, and identifiable than during the first season.

With the bigger time-jump and better narrative - and speculative - exploration of the story of the people on Mars, the majority of the real-life commentary by experts as well as the examples start to feel forced and are not really necessary to tell the MARS story and mankind's quest of space exploration effectively.

The "on Earth" examples to illustrate what's happening on Mars doesn't quite fit so well (anymore), making for an ill-fitting juxtaposition in most episodes - but there is a solution if you don't want to really see these parts.

Watch episodes of MARS' second season recorded or on-demand, and then simply fast forward through these somewhat forced segments.

The episodes of the second season are highly enjoyable, the characters and the situations extremely compelling.

Besides a focus on science, MARS' second season is anything but boring, and cleverly works in gripping emotional interactions with great pacing, often claustrophobic-like close-ups, and several characters "trapped" in do-or-die life-and-death situations.

MARS has solid acting from Jeff Hephner whose ruff and forceful character leads the Lukrum corporation (don't get too attached), and Jihae Kim as mission commander Hana Seung who has to remain somewhat stoic to try and keep everyone happy, while both her authority and capacity to find solutions for constant problems are being challenged.

ALSO READ: Spectacular second season of MARS on National Geographic spells more drama, human conflict and a big disaster.

Spectacular second season of MARS on National Geographic spells more drama, human conflict and a big disaster.

The second season of MARS starts Sunday at 20:00 on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220 / Cell C black 261) with a much bigger and better emphasis on the story and dramatic events - including a big disaster - at the first colony on Mars than the space experts talking and weighing in in-between.

Filmed in Budapest last year and executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, the 6-episode second season with new showrunner Dee Johnson is set a few years after the first season.

It is now 2042 and overall deals with a private company, the Lukrum corporation, arriving on Mars to mine and exploit its natural resources, creating conflict with the existing and expanding scientific colony of scientists of the International Mars Science Foundation (IMSF) already on the red planet in their Olympus Town.

The second season produced by Imagine Entertainment and RadicalMedia has a much bigger focus on the scripted narrative part, with less interjecting by real-world experts.

As the private sector starts to intrude on MARS, similar to what the world is doing with the Arctic, tensions arise between the scientists and the miners.

The story this season tackles pregnancy, break ups, new romances, the outbreak of a mysterious disease, breakdowns, power outages and an impending solar flare, injuries, exercise, mealtimes, socializing and a dramatic disaster. And get ready for multiple deaths.

Multiple cast members from the first season are back, with Jihae Kim, Jeff Hephner from Chicago Med and Esai Morales who have joined for the second season.

Some space experts and entrepreneurs appear again, although this time much less, to give their thoughts, including Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO; Ellen Stofan, former NASA chief; Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and futurist; Casey Dreier, director of space policy at the Planetary Society; Antonia Juhasz, leading oil and energy expert; and climate change author Naomi Klein.

"Last season, we envisioned getting to Mars, so now, we're shifting the conversation to what will happen once we're on a planet where everything is alien and extraordinary," says showrunner Dee Johnson.

"Mars is a pressure cooker - there's a constant push-pull between science and industry, and as a result, emotions run high. Although conflicting, their agendas are not mutually exclusive; with the advancement of science and exploration also comes industry and money making."

Justin Wilkes, co-creator and executive producer at RadicalMedia, says "The series underscores how human nature doesn't change when we become Martians, but navigating how we harness our instincts, emotions and behaviours on Mars is uncharted territory".

"MARS delves into how we'll cope with heartbreak, mental health, illness, contamination, death, the first pregnancy and first baby on Mars, natural disasters and the quest for the planet's natural resources, like water, which we often take for granted on Earth."

ALSO READ: REVIEW. Brilliant second season of MARS on National Geographic an improved and utterly binge-worthy, addictive dramatic space adventure.

Second season of MARS on National Geographic starts filming in Budapest; new 6 episodes will be set even further into the future.

The second season of the fictional and anchored by real-life science and astronomy docu-drama series, MARS on National Geographic (DStv 181) has started filming in Budapest and has added several additional actors to the cast.

MARS - interspliced with real-world scientists talking about various challenges surrounding a manned mission to Mars - tells the fictionalised futuristic recreation of mankind's first manned mission to the red planet.

National Geographic renewed Mars for a second season in mid-January 2017.

In March it was a little bit awkward when Hamish Mykura, the executive vice president for programming and development at National Geographic, briefly visited South Africa and did a presentation at MultiChoice's DStv Media Showcase.

I've watched all the episodes of the first season of MARS on National Geographic that was put on DStv Catch Up with the show that of course ends on a cliffhanger with - spoiler alert! - the explorers finally discovering life on Mars in the final scenes.

I therefore asked Hamish Mykura if he can reveal just a little bit of how the second season of MARS will proceed, given that the show is anchored by real-life science to give possible solutions to the problems faced on Mars, but with MARS that will now obviously have to venture even further into more speculative "science fiction" territory.

"We are looking at a next series, but nothing announced yet," Hamish Mykura told me.

Oh-kay.

With filming that has now started, the new 6 episodes of the second season of MARS will take place several years further into the future, with the new season of Ron Howard's Imagine Entertainment and Brian Grazer's Radical Media that will be broadcast on National Geographic in 2018.

Dee Johnson is the new showrunner of the second season. "This season takes us literally into new territory."

"With no laws, no government and no safety nets of any kind, what is it like to be among the first settlers of Mars? Not only do we explore dangers and mysteries of this brand-new world, but we also explore what it means to be human in a place where so few exist."

By now the Daedalus astronauts have built a full-fledged colony called Olympus Town and the second season will examine mankind's impact on Mars and the planet's impact on humanity.

Back in their roles from the first season are JiHAE as Hanna Seung (mission pilot) who also plays twin sister Joon Seung (capsule communicator of mission control); Sammi Rotibi as Robert Foucault (Nigerian mechanical engineer and roboticist); Alberto Ammann as Javier Delgado (hydrologist and geochemist); Clémentine Poidatz as Amelie Durand, (French mission physician and biochemist); Anamaria Marinca as Marta Kamen (a Russian exobiologist and geologist); and Cosima Shaw as Leslie Richardson (British nuclear physicist).

New actors have joined the second season of MARS: Esai Morales, Roxy Sternberg, Gunnar Cauthery, Levi Fiehler, Evan Hall, Akbar Kurtha and Jeff Hephner.

Esai Morales will play Roland St. John (CEO of private enterprise Lukrum Corporation); Roxy Sternberg is Jen Carson (operation forewoman at the Lukrum mining colony); Gunnar Cauthery plays Lt. Michael Glenn (newest addition to Olympus Town and second in command); Levi Fiehler will play Cameron Pate (molecular biologist tech in Olympus Town); Evan Hall is Shep Master (the wild card of the Lukrum crew); Akbar Kurtha is Dr. Johar (psychologist) and Jeff Hephner is Kurt Hurrelle, leader of the Lukrum mining colony.

National Geographic embarks on a spectacular journey to MARS in an audacious new 6-part space adventure drama starting Sunday at 8:05pm.

Viewers who loved Matt Damon in the film The Martian will enjoy the new 6-part series with documentary elements, MARS, starting this Sunday at 20:05pm on National Geographic (DStv 181), a fictional drama about mankind’s first manned mission to the red planet in 2033.

The harrowing first attempt to colonise Mars is not a documentary series but a fictional drama just like The Martian, interspliced with time jumps to 2016 as real scientists and innovators discuss the various challenges of reaching and possibly establishing a manned scientific base on Mars.

Executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard of Imagine Entertainment, MARS as a scripted feature-quality drama on National Geographic shows the dramatic setbacks and successes when a crew embarks on their Mars mission and immediately run into problems.

Filmed earlier this year in Budapest and Morocco, the Daedalus spacecraft encounters problems before it even reaches space.

The crew – with mission commander Ben Sawyer (Ben Cotton), a Korean American mission pilot, a Spanish hydrologist and geochemist, a French doctor and biochemist, a Nigerian mechanical engineer and roboticist, A British nuclear physicist and a world-renowned experimental botanist – very quickly run into scary problems.

Will they find traces of life on Mars? Will they make surprising discoveries? And most of all: Will all or even just some of them be able to survive?

Ron Howard says the idea with MARS for National Geographic is "to bring the quest to go to Mars to life in a really dramatic and cinematic way".

The scripted story of MARS is based on real-world science, with the writers and production designers who worked with an extensive team of experts and NASA to get not just the science as accurate as possible but also the visual look of things like the Daedalus spaceship design, the spacesuits and the Olympus Town habitat settlement.

MARS has an unprecedented collection of interviews with authors as well as NASA experts and other scientists working to find solutions to the myriad challenges facing a possible Mars mission, including the South African innovator Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX. 

'It's what we do as humans, we explore things'

"The time we are living in now is unique and we should be privileged to live now," says dr Adriana Marais.

The South African scientist is one of Africa's astronaut candidates – and one of 100 left globally – selected to possibly become one of the people to go on a real Mars mission as part of the Mars One project.

"Only 580 people or so have ever been to space. In the next decade or two – and we're lucky enough to watch this happening – we are going to explore space further than ever before," said Adriana Marais.

"Since the beginning of time humans have been moving around, finding new places to live, and staying there. My ancestors came to South Africa in 1688. I still live in Cape Town."

"I believe in a thousand years’ time there will be humans on Mars, talking about that perilous journey that their ancestors made from Earth, on that rickety rocket, that wasn't guaranteed to arrive at all, in the early 21st century," said Adriana Marais.

"Never underestimate the power of getting out of your comfort zone. It's always because you made a leap. You went out into the unknown. You went out on a limb."

"You went out with those people you didn’t know. You made new friends. You went to that place you’ve never been to before. You learnt about that place and it changed you."

"And it's what we do as humans. We explore the things we don’t understand yet and we try to solve problems," said Adriana Marais.

"Earth is unique. A lot of planets are barren; lifeless. Earth is not. We should do everything we can to protect Earth. And maybe leaving Earth will be the only way we will realise this."

The 6-part, dramatised docu-series, Mars, will start on the National Geographic Channel on DStv on 13 November about man's journey to the red planet.

National Geographic Channel (DStv 181) will bring South African viewers the fictionalised docu-series Mars about man's journey and exploration of the red planet from 13 November as a global event.

The 6-episode Mars that will start in 171 countries including South Africa at the same time, will be both a fictionalised, scripted drama about mankind's quest to colonise Mars from the viewpoint of a fictitious crew set in 2033, as well as scientists and scientific minds like South Africa's Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame, talking about it.

Mars will chart the fictitious, futuristic journey of the Daedalus to the fourth planet in our solar system with a dramatic scripted story, intercut with interviews with current scientists and innovators who are leading the research and development of space technology that will make a future Mars mission possible.

The Mexican filmmaker Everardo Gout was the director of the dramatic part of the series that was filmed earlier this year in Budapest and Morocco to stand in for the harsh Martian backdrop.

The Mars production team took painstaking efforts to base the scripted future story of Mars exploration on real-world science and the series' writing team worked with an extensive group of experts.

"We're going to become a multi-planet species and a space-faring civilisation or we're going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event," says Elon Musk in Mars. "In order for me to be excited and inspired about the future, it's got to be the first option".

National Geographic will support the Mars TV series with a 6-part digital companion, prequel series, Before Mars that will launch prior to the premiere of the TV show as a digital, virtual-reality experience at www.MakeMarsHome.com.

Mars will be the cover story of the National Geographic magazine in November and will also be featured in a standalone book, Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet, that will be on sale from October.

National Geographic Channel revamping Explorer into a weekly talk show series; Nat Geo and Nat Geo Wild announce new shows for 2016 and 2017.

The National Geographic Channel (DStv 181) has announced new shows for 2016 and 2017 while it's revamping its Explorer strand into a weekly "docu-talk" series that will have celebrity guests, field reports and talk show segments filmed in front of a live studio audience.

Explorer, done from New York, will start on National Geographic Channel in 2017 worldwide, including on the channel as seen on DStv in South Africa.

"The Explorer announcement marks a significant expansion in the scope and ambition of the series and emulates National Geographic's ongoing commitment to topical, entertaining and, most importantly, vital reporting," says Tim Pastore, president of original programming and production for National Geographic Channel.

"We are investing heavily in creative, entertaining projects that break the rules on how we report on the world and everything in it".

Other new National Geographic Channel projects include Lawless Oceans, a new 6-part documentary series scheduled for 2017 that will follow investigator Karsten von Hoesslin as he tries to solve the case of a murder at sea that was captured on video.

Jason Silva from Brain Games is the presenter of Origins, a new series that will look at how modern humanity took shape, with episodes focused on a single subject like fire, tools and transportation.

Chain of Command is a new 10-episode series in which National Geographic Channel will work with the Pentagon to look at what happens inside the American military in Afghanistan for a year.

Earth Live! is an event programming strand that will include showing wildlife activity from 7 continents.

Deep Freeze is a new documentary series that will look at the life-threatening working conditions for scientists in Antarctica studying the effects of climate change.

Parched is a new 4-episode series look at the world's water crisis.

Mars is a 6-episode series that is both scripted and unscripted and will be shown simultaneously on the National Geographic Channel. Mars tells the story of how man will eventually colonise Mars in 2032 as part of the first manned space mission to the red planet and will be broadcast at the end of this year.

Nat Geo Wild (DStv 182) is also getting three new unscripted series.

Animal ER follows animal rehabilitation in a Texas veterinary hospital.

Project Puppy will follow 6 families as they raise a puppy.

Pet Talk will be a new prime time talk show presented by two veterinarians, a wildlife expert and a field reporter.