'Away' Trailer: Hilary Swank Struggles With Heading 20 Million Miles Away From Her Family

Being an astronaut isn't easy, and that job is made all the more difficult when there are missions taking these space explorers away from their family for extended periods of time. In Netflix's new drama series Away, a mission to Mars will take an international group of astronauts away from their families for three years. For Emma Green (Hilary Swank), it might just be too much to handle as she struggles with leaving behind her family and staying strong as the commander of the mission.

The trailer hypes up the fact that the series comes from "the visionary who brought you Friday Night Lights and Parenthood," which feels like it's laying on the family drama a little thick. I'm not sure "visionary" is how I would describe the talent behind those network TV dramas, but this is meant to appeal to fans of those shows who otherwise don't care how nonchalantly that term is thrown around. But I digress.

While we've seen plenty of space exploration movies where missions go awry, not many of them have put such an emphasis on the stress it puts on family. Both Armageddon and Deep Impact touched on it for climactic drama, but the difficulty of leaving behind family for such a long period of time has never been explored so extensively before. Having said that, the trailer does make the proceedings feel a little melodramatic. How many shots of those baby booties do we need?

The series also stars Josh Charles (The Good Wife), and Talitha Bateman (Annabelle: Creation), along with Ato Essandoh, Mark Ivanir, Ray Panthaki, Monique Curnen, and Vivian Wu.

Away is created by Andrew Hinderaker (Penny Dreadful), executive produced by Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes, Cloverfield), and loosely based on Chris Jones' Esquire article of the same name. Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, Roswell), Michelle Lee (Rise, The Path), Adam Kassan (Black Mass, End of Watch), and Jeni Mulein are also serving as executive producers. Jessica Goldberg (The Path) will be the series' showrunner and writer, and she's also executive producing with Ed Zwick (Nashville, The Last Samurai), who will direct the first episode.

Here's the official synopsis:

Created by Andrew Hinderaker, the Netflix series AWAY is a thrilling, emotional drama on an epic scale that celebrates the incredible advancements humans can achieve and the personal sacrifices they must make along the way.  As American astronaut Emma Green (Hilary Swank) prepares to lead an international crew on the first mission to Mars, she must reconcile her decision to leave behind her husband (Josh Charles) and teenage daughter (Talitha Bateman) when they need her the most. As the crew's journey into space intensifies, their personal dynamics and the effects of being away from their loved ones back on Earth become increasingly complex. AWAY shows that sometimes to reach for the stars, we must leave home behind.

Away arrives on Netflix on September 4, 2020.