THE RIGHT STUFF
Disney+, 3:00 a.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE: The story of the space race, and the United States’ selection, training and employment of our country’s first astronauts, is an exciting and engrossing one. It’s been told, brilliantly, twice – first in the movies in the 1983 movie The Right Stuff, based on the nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe, and then on TV in the equally excellent HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon in 1998. It’s been told somewhat less impressively, and on an obviously smaller scale and budget, by ABC’s The Astronaut Wives Club in 2015 – and, starting today, by this new The Right Stuff miniseries, presented by Disney+ and starring Patrick J. Adams as John Glenn, Jake McDorman as Alan Shepard, and Colin O’Donoghue as Gordon Cooper. If you’ve seen the original movie adaptation of The Right Stuff, and watched the HBO series from Tom Hanks and company, then by all means, dive into this new miniseries. Otherwise, start there first.