Mad Men Writers Developing Series About 1960s Space Program

By Nick Venable | Updated

This article is more than 2 years old

MoonDo you guys remember that TV series The Cape back in 1996, the one that featured Corbin Bernsen as an Air Force Colonel/astronaut stationed at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida? Not wonderful and not terrible, the show only lasted one season and is one of the last times that astronauts got any play on TV. This could change, however, if there is anything good and just in this world.

Writers from AMC’s Mad Men — the number and names of the writers are unspecified — are working on a series tentatively titled Cocoa Beach, which would center around journalists covering the booming space program in the 1960s. As exciting as that is, Cocoa Beach is a terrible name for a show, and evokes images of scantily clad women slapping each other. Now if those women were wearing space helmets

The project is being championed by Space Coast Film Commissioner Bonnie King, who says that this is one of several projects she is trying to bring to the area for filming. She’s also working to secure a large soundstage in the area to help lure in productions. Cocoa Beach‘s production team is applying for incentives from the state as well.

Even Cocoa Beach  Mayor Dave Netterstrom is excited. “Hopefully, it happens,” he says. “It would be super-cool. We’re trying to positively develop our brand and our image. We want to let people know we’re a cool place to visit and a cool place to live.”

Gotta give props to a grown man who uses the word “cool” three times in one pull-quote. And I’m not sure how a show set in the 1960s is supposed to reflect how the area looks now, but it probably will have a lot of location-based filming to fluff things up.

It will inevitably be about NASA like Mad Men is about advertising, but perhaps it will remind people about the wonders of space travel, instead of focusing on smoking and infidelity. I’d take Don Draper as an astronaut though, all things told.