I have not watched the movie (I know, I know) therefore I'm basing this solely on the show: I thought it was good, short of being great. However, this is neither the actors' fault which I mostly found great, nor the director's pace, which suited me just fine (I like slow, getting into the character's lives, shows, ok?). Some of the things that irked me go with the characters and the time period (the stupid race with Russia to be the first, zomggg), the constant cheating, the demeaning position of women.... Those were hard to swallow but the acting was solid (esp Patrick J. Adams and Jake McDorman, they were fantastic in their part) and made up for quite a lot of it. I can't tell you to go watch the movie instead but if you're like me and you haven't seen the movie and you like space stuff, this is definitely much better than Away. Don't thank me on that.