Boxing Clever: I couldn't look away from Challenger documentary but don’t watch The Haunting of Bly Manor

Reviews of The Haunting of Bly Manor and Challenger: The Final Flight, both available on Netflix

Challenger - The Final Flight. Picture: Netflix

I remember where I was at lunchtime on January 28,  1986. It was the Common Room in UCC, packed with students watching grainy footage on a 24" TV of the space shuttle Challenger exploding soon after launch. There was silence for about 10 minutes and then a murmur rose around the room as people started to make sick jokes about people dying on television.

I feel bad about it now, having watched Challenger: The Final Flight on Netflix. The 4-parter has been around for a few weeks but I didn’t feel the urge to try it out until my wife put it on the other night on spec. After that, I couldn’t look away. There is a bit of everything in the story. The headline is that the first non-astronaut sent into space was among the casualties, a teacher from New Hampshire called Christa McAuliffe, who was married with kids. She renewed public interest in the space shuttle programme (just as NASA planned), which meant there was lots of footage of her before the launch living the American dream at home and at work. This gave a real punch to the footage of her family watching her die from the viewing platform, along with the images of her pupils watching back in New Hampshire, the cameras lingering on their shocked faces for longer than was decent. (I’m no one to talk though, given the sick-joke carry-on back in Cork.)

Challenger - The Final Flight. The NASA ground team

The other aspect of the story was the investigation that followed.

The four episodes are smoothly paced, it feels more like a podcast than some recent documentaries where they feel the need to shock and tantalise you every 40 seconds, in case your mind wanders and you end up looking at a funny hedgehog video on Twitter. The fourth episode ends with Lawrence Mulloy, an old man now, saying that he felt he was to blame. There were more than just seven victims of that tragedy, 34 years ago.

The Haunting of Bly Manor with Oliver Jackson-Cohen as Peter Quint. Picture: Eike Schroter/Netflix

My wife  just finished watching The Haunting of Bly Manor on Netflix. She loved the original series, The Haunting of Hill House, because she likes watching creepy kids in a spooky house. I don’t like them, so I sit there reading articles about Manchester United on my phone.

Two things stand out about Bly Manor show. After about three episodes, my wife would mutter ‘why am I still watching this?’ every 15 minutes. I didn’t answer her because she doesn’t like being interrupted while watching TV. The second thing is that one of the kids is played by the voice of Peppa Pig. That’s not right. Don’t watch The Haunting of Bly Manor.