What to Watch: For All Mankind is an addictive, bloody alt-history
What if? It’s the question that starts up a million stories, and sometimes it can show how a single event can change the entire arc of history.
Apple TV’s addictive alt-history science fiction saga For All Mankind imagines a world where man never stopped striving for the stars, and an alternative space race made everything different.
Over four seasons to date, For All Mankind paints a fascinating picture where the Soviet Union landing on the Moon in 1969 before America did has a ripple effect on global history.
It’s a world where US Presidents Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart and Al Gore are all in the mix with Reagan and Nixon, where there’s no Watergate, 9/11 attack or assassination of John Lennon. Oh, and there’s no public internet or social media, which actually might not be a bad thing when you think about it.
This alternate reality also proves itself to be somewhat more progressive than the real one, although not without its speed bumps.
After Russia lands a woman on the moon, a spooked NASA assembles a crew of women astronauts to one-up their rivals. For All Mankind also dips into race and sexual equality - in this world, one of the top astronauts is a Black woman (an excellent Krys Marshall), and gay equal rights unspool in startlingly different ways than it has here.
There’s a lot of dark, bleak science fiction out there, of course, and there’s certainly a place for that, but at the moment, give me some optimism things might get better.
Good science fiction, at its best, can give us something to dream about - the endearingly dorky future of Star Trek, or the colourful chaos of Guardians of the Galaxy. I like watching aliens eat people’s faces as much as anyone but also, I like the idea of boldly going where no one has gone before.
For All Mankind does get a bit goofy and far-fetched the further ahead into its alt-history it goes, and the most recent season feels a bit less dazzling than the first three.
Lead actors Marshall, Joel Kinneman and Wrenn Schmidt are generally terrific, even as their characters get slathered in awkward makeup as decades pass in the show’s timeline, but some of the other actors play their soap-opera storylines with a broad bluntness that verges on the cartoonish.
Wrenn Schmidt in For All Mankind.
AppleTV+
For All Mankind isn’t a rose-coloured look at the future - its alternate history is drenched in plenty of blood and horror, terrorism and distrust, where man (spoilers ahead!) does make it to the Moon and Mars but constantly comes up against the same conflicts that keep screwing us all up on Earth. But through it all, even at the worst moments, there is the desire to dream big, and do big, hard things.
Don’t watch if… You freak out at the idea of suffering nasty accidents while trapped in the void of outer space.
If you like For All Mankind, what should you watch next?
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The latest in the venerable Star Trek saga is often blissfully silly fun, but also can switch in a heartbeat to stunning space action. Probably the best Trek since Next Generation. (TVNZ+)
The Expanse: Another rip-roaring epic about exploring the unknown, it combines cosmic mystery with some very human war and chaos. (Amazon Prime)
Foundation: This very loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s book series follows mankind on a quest for survival in a far distant future, and it’s full of big, bold ideas. (Apple TV)
