For years I've been a fan of the space program. For all its flaws NASA has an amazing record of achievement. As such I have a pretty solid understanding of the history of the space program and have seen many great and not so great films on the subject.

As a Netflix viewer I've had the HBO series From Earth to the Moon on the list for some time now. However with the general notion that there wouldn't be much new in the story I kept pushing it down the stack. Recently the first DVD arrived and it is so far from a stale retelling of the same fascinating story.

One of the big things the series did well is it abandoned the notion that the space story needs to be told chronologically. Following Part 4 - 1968 which shows the important impact of the Apollo program on bringing some light to a dark time, the next episode Part 5 - Spider starts in 1962 with the development of the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) and follows the process through 1969. This form of storytelling makes it possible to focus on the stories of the Apollo program.