The series does a lot to place you in its time period of the late ‘70s—the strikes, the space obsession, the whole world halting when a blackout hits. Director Bharat Nalluri can say it’s not just a period piece as their collective worries still look a lot like ours today, but the time setting seems to be the most interesting aspect of this whole ordeal. The web of families we follow are no Dunphys and Pritchetts, but the drama doesn’t jump and the dialogue doesn’t bite at all. It just doesn’t ever come together into a dynamic engine of stories, just mere suggestions of tension 40 minutes at a time.