It is difficult to cover everything when you are writing about film and TV. Many of us have different interests and this results in more diverse coverage. Excellent shows and films fall through the cracks even though we love and cover different things. For All Mankind was a show on Apple TV. The first season of the show was reviewed and given a glowing recommendation, but no one picked up the ball after the writer left the site. About two months ago, I began to watch it.
After watching the brilliant first season, my wife and I went into the bigger, messier second season. The third season took things to a whole other level. The show was renewed for a fourth season after the third season ended. We will be there when that happens because you deserve it.
The reactions of people when I tell them about it are either positive or negative. Either "I know, it's so amazing!" or "Oh I've heard that's good, what is it?" The answer is very straightforward. The brilliant premise of For All Mankind is what if the United States lost the space race. In the first episode, we see the Soviet Union make it to the moon before the United States, and in the second episode, we see a sad NASA standing in for a country questioning its own identity. Many Americans are born with a superiority complex. America is the best country in the world, we are told. But For All Mankind shows that is not true. We aren't the best The biggest race of all time was lost. The show starts.
The one simple twist changes history in many ways, mainly due to the fact that people are more focused on the present and less on the past. The first example of that is when NASA hires women as astronauts. Wouldn't it be great if we could see women in a place of power and status? Things start snowballing from there. Science, technology, and not just reaching the moon, are more important. Subsequent seasons grow and move further through the universe. Don't fret, we won't ruin anything major here.
The show raises the already interesting material along the way. Each season ends with a jaw-dropping, spectacular finale and we meet complex characters in all of them. The first, second, and now third season finales of For All are some of the best I have seen in a long time. The show is quite rigid. There is a jump at the end of the first season, followed by two more seasons in the 1980's and 1990s. The final scene of this season gave us a brief glimpse of the upcoming fourth season, which will be in the 2000s.
Time constraints help connect the audience to the show's characters in ways that other shows can't. Characters develop over time. A 30 year old in the first season is in their 60s by the third season. Their children have grown up. Friends and family have been lost. That is a large thing as well. Major characters have no problem being killed. It was like a lot. The show always talks about how America could have been better if we just changed a few things. A character in the second season of the show is in the 1980s. People are talking on video screens. This is meant to be a fantasy, but not everything is the same, so let us know that.
Complicated, controversial topics are nevershy away from the showrunners. The third season deals with sexuality in a way that feels very poignant to our reality now but in an alternate reality 30 years ago. You think how different things would be if we dealt with this then. That is the true gift of All mankind. It makes you think of progress and possibility. You think because it lives with you.
I was fortunate enough to attend the show's recent San Diego Comic-Con panel which included every major actor on the show at the moment. The show's creators said that they want to show what our current reality, the 2020s, might look like in the For All Mankind reality. To see our reality through the lens of For All Mankind would be like going to an alternate version of America, where we strive for greatness in ways that gave us more advances.
I apologize for all mankind. You should have gotten better. You'll improve. The show is already one of the best on any TV service, so I don't think it would get any better. Apple TV+ has the entire trilogy of For All Mankind.
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