Darren Aronofsky’s One Strange Rock takes a look from space to truly discover our Earth

“One Strange Rock,” a new National Geographic TV series that explores the wonders of planet Earth from a cosmic perspective, will be hosted by none other than award-winning actor Will Smith.

PASADENA – JAN. 13: (L-R Back Row) Astronauts Nicole Stott, Jeff Hoffman, Leland Melvin, Mike Massimino, Peggy Whitson, Jerry Linenger, (L-R Front Row) astronaut Chris Hadfield, Showrunner Arif Nurmohamed, Executive Producers Jane Root, Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel, and astronaut Mae Jamison during the “ONE STRANGE ROCK” panel at the National Geographic portion of the 2018 Winter TCA Press Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on Jan. 13, 2018, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Frank Micelotta/National Geographic/PictureGroup)

National Geographic has set premiere dates for many of their upcoming shows for both Nat Geo and Nat Geo Wild. I had the opportunity to attend the panel at TCA and listen to the producers and astronauts on the upcoming ten-part show One Strange Rock, hosted by Will Smith.

From award-winning film maker Darren Aronofsky, “One Strange Rock” investigates one of the most mysterious places in the world–full of alien-like landscapes, liquid rocks and crystal caves—and we’re walking on it.

“What was exciting about this was taking astronomy, anthropology, biology, chemistry, physics, and trying to sort of blend them together to talk about this home that we’re all living on,” Aronofsky said.

Executive producer Jane Root, from the production company Nutopia, sent photographers and camera crews all around the world to capture stunning shots and visuals. The show will delve into the intricacies of planet earth and its surroundings.

“First, you have to fall in love with a planet, then you can save it. I think that sense of love and passion at its core, which leads you to save it. That’s the heart of this show,” Root said.

The first episode features the experience of eight astronauts, with 1,000 days in space between them. Chris Hadfield shares the story about his first space walk, where his suit experienced contamination. To decontaminate his suit, Hadfield flushed it out by releasing his oxygen into space, “listening to [his] tiny little supply of oxygen hiss out and try to repressurize the entire universe.”

“It’s really not so much what happens, but how is it you change yourself to be able to react to it,” Hadfield said. “We reached a challenge I thought I would never face and I overcame it. [The show] takes the weirdness of each of our random human experiences and tries to find a way to share them where everybody else can also get a feel for.”

Aronofsky worked closely with each of the astronauts and has created a series that will hopefully defy expectations and allow the audience to better know the strange rock on which we live.

“What was interesting for me in this journey was that all of these amazing people, they all had a very, very similar experience and I think when you’re here on this strange rock, it’s hard to look outside it,” Aronofsky said about NASA’s astronauts. “One of the great ideas during the research was when we went to the moon we actually discovered the Earth for the first time.”

One Strange Rock panelists.
(National Geographic/Stewart Volland)

Journalist Jeremy Hsiao attended 2018 Winter TCA Press Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on Jan. 13, 2018, in Pasadena, California.