Last Days of the Space Age: First look, Disney+ premiere date revealed
Disney has finally dated its Australian drama Last Day of the Space Age, which will premiere on October 2. It started filming two years ago in Western Australia and NSW, so it’s been a long wait.
Set in 1979, it follows three families in a Perth coastal community at a time when their personal lives (marriages, friendships, the usual stuff) are at a crossroads.
To amplify the stakes, the turmoil within their lives is set against the backdrop of two big events that converge on Perth at the same time — the Miss Universe competition and the crash of US space station Skylab. On top of that, there’s a power strike.
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The series is led by local talent including Jesse Spencer, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Mailman and Thomas Weatherall while Scottish actor Iain Glen (Game of Thrones) adds an international flavour to the proceedings.
The Last Days of the Space Age is the first Australian production former Neighbours star Spencer has done in almost two decades. Except for a cameo in the Neighbours finale-not-finale, Spencer has worked primarily in the US since 2004 on procedurals including House and Chicago Fire.
Mitchell was most recently seen in Robert Connolly’s film Blueback alongside Mia Wasikowska and Erik Thompson.
The cast is rounded out by Linh Dan Pham, Ines English, George Mason, Vico Thai and Jacek Koman.
While the characters are fictional, the Skylab crash and the Miss Universe pageant are real.
Skylab was a space station the Americans launched in 1973, with the intent of gathering information about the universe. When its crew left Skylab in 1974, it was expected another crew would take over, but it wasn’t to be. It spent six years in orbit and then veered off-course.
As it started to descend in mid-1979, its trajectory back towards the Earth’s atmosphere gained a lot of attention. At the time, it wasn’t clear when or where it would crash land.
While no one wanted to be in the path of falling space debris (a NASA official told the US Congress there was a one in 152 chance of it injuring someone), it also became something of an international guessing game.
Reportedly, a newspaper in California at the time even offered cash prizes for finding pieces of the downed spacecraft, which sparked a frenzy.
The plan was it would crash over a patch of ocean 1300km south of Cape Town. Instead, it burst apart over the Indian Ocean and headed for WA. In the early hours of July 12, 1979, Skylab landed in pieces over a stretch between Esperance and Rawlinna.
A week later on July 20, the Miss Universe competition was held at the Perth Entertainment Centre where Miss Universe Venezuela Maritza Sayalero would take home the crown.
The Last Days of the Space Age was created by David Chidlow while its writing team includes Alice Addison, Dot West, Jeremy Nguyen and Alan Nguyen.
The eight-episode series was directed by prominent filmmakers Bharat Nalluri (Boy Swallows Universe, Shantaram), Rachel Ward (Beautiful Kate) and Kriv Stenders (Red Dog).
