The ending actively annoyed me too with how overly dramatic the stakes needed to be. In that sense, it did remind me of The Martian (the movie) - 95% of it tries so hard to be grounded, but it ends with a set piece solved by the protagonist poking a hole in his glove and managing to propel him right where he needs to be.
As for Deke Slayton’s arc - yep, the “mentor figure needs to die” bit was irritatingly predictable. Oh well. There’s one part I dug though: When Waverly opens up about her sexuality, I was kinda expecting the writers to go down the path of Slayton just nodding in support and being like “It’s ok, I always knew.” Nope, he was baffled and not turned tolerant towards homosexuality in an instant. The writers obviously were trying to slightly amend with the “You need to keep it a secret because of people like me.” part, but hey.
For All Mankind made a bunch of decisions I don’t like, but I’m glad it exists.
I think it has a low chance of being cancelled early, so although I was so bored by Aleda’s story that I skipped through some of it, I don’t mind they’re setting up the character. I think she’ll have impact in season 2 and hopefully that’ll be more interesting.
I finally went back and watched last 3 episodes of this show last night.
Sure, the drama was dumbly heightened for the final act, particularly for a show that had a very measured pace before that, but neither of those things are ridiculously improbable. Margo even explained how Molly’s rescue would work from an orbital mechanics perspective: “No she’s right where she needs to be, when she reaches apogee…” And the fuel transfer is unlikely but plausible. What’s not is that they’d be able to land the spacecraft and then have Ed take off again and return home. I also was a bit bothered when Deke first revealed his injury and blood floated out as if they were in zero-g, but they were under thrust at the time.
Regardless of all that, I fucking LOVED this show. So glad they’re making another season! This is the only thing I’ve watched with my Apple TV+ subscription, and it’s been worth it.
Wait, no discussion of this season yet three episodes in? I wanted to see what you all thought of Ed and his wife’s adoption of a daughter, Gordon Stevens’ going back to the moon though he’s turned into a schlub, etc.
FWIW, the pace picks up considerably with episode 3. In fact, I’d even say you could skip the first two and see if the show grabs you. In many ways the first two are simply prolonged setup. There’s backstory, sure, but it’s not critical backstory.
Looking forward to Season 2. I’m about 3/4 of the way through one, but I got distracted by Snowfall and haven’t gone back.
It’s been a time jump of what, about 8 years (it’s definitely the first Reagan Administration), right? I’m not really clear on the reason grown-up Aleida is so messed up* and so disgusted with Margo.
*I mean, despite her father’s (assumed) deportation she somehow went to college and got an engineering degree and worked at some major companies before washing out.
I enjoyed the first season. But don’t have Apple TV. I’m planning on signing up for a month and binging Seasons 2 and 3. Have all of the episodes been streamed for Season 3?
Man, that first season was rough. Some good parts. Lots of bad parts.
Also, I thought the incident with the orbital repair was a bit much. As soon as they started doing the tests I was like, “Wait a sec, they’re still tethered. Didn’t anyone think this through for more than 10 seconds?” Sure enough…
That’s seriously the kind of thing Flight Directors get canned for.
And is the case with many period series, I’m seriously wondering how bad were the lung cancer, emphysema, and cardiac attack rates in the 70s and 80s, because holy shit, people. Cigarettes EVEYERHWERE.
Dude, as a little kid in the 1960s, I remember how smoking indoors was the norm, and it seemed like a good half of adults smoked. My own parents didn’t smoke except for my dad during my first year I gather (he had since his stint in the service–the Occupation of Japan-- and through his first marriage, but quit before coming back to live at his folks’ place for a while with my mom and me in tow because his parents couldn’t abide it). Still, anytime they had people over the ashtrays came out and of course we kids thought it was disgusting, reeked etc.
They never explicitly mention what year it is, but I’m thinking it’s around 1982 or something at the latest. I don’t think laptops were a thing IRL until the later 80’s at the earliest. There were portable “luggables” before that: for example, classic form factor Macs with the tiny 9" screen were out as early as '84.
Part of this universe is that all the increased spending on the space race has paid off in pushing a bunch of technologies forward faster, such as electric cars. Imagine computer chips also got a boost.
