{"id":11926,"date":"2018-11-28T10:11:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T15:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/ron-howard-nat-geos-courteney-monroe-talk-mars\/"},"modified":"2018-12-13T09:37:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T14:37:25","slug":"ron-howard-nat-geos-courteney-monroe-talk-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/ron-howard-nat-geos-courteney-monroe-talk-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Howard & Courteney Monroe Talk MARS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The second season of\u00a0<\/em>MARS premiered on November 12 on National Geographic, with a simulcast on Nat Geo Mundo, and continues the adventure presented in the first season, which chronicled the first attempt to colonize the Red Planet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Once again MARS<\/em> features its innovative blend of scripted drama, special effects and documentary footage, including interviews with experts, leading scientists and NASA astronauts. While the first season focused on the journey of the International Mars Science Foundation (IMSF) to Mars, set in 2033 and 2037, and the perils and challenges of surviving, the second season jumps to 2042. The IMSF has established a colony, Olympus Town, but their members are not the only ones living there; so are scientists and miners from the for-profit corporation Lukrum Industries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe central storyline this season is really about the tension between exploration and exploitation,\u201d explained Courteney Monroe, the CEO of National Geographic Global Networks, at a presentation for the press in Manhattan. \u201cIt posits the question, Are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes on Mars as we have here on Earth? And to \"***Image***\"explore this, we travel to the Arctic in our documentary sequences, where the battle between preservation and private industry is playing out in real time today.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Monroe points out, the narrative in season two is supported by science. The \u201cBig Thinkers\u201d\u2014as Nat Geo calls them\u2014interviewed in season two include Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX; the theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku; former NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan; and bestselling author of The Martian<\/em>, Andy Weir.<\/p>\n

Part of the creative team, once again, is Ron Howard, who discussed how the idea of combining scripted drama and documentary sequences came about for season one. \u201cJustin Wilkes, of RadicalMedia, brought us this idea of doing a documentary about all the work that is going into going to Mars. We began to explore that; that was interesting; Nat Geo was curious about that. Then we started talking about understanding the adventure. Brian Grazer and I have always been intent on trying to take people on these experiences as much as possible, personalize them, create suspense through them and through that connection that you can have through the adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard went on to explain that they couldn\u2019t do a documentary about going to Mars because that hadn\u2019t happened yet. However, through research and interviews with scientists and experts, Howard learned that there was a body of serious science and research into the human experience of going to Mars. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much work was actually going on\u2014not just theory, but real experimentation and interesting projects. So then the idea became, what if we do both? What if we did the doc about what\u2019s going on now, but we didn\u2019t just do little snippets and 20-second reenactments? What if we really tried to do a great science fiction show that was informed by this research?\u201d<\/p>\n

That was the genesis of season one, and Howard credits Nat Geo and Monroe for their willingness to take the risk on this type of project. \u201cThere is no such thing as innovation without experimentation, and with experimentation, of course, risk. Those words don\u2019t necessarily go in the same sentence with network executives. The kinds of risks that were involved in tackling this subject this way is something I\u2019ve never been around. And Courteney and Nat Geo understood it and also watched us go through some growing pains and a process of discovery to get to that point in season one where we had something we were very proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

For season two of MARS<\/em>, Howard, Grazer and Michael Rosenberg from Imagine Entertainment are executive producers, along with Wilkes for RadicalMedia as well as Jon Kamen and Tommy Turtle.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween all the research that we did for season one,\u201d explains Howard, \u201cand our deeper understanding of what the journey to Mars and the adventure was going to be like, and into the settlement phase, we were able to go into season two with a great deal more confidence. Justin Wilkes came back from season one. We added Dee Johnson who is a very experienced showrunner [Nashville<\/em>] and we bet more on the characters. We bet more on human nature\u2019s side of the story and still found great doc stories to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The human stories in the six episodes of season two include romances, pregnancy, epidemics, breakdowns, power outages, injuries and socializing, illustrating what Monroe said: \u201cThis season we have really upped the drama and the stakes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The second season of\u00a0MARS premiered on November 12 on National Geographic, with a simulcast on Nat Geo Mundo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":11927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,69],"tags":[101,1511,1009,3298],"class_list":["post-11926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-courteney-monroe","tag-mars","tag-national-geographic","tag-ron-howard","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nRon Howard & Courteney Monroe Talk MARS - TVREAL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/ron-howard-nat-geos-courteney-monroe-talk-mars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ron Howard & Courteney Monroe Talk MARS - 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