If you are looking for elegant and classy science fiction, then right now, Apple is the streamer to beat. Joining the likes of For All Mankind, Silo and Severance is Constellation, a predictably elegant and classy exploration of what might happen when an astronaut goes into space and doesn’t come back the same. It is part space horror, part psychological thriller, and at times, it looks stunning. However, a word of caution. It is uneven and almost stubbornly slow, and it takes all three of the episodes debuting this week to even begin to start wrangling its plot into shape.
It is a shame it is so dogged in its lack of consistency, because there is much to recommend. There are several strands to follow, across different timelines and with different characters played by the same actors, but it starts out as horror, ripped straight from the bleak midwinter. Noomi Rapace is excellent as Jo Ericsson, a Swedish astronaut who has recently returned to Earth, and who appears to have taken her daughter, Alice, away to a sinister cabin in the snow. Jo is agitated and confused, and keeps playing a recording of something, presumably a very bad something, that happened in space, much to Alice’s distress. It is all the more creepy for giving us no idea about what is supposed to be happening.
