They also carry another cargo, particular to the series: guilt, recrimination and depression, built up through eight episodes of stylish but tedious and formulaic family drama. They go into space weighed down with the trite stuff. “The First,” starring Sean Penn and making its premiere Friday on Hulu, is the second series from the screenwriter and playwright Beau Willimon, who also created “House of Cards” for Netflix. He seems to be trying to take the historical-epic framework and triumphal spirit of films like “Apollo 13” and “The Right Stuff” and imbue it with the mystical, grandiloquent artiness of a Stanley Kubrick or a Terrence Malick. As in “House of Cards” (which begins its final season on Netflix on Nov. 2), Mr. Willimon’s instincts here are primarily melodramatic.

Source: New York Times September 13, 2018 13:52 UTC