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- Netflix
- Sep 16, 2020
- Netflix
- Sep 16, 2020
Summary The four-part documentary series takes a look back at the events that led to the Challenger explosion that killed everyone onboard on January 28, 1986.
- Netflix
- Sep 16, 2020
- Netflix
- Sep 16, 2020
Challenger: The Final Flight
Season 1
Season Premiere: Sep 16, 2020
76
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
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Summary The four-part documentary series takes a look back at the events that led to the Challenger explosion that killed everyone onboard on January 28, 1986.
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
76
91% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
9% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 11 Critic Reviews
76
91% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
9% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Challenger: The Final Flight is an immersive and nearly flawless four-part docuseries that had me hooked from the get-go. And here’s the amazing part — there’s almost no mystery to it.
Where the series shines is in the little details, especially when it discussed the lives of the other six crew members who died along with McAuliffe.
There has always been something vaguely ghoulish about subsequent coverage of the Challenger disaster, considering that we all know how the story ends. But Challenger: The Final Flight navigates a delicate path -- celebrating the lives of those lost in 1986, and the hubris, politics and pressure to deliver that became the anatomy of a failure.
Challenger: The Final Flight provides an impressive amount of context to the disaster, the lives it claimed and the survivors left behind to pick up the pieces. It's dark and sad and infuriating, but I appreciated its lack of wallowing or frame-by-frame fetishizing.
The series does take a deep dive into the story, providing no small amount of drama and some eye-opening details. ... To absolutely appalling effect, however, the filmmakers bring before their camera the very people who gave the green light to a launch that evidently should not have taken place, men who take “blame” but “feel no guilt.” ... To their credit, producer-directors Steven Leckart and Daniel Junge (J.J. Abrams is an executive producer) devote considerable time to all the lost astronauts, interview their survivors where possible, provide their personal stories and extol their virtues.
“Challenger,” then, moves this story from a tragedy into an outrage. But it does an elegant job, too, of conveying precisely why NASA felt it needed the boost of a popular and quick mission, and what it might have gained. ... The series, then, can be somewhat scattered, as if it doesn’t want to solely be seen as exposé. Its excavation of the social climate leading up to the fated final Challenger launch is intertwined with its claims of a deeply flawed launch, but the first element there is more interesting, too.
There are few revelations that justify the four-hour running time. ... The fourth hour is the strongest, showing how members of the investigation commission used “bureaucratic jujitsu” to thwart efforts to protect NASA’s image.
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