Rocket Instincts

Rocket Instincts is a popular TV show, first aired in 2191. Each episode is a standalone story. The show is mostly known for impressive action setpieces. The stories also tend to include a fair amount of comedic elements.
The program is often ridiculed for a lack of realism. Most prominent is the show's routine use of guns within spaceships, which is widely known to be a horrible idea in real life. More substantial criticism is often voiced by citizens of Alpha Centauri, who point out that it perpetuates many less than ideal ways of thinking from "the old world". Nonetheless, Rocket Instincts is watched as light entertainment by wide audiences across settled space.

Episode Synopses

Mars Mayhem A group of strangers is hitchhiking on an interplanetary freighter. There is Lachlan Haid, a chemist with a flair for the esoteric; Dorian, a swearing hitchhiker who doesn't know where to go; Lando Mayes, a vacuum salesman of the fictional New Dyson Corporation; Zippy Zaid, an old engineer and grifter; and Spacepants McScuseme, a "former" space pirate. Shortly after orbital insertion over Mars, the ship is boarded by the Phobos Gang, a notorious space pirate cartel. While the pirates are hijacking the freighter, the protagonists sneak onto the pirate ship and hijack it rightback, subduing the only person left aboard, a pilot called Liv. Since Lando is late for a meeting in New Baikonur, they decide to land the ship, which is very much not made for reentry. With Lachlan's navigating and Zippy's flying, they manage to pull off the impossible and crash land near the city relatively unscathed. Half the ship, anyways. In the most iconic shot from this episode, the ship paints a trail of smoke over the domes of new Baikonur, crashing through the large neon vacuum cleaner atop the New Dyson scyscraper.
Mercs on Mercury This episode sees the return of Lachlan, Dorian and Spacepants, who are joined by Antimoneus Trumpet. They have been hired to steal secret documents from a roving mercury base in an act of industrial espionage. After boarding the vehicle, they attempt to reach the administrator's office, along the way getting into several firefights, attemting to impersonate guards and crawling through ventilation shafts. Ultimately, they succeed in retrieving the file and slip away into the Mercury night. The episode had a very mixed reception with fans and critics. By some it is fondly remebered for a prolonged slapstick bit, as the characters repeatedly fail to board the base. Others were turned away by the protagonists callously executing the administrator Aida Manesh after already having subdued her.