For All Mankind (SciFi Apple TV+)

ejmaztec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119489677#Comment_119489677

I'm assuming that the Americans think that Margot died in the blast, and that she actually did a runner to the Soviet Embassy before the bomb went off. I doubt that she wanted to be in Russia, and it reminded me of Martha in The Americans, who also ended up in Russia, and also didn't want to be there.

pixelburp

Right Episode 10 finally checked off. That was a lot; and very much felt like a final episode of a show that knew it had a season 4 coming, so could be as coy as it liked.

Too many plates spinning about to coherently form thoughts beyond bullet points.

The Stevens brothers? Absolute tools of the highest order. That they live is a.crime against narrative sense. Throwing Danny in space jail at least makes partial sense. Jimmy living? No. Just no.

Ed Baldwin is an àss but damn, his piloting was boss.

President Wilson's plot felt criminally underdeveloped after the bombshell. 2003 means she won't be President either way; the question will be if she resigned. Maybe she'll return and run the redeveloped JSC?

Damnit but I hate it when they bring a character back, for one episode, just to kill them off. Molly Cobb. Criminally underused in season 3 but you were some woman for one woman.

Margo? Honestly I dunno. Was Russia truly the best choice: to basically rubber-stamp the treason? She could have cut a deal with the FBI, but then the drama needed a Big Twist! Which brings me to...

The ageing make-up. We've all probably exhausted all the angles but seriously, it's terrible and the hint we're now hitting proper Mrs Doubtfire territory doesn't cause enthusiasm; shrouded by a mirror it might have been, Margo's looked awful. I don't even think they tried with President Wilson. Season 2 just about got away it while this year the edges fell apart once you realised these were men and women at best in their late 50s.

So where to now? A proper Martian colony and all the international problems that might cause? I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate this world won't have a 911: with the US now lacking fossil fuel dependency, it surely means their intervention in the Middle East becomes less prominent?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Regarding 911, I'm sure the Soviet Union's alternate history would have impacted on Afghanistan's history too, so there's probably an entirely different set up in that region in this time line.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119501101#Comment_119501101

The show teases so much world history; I'd love an episode that gives a whirlwind breakdown of what shape the world is but I get that's not why we're here. Just stop the plot for a journey around this 1990s globe.

The USSR is still around in the late 90s so presumably, Europe looks much different: Germany still divided, Poland etc still behind the iron curtain. We saw Thatcher got assassinated so that's a huge butterfly flapping its wings. Does the EC/EU exist? Maybe federalisation happens sooner because Checkpoint Charlie still existed.

And yeah, what becomes of the Middle East where the largest Superpower (and the western world following no doubt) decouples itself from oil dependency. Saudi Arabia suddenly becomes a lot less relevant, geopolitically. Seems a little glib to focus on US job friction when so much American foreign policy circled the control of oil.

And whither China in all this? I don't recall them getting mentioned at all yet they don't seem to be a major player in this world at all. I think they got mentioned in episode 1s little summary of Martian programmes.

RickBlaine

Just finished season 3. I have a few issues but I still found it very entertaining and one of my favourite shows at the moment.

Deke, Gordo, Tracy, and now Molly. All wonderful characters brilliantly acted are now dead and unfortunately most of the younger generation of characters are inferior. I really felt the absence of Gordo and Tracy in this season, and Molly too for most of it. Regarding Molly, you would think the writers would want one of their best characters front and centre when they were designing the season's storylines.

I feel like the writers want to get characters to certain points but the decisions the writers make aren't great. They want a medical issue with Kelly so they make her pregnant. They want Danny to have a meltdown, so he is still obsessing over Karen. They are better ways for those characters to reach the same conclusions but with better stories. Off the top of my head, Danny having a breakdown because he fears he is becoming unstable in space like his father seems better.

In previous seasons, I liked the character of Ellen but I wasn't really interested in her story this season. I think the fact that she is so separated from NASA now is the reason.

I don't mind the age discrepancy between the actors and the characters. It is kinda like the actors in Better Call Saul being far older than their characters. It is just something you have to go with. I'd rather that than recast people like Ed, Margo, and Danielle.

Speaking of Danielle, she was probably my favourite this season.

I know most of these are criticisms but the first two seasons set an incredibly high bar with great characters. I still loved season three though and really glad it has been renewed for another season.

iguana

Right up until we saw Margo in 2003 I had been feeling they might do a late 90s season 4, rather than jump on a decade. The story this season just feels very incomplete. Season 1 and 2 both felt like they had a narrative structure that, while leaving lots of potential for further series, still told complete stories so I didn't feel like we were jumping to the next decade with huge amounts left untold. But here there feels like there are all these plot points just left hanging. One of the two climactic scenes was a massive bombing where nothing is resolved in the literal minutes of screen time that follows it.

We are left with all of these plots that I want to see resolving. I want to see how things are for NASA after both the bombing and the reveal that Poole/Kuznetsov were not the first people on Mars but an expendable North Korean. Because what the hell was the point of Lee Jung-Gil being on Mars if it wasn't to keep driving America's competitive desire when they can be beaten in the space race. I want to see how Ellen, as president, handles the four huge events that she is now left with, being beaten to Mars, the astronauts staying behind, the NASA bombing and her coming out. I want to see the decisions that are made at NASA RosCosmos and Helios due to their people choosing to stay on Mars. And while I don't love watching him, so can't say I want to see Danny Stevens, we have been left with him in isolation in the place that Dani and Kuznetsov buried a gun. There is a plot hanging there as to whether he goes mad and attacks someone else or just kills himself.

I don't want to jump to say 2001 and have all of those plots tied up in the news montage at the beginning of the episode. Those news montages are a fun way of setting the scene for the new decade and showing us the changes from our timeline, most that will play a part in the politics/technology of the show and some just for fun. They shouldn't be a way for storylines to be tied up. I don't want to be told rather than shown how all of these characters I care about (and Danny) resolve all their current tension. The time jump to 2003, already felt like that. The jump to the Sea Dragon launch in S1 and the Mars landing in S2 weren't tying up loose ends from the season, they were sneak peeks of the continuing strides made into space. This ending in 2003, was used to make a 'big reveal' that Margo was exfiltrated rather than killed. But showed us no hints about where humanity is headed next. As a result, I'm a hell of a lot less excited for S4 than I was for S3.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119505110#Comment_119505110

A large flaw of this show's structure is that it does these time-jumps even within a season's plotting: witness how we went from the "Kelly is pregnant!" cliffhanger of one episode to "Kelly is about to give birth!" in the very next instalment. A whole episode's worth of drama, tension and moral conundrums that could have sprung from that knowledge - just immediately canned. I'm not say I wanted a 50 minutes of people debating abortion on Mars - but it just turned out to be another problem to solve with science, and another convenient ticking clock - rather than some human drama. Or topical drama: not like the show hasn't shied away from that to an extent. Pregnancy is a crippling, debilitating change to your body on EArth, nevermind Mars; the show was way too glib about it IMO.

Agreed about the introduction of the North Korean astronaut - cosmonaut? - what was the point of that except a little humbling moment for Poole and the Russian Captain when they realise their rivalry meant nothing.

Unfortunately, we're going to get a TV summary in Season 4 because unless she pulls a FDR, there's no way there'll be a President Wilson; and I'm going to go ahead and presume it'll be President Gore ... given, well. It probably should have been in our timeline as well lol.

iguana

Kelly being pregnant was honestly so stupid. She's one of the most pre-eminent biologists ever and she lets herself get and remain pregnant while living in 38% of earth's gravity on a planet with no magnetosphere to shield against radiation. The risks to the foetal development are way too enormous to risk in a situation where that baby doesn't have the option to live permanently on Mars. (And where extensive testing on foetal development of animals hasn't already occurred.)

As it is, in reality female astronauts take contraceptives not to avoid pregnancy but to stop menstruation completely in space. Women on such a long mission as this would absolutely be on long term contraception. And while contraceptives can fail, it's not actually that common when taken correctly as you'd expect a biologist on an incredibly important and dangerous mission to do. And even if it did fail and Alexei's death made her reluctant to abort, she should know just how dangerous and stupid continuing the pregnancy would be and I find it hard to believe that she'd continue it.

And all of that is just Kelly. The idea that there was only 1 MSam on the Phoenix is too unbelievable. I mean if Ed and Danny had crashed on entry, that would have been it, mission failed, while the rest of the Phoenix crew just uselessly orbit Mars until they run out of fuel to maintain orbit or hope to get rescued in 96 because they were reliant producing fuel for the journey home on Mars. They would have had a minimum of two MSam's probably three. Way too much of the tension in this series was created by unbelievable scenarios brought about by lazy writing. I do love this show but the second half of S3 was really poor compared to what came before it and it wouldn't have been if there had been more thought put into the writing.

awec

I’ve skipped a bunch of pages here to avoid spoilers.

Im only a few episodes into season 3. Is it just me, or is this season absolute garbage?!

The writing is appalling, it’s so cliched! Endless scenes of ponderous staring into space. Awful attempts at building intrigue. Honestly I think I’m cringing through every other scene, I’m on episode 4 now and I had to stop watching half way through, I just couldn’t cope any more.

The actors appear to have become more wooden than in the previous two seasons.

I feel like I’m watching a soap opera with lots of CGI.

does it improve?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120581377#Comment_120581377

S3 was...... a struggle at times.

I'm not saying nothing good happened but I'm struggling to remember any. There were several questionable choices made with the better storylines, and then some of the storylines were just bad throughout. *cough* Gordo and Tracey's children *cough*

Slydice

Nothing felt close to the Molly story and Gordo and Tracy story from season two. I think the one bit that jumps out as a memory was

Spoiler Warning

finding the Korean

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120581447#Comment_120581447

Yeah there was a few bits of the Mars plot that were pretty good, but I didn't love where it all ended up, other than that bit you mentioned.

pixelburp

Season 3 was very variable when it came to quality, but I'll take a good show that wobbles over a show that never quite figures its shít put, every time. Gordo and Tracey's kids are the biggest weak point though and threatened to sink the show with their nonsense.

At least one plot point on Mars felt like a good piece of ethical drama intentionally ignored, with another was utterly insane in all the best ways. So basically, this show somewhat in a nutshell.

awec

Is S3 the end of it? I might persevere for the sake of closure if it is.

Yea the Stephen's kids are ridiculous. The Danny and Karen thing, honestly, how dull.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120581879#Comment_120581879

There's a season 4 coming; I believe shooting happened in late 2022, so I guess we might see the new run sometime this year. No trailer yet.

The timeline has leapt forward so much I do wonder much longer they can keep going with its cast; Season 3 also stretched credulity in terms of it ignoring just how old Margo, Ed etc. should be in the 1990s. If we're gonna jump into the 2000s, a full 40 years later from Season 1, the old-age makeup is gonna look laughable. While where to next for the show? Europa and the search for life?

steve_r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120581926#Comment_120581926

I’m not mad about the time jumps. Originally I understand why they did it and how it allows them to jump forward in terms of space exploration. However I think the writing has suffered as a result and it’s moved away from an ‘alternate history’ to an altogether alternate reality which I found harder to care for. For example, the concept of what would happen to the world if Russia was first to the moon is narratively more interesting to me than the ‘current day’ alternative social politics that they are presenting in the latter seasons.

I’ll watch season 4 but I am disappointed in what the show has become, it had an amazing cast, big production budget but poor writing as let it down in a huge way. The less said about the two lads the better

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120582236#Comment_120582236

Disagree about the cast tbh, there are very few stand out performers IMO.

I find Joel Kinnaman incredibly wooden, and really struggle with him as an actor. The actor who plays Danielle Poole is also fairly poor IMO, I find her very cheesy or something.

Though maybe they're just being let down by awful dialog being served to them by the writers.

There was a scene in ep4 that I was watching last night, Danny was arguing with some young crew member extra, Baldwin catches him. Conversation ensues, Baldwin arm on Danny's shoulder, both with intense faces, pep talk, any time you want to play cards we should play etc. It was a complete cliche from start to finish.

And there are LOADs of scenes like this in this show.

JP Liz V1

Season 4 cast Daniel Stern, Svetlana Efremova, Tyner Rushing and Toby Kebbell

Hodors Appletart

if it ever gets written or acted

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120959085#Comment_120959085

It's already finished shooting. A while ago apparently. So unless Apple don't want to release it with no promo, it shouldn't be delayed.

FortuneChip

Season 3 brought in the idea of Privatised Space Travel, and even a decent potential proxy for Elon Musk with Edi Gathegi. And they went to Mars. It was set-up for a stellar season. And I was encouraged to see Karen get a mostly organic professional development off the back of S2, only to waste all that time on a f*cking affair and silly family politcs.

A few good moments - Operation Jolly Roger, the lone Korean, some some decent spectacles but otherwise a real step down from Season Two.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Yeah, S3 really went too far into the soapy stuff, and both Stevens kids were utterly useless. There's a lot of characters gone now though, I think Ed and Danielle are the only original characters left, unless we're still getting Margo in exile stuff.

pixelburp

The total disregard for ageing has been and remains my biggest pet peeve with this show. Season 4 will be set in, what, the 2010s maybe? Ed should be ancient yet Joel Kinnaman will just get a bit more fake grey hair. They should have recast 2 seasons back.

ejmaztec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120962243#Comment_120962243

They should have recruited Clint Eastwood to replace Joel Kinnaman, he's probably about the same height, although shrunk a bit with old age. 😛

Glebee

Still have S3 to watch, S1 was great, S2 was OK, S3 started the first episode and stopped have way in. Must get started again.

awec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120982089#Comment_120982089

S3 is a real struggle.

I got 4 episodes in and I am not really fussed about continuing, other than the fact I hate not finishing things.

Thargor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120982430#Comment_120982430

Ah it wasn't that bad was it? More wasted time on stupid interpersonal crap but when its good all that is washed away and there were a few great scenes.

pixelburp

This is returning November 10: we get a first trailer by way of a fake Promotional Video for Helios. Be sure to be sitting down for Joel Kinnaman's old-age makeup...

https://youtu.be/TNWO64gslUk

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Oh god, I hope he has a very limited presence this series.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121105772#Comment_121105772

Hopefully this is an instance where they kill off a main character in Episode 1, cos Ed should be what ... 70+ at this point?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121105783#Comment_121105783

I feel like he just barely scrapped in, age wise, for the Mars mission last season. I forget what year they're meant to be in at this stage but assuming he was at the very least 30 when it started, in 1969, he would have been knocking on for 60 last season, and assuming another decade jump, yeah, he should be collecting his pension in Florida at this stage.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121105874#Comment_121105874

Mind you, at least they tried with Ed. Saw this screen-grab form the trailer, and it looks like Danielle got a lot less makeup; I see a little a little salt & pepper and that's it.

It's funny cos something like The Crown showed you can have a successfull show that constant recasts for the age changes.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Instead of wasting half the season on the Stevens kids they should have spent more time last season establishing some new younger characters so they could carry it on this season. I think Kelly and Aleida are the only ones, age wise, that make sense to still be featuring.

PhiloCypher

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107812#Comment_121107812

The For All Mankind Wiki has Danielle as being born in 1944 making her 59 assuming the 4th season is set in 2003(Ed is 74) . Given that I think a bit of Salt n Pepper is perfectly adequate, for now anyway.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121109867#Comment_121109867

Ok, 58 isn't so bad then. Man if there's a season 5, and bounce another 10 years, they'll surely have to kill some of these guys off? I wonder do they have a time jump past which they won't go & end the show.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121110476#Comment_121110476

Personally I'm not sure how interested I'd be once it goes past being an alternative history and just becomes the future, so probably 2 seasons more, at the absolute most.

pixelburp

First full trailer for fhe new season in November

https://youtu.be/KaKbUUdzOYw

pixelburp

... and Episode 1 had dropped FYI

McDermotX

Decent enough start. No doubt the soap opera aspect will come in eventually that drags the show down, but perhaps they examined where they've messed up in the past and will limit certain plotlines to references, so will have to wait and see.

Money is there, traditional alternate history recap, Old Man Kinnaman wasn't nearly as distracting as I thought, mad space physics etc.......OK to good stuff.

pixelburp

Episode 1 and the old age make up wasn't too bad in the end, though it worked much better with Margo than Ed, who looked a bit too weird and "make up"y - and Danielle just looks unchanged.

Not entirely sold on the premise of the season yet, mostly cos I'm not sure where it's going. Previous seasons certainly had a more distinct and immediate hook than this year's more established status quo. Can't see where any soap opera elements might appear though, so fingers crossed there'll be as little of that as possible.

Acosta

Ed still an astronaut in 2003? He fought in Korea! Must be at least 70.

silverharp

I watched the first series when it came out and thought it was decent, is it worth continuing with, or was the quality inconsistent?

ejmaztec

They'll probably discover an alien potion under a rock on Mars which reverses the ageing process, and Joel & Co will still be in it for another ten seasons.

expectationlost

how many times has baldwin f'd up and killed ppl and he still there

expectationlost

Don't know how leaving NASA is going to fix Aleida Rosales PTSD

_Kaiser_

Second episode was good. Looks like there may be problems with the lower decks later on and Ed's dismissive attitude to the civilian workers explains a lot of the dissatisfaction there.

Picked up towards the end as well. Looks like Gorbachev has been deposed by presumably hard liners which will have a impact on things on Mars of course.

PhiloCypher

Anyone else have a feeling that Asteroid they had been tugging towards Mars Orbit will make an appearance again near the end of the season when it threatens to impact Mars and flatten Happy Valley ?

expectationlost

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121388910#Comment_121388910

Oh so the company she wants to start up would just use robots, so no chance of ppl getting killed, the point was mad by the Bald Move podcast guys who who a good replacement for the lack of an official podcast his year https://baldmove.com/for-all-mankind/s04e02-have-a-nice-sol/

pixelburp

Well Episode 2 gave a stronger sense of where this season might be going: if I had to guess it's gonna involve a Union getting formed on Mars and potentially causing problems, Ed probably being a total àss throughout; and maybe (finally?) the breakup of the USSR? Or at the very least a coup; maybe alt-Boris Yeltsin is gonna take over, or we get an appearance of a certain Vladimir lol.

Always felt a little hungry for more world building than we get: what of Poland and Eastern Europe in this USSR that lasted into the 2000s? There were many breakaway attempts, so whither those? And it does strike a little odd that North Korea gets to sit on Mars yet no sign of longtime US ally South Korea who'd surely want to be there too. It's all trivial stuff but I'm always intrigued.

pixelburp

The stuff with Margo in Episode 3 was pretty tense, though had wondered where it was going that she might still be relevant to the overall story - and I guess that's that answered.

Otherwise felt a bit of a holding pattern otherwise, with only Aleida and Kelly's storyline moving forward - and honestly I could take or leave their whole subplot. NEver really liked either character TBH and they've not really got better with "age". And the more I've thought on it the more the whole "North KOrea gets a bit of Mars but they're locked away" kinda makes no sense whatsoever.