With The Morning Show grabbing up all of the buzz and See starring Jason Mamoa, For All Mankind is probably not the Apple TV+ series you’d pay much attention to. But, we’re all quarantined, and you have time now to watch it. Even if you don’t have Apple (I’m an Android user myself), you can sign up for the seven-day free trial (like I did) and check out this show. This is not a new show, but it’s one I just checked out and I’m so happy that I did.
Slight Spoilers
Starring Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman, Wrenn Schmidt, Sarah Jones, Santel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, and a ton of supporting actors, For All Mankind is about space. Probably not the most entertaining in your opinion, but I found it incredibly interesting. For All Mankind is essentially a rewrite of history. Rather than Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being the first men on the moon, Russia got to the moon before America. Considering the tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. at the time, America decided to keep up with the space race. Not only were they going to continue putting people on the moon, they were going to put women on the moon.
What If We Kept Up the Space Race?
For All Mankind not only explored where we’d be if we continued the moon exploration, but how far advanced we’d be as a society if we had made NASA more inclusive decades before they actually did. When you first watch the show, you think that the story is going to shift one way, but the series takes an interesting and an inspiring stance by shifting its focus on women astronauts. Of course, this show takes place in the late sixties, early seventies – there’s a lot of pushback. A lot of sexism. But, each woman is different, complex, and awe-inspiring to watch.
Righting Historical Wrongs
The series not only rewrote history, but took a lot of figures in real life and gave them their due diligence. For example, Jerrie Cobb was a real astronaut who was a part of an all-women group known as Mercury 13. They never went up to space, but they completed all of the training their male counterparts did. Jerrie was the first to complete the tests. While Jerrie never got up to the moon, Molly Cobb does. The show features a lot of real life figures, such as Wernher von Braun, Gene Kranz, and more. It also has figures that were based on real life people.
Kinnaman is a good lead as Ed Baldwin, but the cast is much more of an ensemble for me to say one person was the actual star. For All Mankind was a good example of how you shine the spotlight on multiple people rather than boringly focusing on solely one individual. I found myself interested in each story and what was nice was that every person surprised you. Even those who may have seemed one dimensional at first eventually were fleshed out. Throughout the series, every character grew, and you really felt that through the screen.
Much Better Than I Thought
For All Mankind was ten episodes and some story could have been trimmed down. There was one storyline in the show that I couldn’t understand how it connected with the rest of the plot until the end and even then it was a little loose. I’m hoping that gets fleshed out more in season two. There were politics involved, the fight for feminism, great music choices, and more in this series. There were amazing strides forward and some real unfortunate realities of the era i.e. racism and homophobia. The show had heartbreaking moments, victorious moments, edge of your seat moments, and moments that made you proud. Scenes were allowed to breathe, and others took your breath away. In a way, For All Mankind is probably one of the better explorations of space in TV and film I’ve seen – it was pretty much what I had wanted First Man to be.
Rating: 4/5
As a woman, I loved this show. As a fan of storytelling and cinema and great music, I also loved this show. The ending opened many doors and just as season one championed for inclusion for women and people of color, I hope it adds more diversity and tackles the homophobia that it set up in season one. You think the show is going to essentially be like Mad Men and it ends up being so much more. If this review was overly sappy, I apologize. I just really loved it.
What were your thoughts on For All Mankind?
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