The Astronaut Wives Club

It’s a character study first and foremost, with a sure-handed sense of time and place.

The Astronauts Wives Club orbits thisclose to camp--yet never plunges into a black hole of idiocy.

For all that it strives at times to push a big theme, it remains best taken as colorful light entertainment. There are some nice performances and moments (especially among the Carpenters and the Shepards and the Coopers), increasingly as the show goes on, when the marriages seem complicatedly real.

There’s a lack of early hooks, even in moments that stood out in Lily Koppel’s source biography.... That’s too bad, since whenever The Astronaut Wives Club does manage to bring its veteran cast, summer-pastel aesthetics, and its historical context together, there are glimpses of a very interesting show.

The wives never feel like fully drawn people. Instead, they feel like takeoffs on what the press latched onto about them in the first place.

Unfortunately, the result is surprisingly grounded and muted, leaving its likelihood of finding an audience rather up in the air.

It is remarkably personality-less, largely because its creators make the fatal mistake of trying to focus on a dozen characters in a 44-minute network format.... The period detail feels forced and often fake, like a “Mad Men” costume party. Or, worse, a “Pan Am” one.