History Series / FromTheEarthToTheMoon

** In we have cleared the tower Wally's retort of "you'd be surprised how quickly time goes up there" when Deke tries to defend the amount of experiments in Apollo 7 comes across as this given that Deke was grounded before he could go into space himself and can't directly relate. Really hits home with Deke's hurt and furious face just afterwards.

** In we have cleared the tower Wally's retort of "you'd be surprised how quickly time goes up there" when Deke tries to defend the amount of experiments in Apollo 7 comes across as this given that Deke was grounded before he could go into space himself and can't directly relate. Really hits home with Deke's sad and furious face just afterwards.

* KickTheDog: Reporter Brett Howard ambushing Ma and Pa Swigert with questions when they're just off the plane in the middle of what for them is basically a family emergency.

* {{Expy}}: "Emmett Seaborn" is quite obviously supposed to be Creator/WalterCronkite, providing commentary and exposition in situations where using actual archival news footage wouldn't have been practical.

** "Can We Do This?" has a sad scene where Elliot See visits a school class who had no idea who he was in comparison to the Mercury astronauts. Their teacher says not to worry, as they'll all be glued to the screen when he makes his own spaceflight. The real See would be tragically killed in an accident prior to his intended command of Gemini 9.

* DramaticIrony:
** Well, the entire series is if you've read up on America's [[UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace space exploration history]], but here are a couple prime examples:

** Chevrolet was more than happy to provide astronauts with Corvettes at dealer cost, knowing that the public would be eager to drive the same cars that astronauts going to the moon did. Pete Conrad arranged it so that the Apollo 12 crew had matching gold Corvettes with their names and titles emblazoned on the doors.

** A particularly heartbreaking case is noted about Apollo 1: Gus Grissom's Mercury flight had suffered a mishap where his hatch blew open early, resulting in the module being lost and Grissom nearly drowning. He was later cleared of fault and a more secure hatch was developed... which then trapped Grissom and the others inside the burning Apollo 1. The engineer responsible said that if he hadn't proved Grissom right, the crew of Apollo 1 might be alive and well--and that he never did like irony much.

* InterserviceRivalry: Jim Lovell accidentally inflates his life vest during Apollo 8. Frank Borman (an Air Force pilot and West Point graduate) rolls his eyes and scoffs, "Navy man." [[note]]In an episode of ''Series/{{Nova]}'' done for the mission's 50th anniversary, the real Borman opined that nobody who graduated from West Point would accidentally wipe the computer as Annapolis man Lovell did.[[/note]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}''. In fact, many cast members from the film returned, often in different roles, to star in one or more episodes.

* Part 1: ''Can We Do This?'' starts with the news of the Soviets putting the first man into space, leading Kennedy to challenge NASA (and the US government broadly) to commit to the goal of putting a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. Covers broadly the Mercury and Gemini missions that served as preparation for the Apollo missions.

* MeasuringTheMarigolds: Played with in the final episode. Gene Cernan relates how he kept marveling at the Earth in the black lunar sky while Jack Schmidt wouldn't look up from his surface sampling. But Schmidt, being a professional geologist, says that the things he was looking at on the ground were just as marvelous because he could perceive the whole history of the moon in them.
--> '''Schmidt''': You've seen one Earth, you've seen them all.

* Part 3: ''We Have Cleared the Tower'' depicts the flight of the first manned Apollo flight, from the point of view of a documentary film crew making a movie about it.
* Part 4: ''1968''. The flight of Apollo 8 the first to leave Earth orbit, and to circle the moon, set against the backdrop of civil unrest in the US, and the world.

* Part 6: ''Mare Tranquilitatis''. The flight of Apollo 11, leading to man's first steps on the moon.
* Part 7: ''That's All There Is''. The flight of Apollo 12.

* Part 2: ''Apollo One'' depicts the tragic Apollo I fire, and the investigation that followed it, that nearly ended the project altogether.

* Part 4: ''1968''. The flight of Apollo VIII, the first to leave Earth orbit, and to circle the moon, set against the backdrop of civil unrest in the US, and the world.
* Part 5: ''Spider'' depicts the development of the Lunar Module, and its test flights with Apollo IX and X.
* Part 6: ''Mare Tranquilitatis''. The flight of Apollo XI, leading to man's first steps on the moon.
* Part 7: ''That's All There Is''. The flight of Apollo XII.
* Part 8: ''We Interrupt This Program''. The Apollo XIII accident. Since Creator/TomHanks [[{{Film/Apollo13}} had already appeared in a film about the astronauts' and ground crew side of the story]], this episode concentrated on the news media coverage of the flight.
* Part 9: ''For Miles and Miles''. Follows Alan Shepard, from being grounded after his first 15 minute Mercury flight because of an inner ear problem that gave him vertigo, to his return to flight status, and the flight of Apollo XIV.
* Part 10: ''Galileo Was Right''. The training of the astronauts to work as geologists, and the flight of Apollo XV.
* Part 11: ''The Original Wives Club'' follows the Apollo XVI mission, from the perspective of the lives of some of the astronauts' wives, and the troubles they have.
* Part 12: ''Le Voyage Dans La Lune''. Tom Hanks stars as the assistant to film maker Creator/GeorgesMelies, as he makes [[Film/ATripToTheMoon his revolutionary 1902 film]], set against the flight of Apollo XVII, the final Apollo mission. Some of the actors also portray their characters, 30 years after the Apollo flights, reflecting back on the program and what it accomplished. (Since Hanks has a prominent role in this episode, he does not introduce it - Blythe Danner fills in.)

* TripToTheMoonPlot: The rare BasedOnATrueStory variant. The story retells how humanity actually conquered the Moon.

* TripToTheMoonStory: The rare BasedOnATrueStory variant.

Based on the book ''A Man on the Moon'' by Andrew Chaikin, it was co-produced by Creator/RonHoward, Brian Grazer, Creator/TomHanks, and Michael Bostick (Hanks also introduces all but one episode). The show stays more true to actual events than most {{docudrama}} or historical fiction, making it more or less a documentary composed of re-enactments.

* BreatherEpisode: Apollo 12 did not have the drama of either Apollo 11 or Apollo 13, and it was flown by three men who decidedly were ''not'' of the serious mold.

* Part 1: ''Can We Do This?'' depicts the original inception of the Apollo project, and the early Mercury and Gemini flights.
* Part 2: ''Apollo 1'' depicts the tragic Apollo 1 fire, and the investigation that followed it.

* Part 4: ''1968''. The flight of Apollo 8, the first to leave Earth orbit, and to circle the moon, set against the backdrop of civil unrest in the US, and the world.
* Part 5: ''Spider'' depicts the development of the Lunar Module, and its test flights with Apollo 9 and 10.
* Part 6: ''Mare Tranquilitatis''. The flight of Apollo 11, and man's first steps on the moon.
* Part 7: ''That's All There Is''. The flight of Apollo 12.
* Part 8: ''We Interrupt This Program''. Apollo 13. Since Creator/TomHanks [[{{Film/Apollo13}} had already done the astronauts' and ground crew side of this story]], this episode concentrated on the news media coverage of the flight.
* Part 9: ''For Miles and Miles''. Follows Alan Shepard, from being grounded after his first 15 minute Mercury flight because of an inner ear problem that gave him vertigo, to his return to flight status, and the flight of Apollo 14.
* Part 10: ''Galileo Was Right''. The training of the astronauts to work as geologists, and the flight of Apollo 15.
* Part 11: ''The Original Wives Club'' follows the lives of some of the astronauts' wives, and the troubles they have. Apollo 16.
* Part 12: ''Le Voyage Dans La Lune''. Tom Hanks stars as the assistant to film maker Creator/GeorgesMelies, as he makes his revolutionary 1902 film, set against the flight of Apollo 17. Some of the actors also portray their characters, 30 years after the Apollo flights, reflecting back on the program and what it accomplished. (This is the only episode not to be introduced by Hanks; Blythe Danner fills in.)

* Part 11: ''The Original Wives Club'' follows the lives of some of the astronauts' wives, and the troubles they have. Apollo 16

* AnachronicOrder: Although each episode occurs in a linear order in terms of which mission it highlights, several ("Spider", "For Miles and Miles" and "The Original Wives Club" in particular) begin their narratives quite a bit before the events of earlier episodes.

-->'''Deke:''' [wryly] [[DrowningMySorrows I'm drunk.]]

** When a Grumman engineer discovers he made a miscalculation that requires rebuilding the entire leg assembly of the LM, Tom Kelley doesn't fire him. He'd rather his people ''not'' be afraid of reporting errors when it comes to building a spacecraft.

** Wally Schirra was somewhat similar to Conrad. As Nurse Dee O'Hara mentions in "We Have Cleared The Tower," his co-workers nicknamed him Jolly Wally because he loved practical jokes.

* CompanionCube: Tom Kelley, having invested half a decade of his life into creating the [=LM=], watches it being shipped off with the air of a father watching his child leave for college. The astronauts even hang back to let him have some privacy in the moment.

** Al Shepard in "For Miles and Miles" explaining NASA's bumping him and his crew from Apollo 13, along the lines of "Imagine if they put me in command on 13 and something went wrong." There was some concern at NASA that the Apollo 14 crew was made up entirely of rookies. (Many didn't think that Shepard's previous 15 minute Mercury flight qualified him as an experienced commander.)

* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Tom Kelly's staff. During a meeting, he addresses two of the engineers as "John" and "the other John."

* ToAbsentFriends: C.C. Williams was assigned to the Apollo 12 crew, but he died in a plane crash before the mission. Pete Conrad and Alan Bean leave his gold pilots' wings on the lunar surface and Conrad quietly says, "We made it, C.C."

-->'''Scott:''' A lens, ''and'' a hammer! ''(big grin)''

* StunnedSilence: Pete Conrad shows up unexpectedly in Alan Bean's office and casually asks if he'd like to join the Apollo 12 crew and fly to the Moon. Bean's reaction is pure stunned amazement.

* KickedUpstairs: "Apollo 1" has Joe Shea, director of the Apollo Space Program, being "promoted" to Washington to assist in making policy in the wake of the Apollo 1 fire, but it's really a move to keep him out of the way of the congressional investigation into the accident. Once he's in his new job he realizes he has no responsibilities there, and eventually moves on to the private sector.

* TheScapegoat: Lee Atwood allows North American to take the majority of the blame for the Apollo 1 fire in order to save NASA, as it's too late for them to change contractors. He also fires Stormy from the Space and Information Systems Division.

** Al Shepard in "For Miles and Miles" explaining NASA's bumping him and his crew from Apollo 13, along the lines of "Imagine if they put me in command on 13 and something went wrong."

* InterserviceRivalry: Jim Lovell accidentally inflates his life vest during Apollo 8. Frank Borman (an Air Force pilot) rolls his eyes and scoffs, "Navy man." [[note]]In an episode of ''Series/{{Nova]}'' done for the mission's 50th anniversary, the real Borman opined that nobody who graduated from the Air Force Academy would accidentally wipe the computer as Lovell did.[[/note]]