“For All Mankind” — A Review
Ronald D. Moore’s latest series may not be sci-fi enough for “Battlestar Galactica” fans but it’s a damn good yarn
I mentioned last weekend that I started watching “For All Mankind,” the AppleTV+ series about the Apollo space program set in an alternate reality in which the Soviets beat us to the moon.
The “What If” series is the creation of Ronald D. Moore, the genius behind the remake of “Battlestar Galactica” that starred the incomparable Edward James Olmos, Jamie Bamber, and Mary McDonnell.
If you are a die-hard “Battlestar Galactica” fan who knows every frakking word of every frakking episode, you may not like “For All Mankind” since, at its core, it isn’t strictly Sci-Fi.
Sure, it has sci-fi elements. It is an alternate history in which 20th-century man builds permanent bases on the Moon and sets foot on Mars before the year 2000. But “For All Mankind” is also a drama about the lives of those caught up in the race to outer space.
Don’t get me wrong. There is plenty of action, with countless “edge-of-your-seat” outer space moments that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, left me gasping in shock and uttering, “Oooooh, shit!” and “Holy crap!” more times than I can count.
The series opens with America’s Apollo 11 mission being unexpectedly upstaged by the Soviets, whose cosmonauts touch down on the moon just weeks before Apollo 11 is scheduled to launch.
With the Soviets winning the race to the moon and America humiliated, President Richard Nixon is eager to one-up the Reds.
When US intelligence learns that the USSR plans to construct a military base on the moon, Nixon demands that NASA make plans to do the same.
When the Soviets follow their first moon landing with a second that features the first woman to set foot on the moon, Nixon orders NASA to recruit and train women astronauts to send into space.
And on and on it goes as both the US and USSR continue their cold war in the stars.
Several real-life people are depicted in the series, including NASA flight director Gene Kranz and real-life astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Mike Collins, Sally Ride, and Deke Slayton. Hell, even Karl Rove turns up in Season 3. But most of the central characters are all fictional, including the astronaut played by series star Joel Kinnaman — Commander Ed Baldwin.
Like the butterfly effect theory, the alternate history prompted by the Soviets winning the race to the moon leads to some interesting twists and turns that have nothing to do with space exploration.
For example, Senator Ted Kennedy is forced to cancel a planned weekend trip to Chappaquiddick to attend hearings in the Senate about NASA’s failure to reach the moon first.
As a result, Mary Joe Kopechne doesn’t drown in his car. Free of the scandal that destroyed real-life Ted Kennedy’s presidential aspirations, alternate Kennedy defeats Nixon in 1972. However, Kennedy only serves one term because he gets embroiled in a sex scandal involving, you guessed it, Mary Jo Kopechne. Ronald Reagan, no longer bogged down by President Gerald Ford, then defeats Kennedy in 1976, thereby saving America from Jimmy Carter.
Another big change is that the Soviet Union, strengthened by its success in space, does not peter out in the early 1990s but remains intact by the turn of the 21st century.
If you approach “For All Mankind” not as a sci-fi series but as a drama that happens to be set both on Earth and in space, it is a damn good yarn.
Sure, it occasionally gets bogged down by politically correct drivel, but what series doesn’t nowadays?
There is a perfunctory Lesbian character who is given a very dramatic, high-profile “coming out” moment. The requisite gay character, an astronaut, chooses to “come out” to the universe during an interview from the surface of Mars.
One of the characters introduced in the first episode is a Mexican girl named Aleida Rosales. She is mesmerized by the telecast of the Soviets landing on the moon and longs to become an astronaut. Unsurprisingly, Aleida and her father illegally cross the border into the US on the night Apollo 11 touches down on the moon.
Later, Aleida becomes a brilliant NASA engineer, which you knew was coming, otherwise, why introduce her in the first place?
In scanning some of the user reviews on IMDB.com, I noticed that several die-hard sci-fi fans who hated the series also complained about the “woke” writers creating an illegal alien character.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Don’t get so shirty, guys. Sure, I get that she’s not the kind of alien you had in mind, but Aleida’s character is well-written, her journey is fascinating, and the actress who plays her as an adult, Coral Peña, does a fantastic job.
Why can’t people let go of their political bugaboos for an hour and just enjoy the show?
That’s not to say that the series doesn’t have some clunky, tiresome moments. It does. But overall, “For All Mankind” is so damn good that the writers more than make up for their occasional shortcomings.
One of my favorite episodes is “Hi, Bob” in Season One.
Three astronauts get stuck on NASA's dinky little moon station for nearly a year while NASA deals with the aftermath of a rocket explosion that prevents them from sending up the replacement team.
The only entertainment the three stranded astronauts have is a Beta Max tape with six episodes of “The Bob Newhart Show.” The astronauts watch the tape so many times that it falls apart. Fortunately, after watching those six episodes for months, they know the lines by heart, so they act it out instead.
Season One begins in 1969 and caps off in 1974. Each subsequent season jumps ahead 8-10 years. The writers include a cleverly devised 3-5 minute segment at the start of each season to let you know what happened in the intervening years. By the time you get to Season 4, which premiered in November, the year is 2003. Given the tease that closed Season 4’s final episode, it looks like Season 5 will be set in 2012.
If you enjoyed the mini-series “From the Earth to the Moon” or the film “Apollo 13,” you’ll probably enjoy “For All Mankind.”
It is an entertaining space drama, a Cold War thriller, and an edge-of-your-seat action series all rolled into one.
The first two seasons are damn good. Season Three is a bit weaker but still pretty entertaining. And though I enjoyed Season Four, it wasn’t nearly as solid as the first two seasons. Still, when I finished watching all four seasons, I returned to Episode One and started watching the series again.
That’s either a sign that I need to get a life or that “For All Mankind” is worth a second go-‘round.