I like the show. It had issues. The biggest one being that it just went too fast (going from the start of Mercury to the Moon Landing in 10 episodes really doesn’t give a lot of stuff a chance to sink in). But any fan of The Right Stuff knows the wives went through a lot, and have an interesting story in their own right.
I would be surprised if ABC didn’t depict the wives sleeping around or something
Anyone who didn’t like “The Wives Club” is a big HACK!
Yes indeed I watch the Right stuff a couple times a year it was an amazing time to grow up during it TV in the classroom of launches and recovery Yes the wives were a big part of it they too sacrificed and had to worry big time and to think today we have no manned capability.... zero we should have been to Mars by now
Went too fast and there were too many characters to cover so that it was hard to follow. Given a 10-episode series which was about 37 or so minutes of show each, so you were lucky to get 15-20 minutes of character development for each wife, excluding the interaction with the husbands (and not even counting the post-Mercury 7 wives, of whom probably got only 5 minutes or less each and some not even that). I was, like you, familiar with the material because of “The Right Stuff.”
It also was ridiculous in that for a decade-long arc, the wives looked as fresh (if not younger due to the more modern styles as it progressed) at the end when a decade should’ve worn them down (and the marriages that ended in divorce). You’d need a soap-opera saga to do it all justice.
I liked the show too. Haven’t watched the last episode yet. The Right Stuff was an awesome movie too. I didn’t read the book that the series was based on, but the program explored things I hadn’t been aware of. I was in 8th grade when Alan Shephard went up. I was in French class, and our teacher let us listen to the broadcast on the radio. I can still remember her having tears in her eyes. Things were so much different then, and I’m glad I was alive at that time to experience the America that was.