http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/TV_Shows/R/Race_To_Mars/2007/09/21/4514241-sun.html
'Race To Mars' series realistic By BILL HARRIS - Sun Media Michael Riley is relieved there are no Martians in Race to Mars. "There are no drooling aliens to be thwarted running around the ship," said Riley, the veteran Canadian actor who stars in Race to Mars, a new and expensive dramatic mini-series that debuts Sunday on Discovery. "There is no Monolith on the surface when we land. There are no apes, no Statue of Liberty. And I like that. It's a straight-ahead account of man meets technology." Indeed, Race to Mars arguably is the biggest endeavour in the history of Discovery. A product of Montreal-based Galafilm Inc., Race to Mars will air in a pair of two-hour segments, this coming Sunday and the following Sunday. Race to Mars is set in the year 2030, when an American-led expedition to Mars by six international astronauts finds itself in a race to the red planet with the Chinese. It doesn't seem so long ago that space exploration was all about the U.S. versus the Soviet Union, but hey, times change. "I vividly remember being glued to my grandmother's television set watching Neil Armstrong take those momentous first steps on the moon," said Riley, 45. "I think that probably kindled a lot of young imaginations. It definitely did mine. I always was into astronomy and physics. I was into the Cosmos stuff and was a fan of Carl Sagan. So that definitely has been a part of my life, for sure. "The whole idea about this manned Mars mission is very planned and has all these incremental steps. It seems that if the political will is there, we're going to be watching this thing for real on our plasma TVs a few years down the line." Speak of the devil, a six-hour companion documentary series, Mars Rising, will premiere on Discovery on Oct. 7, a week after Race to Mars concludes. Narrated by William Shatner, Mars Rising will explain the science behind such a complex and perilous undertaking as a manned mission to Mars. Combined, Race to Mars and Mars Rising had a budget of more than $20 million. "We had umpteen advisers around for the research period - I'm kind of a fanatic for that anyway and these guys topped me," said Riley, who plays Commander Rick Erwin. "They were very adamant about making this as authentic as possible. "We got to meet Marc Garneau (Canada's first man in space) and I got to meet Jerry Linenger (retired NASA astronaut), so it was a nice opportunity for us to steep ourselves in that world." Riley ultimately sees Race to Mars as something of an ironic title. "The great irony is, it can't be a race," Riley said. "It can't be like the Apollo program. "Although countries like China and Russia are doing their own thing and coming up with their own designs, in the end, come 2030, it's such a huge undertaking both financially and technologically, there's no way one country can soldier it. There's something kind of fitting and poetic about that. It does have to be a global effort. "It's mankind making this great leap. It's not, 'Can Russia get there before America?' Especially in talking to a lot of the astronauts I got to meet, that very much is where their heart is." Besides Riley, Race to Mars also stars Pascale Bussieres, Frank Schorpion, Lothaire Bluteau, Claudia Ferri and Kevan Ohtsji. And starring as the corny, goofy Martians ... nobody.
