Winter TCA 2024: ‘Constellation’ Creators And Cast Tease Mystery Within A Grounded Sci-Fi Tale

AppleTV+’s upcoming dramatic series, Constellation, is a genre-mixing tale of Jo Ericsson (Noomi Rapace), an astronaut who returns to Earth after a horrific accident aboard the International Space Station to find her life and family are not quite what she remembers. And as she desperately tries to reconnect with her daughter, she must also confront the suspicion that the person who looks, sounds, and presents as her child may not be her child.

While speaking at the winter Television Critics Association press tour, creator and writer Peter Harness said the seed of the idea sprang from a question about real astronauts who feel inexorably changed after spending time in space. “It has a huge effect on astronauts,” he explained. While some return with a profound sense of unity about the world and its people, others come back with unshakable feelings of sadness and insignificance, something William Shatner learned is called the “Overview Effect” after his brief moments outside the atmosphere in 2022.

Harness continued: “And there were these odd, spooky stories about what they see in space. That almost leads naturally into a conspiracy show.” But for him, the core of the story is something relatable, “a parent trying to reach a child and a child trying to relate to a parent.”

For Rapace, that mix of an everyday conflict against the backdrop of a space thriller her drew her to the show. “Jo’s journey as a mother and as a trained astronaut – to be practical and stay calm – the conflict between her mind and her heart is like an eternal war,” she explained. “There’s a lot of big explosions [in shows like this], but I could relate to this as a mother. Her being trapped in this horrible situation where she looks at this child and thinks ‘this is not my baby’ – the desperation to find her daughter made this so compelling.”

James D’Arcy, who plays Jo’s husband, Magnus Taylor, added that the “intimate family drama” is always paramount. “When you meet them, something seems wrong already, and then you turn the screw little by little. It’s a family in extremis,” he said.

The family drama is, of course, mixed with a sci-fi mystery all were reluctant to say too much about, but Jonathan Banks, who plays a pair of characters in the series, alluded to some of the stranger elements in relation to building his characters. “As soon as you approach the reality [of the situation], you get gobsmacked by things you would not consider reality.”

While that unreality remains for viewers to experience for themselves — indeed, Harness mentioned some will sense what it is from the jump while others may not see it for several episodes — the actors all agreed certain elements of what an astronaut goes through resonates with the actor’s life in very specific ways. “It’s this terrible feeling when you come back [from a job]: ‘Was I gone too long? Did I push too far?’ I started looking back at my choices. If we lose connection with the people we who are closest, what is it worth?” Rapace said. The sensation is equally palpable for those who go into orbit or spend months away pretending to be someone else.

Of course, Rapace and fellow actor Will Catlett — whom longtime Comicon readers will remember as Lala, one of the best characters on the Black Lightning television series — caught a glimpse of the way that tension works for astronauts as they trained to work in the “weightless” environment of a German soundstage. As series director Michelle MacLaren explained, every technique used to simulate a zero-g environment was employed.

The actors were often on wires, for example. “Noomi’s stomach muscles must be rock hard at this point,” MacLaren joked. Once strapped in, the performers were more less in the reality of the situation for long days of shooting. Also aiding the verisimilitude: a nearly accurate recreation of the International Space Station and its confining interiors. “That’s built for people to float in [not walk],” the director explained. Other techniques includes special chairs that simulated the floating quality of objects in space and even simple miming once Rapace and Catlett were use to simulating weightlessness

“We also had Scott Kelly, an astronaut who spent a year in space,” Catlett added. The space veteran assisted the actors in creating a more accurate sense of movement around the ISS set, which often amounted to “less is more” and using smaller movements to get around the station’s compartments. “Michelle will tell us ‘you’re not being graceful enough,'” the actor added. “You ended up feeling like you are really there.”

Thanks to Kelly, MacLaren learned something new about shooting simulated space scenes: “If you move too fast, you’re dead.” With that in mind, she sought a way to make the action kinetic while still respecting the rules of space.

The results are on display in a scene shown during the presentation (and glimpsed in the trailer above). It’s the first few moments of the accident. Jo is chatting with her daughter via a tablet while Catlett’s character, Paul Lancaster, prepares to conduct an experiment. It all goes awry and chaos ensues. And once you remember this is supposed to be happening in space, the viewer is left to wonder how they escape almost certain death.

And yet they survive, somehow, and the true mystery begins.

“It’s obvious telling a story like this, you can go all out to make it weird and wonderful,” Harness said. “But you buy the privilege to do that by making it real and grounded.”

“The core of the onion is so relatable,” Rapace added.

“We know these things are happening for a reason,” Harness continued. “There are threads dangling at the end, but I wanted to get the elements introduced and make sure they slot into place.” Although it is unclear if Constellation will return, Harness said there is more to tell with these characters. “They’ve only just landed back on Earth and life is long,” he said.

Constellation debuts its first three episodes February 21st on AppleTV+. Subsequent episodes will be released weekly.