We finished up the latest season of “For All Mankind”. This was the fourth season of the Apple TV+ series, which highlights an alternate history based on the Russians being the first to the moon back in the late 1960s. Season 4 took place in the early to mid 2000s.
In this alternate history, the space race never stopped, and by 2003, seven countries have come together as the “M7” and there’s a well established colony on Mars. Russia is still very much the USSR and Al Gore is president of the United States. The spirit of what we know as the space race in the 1960s is still very much present and technological advances are happening quicker in this alternate timeline because of each country’s drive to be first in everything related to space, despite the cooperation taking place between the countries. In season four, a lot of the space industry has gone to corporations, specifically, “Helios Aeronautics” is the main contractor for much of the technology.
Earl and I had a hard time with the first couple of episodes of this season; it just seemed to be going in weird directions. The series has never focused solely on Science Fiction, there’s a lot of human elements, and in a similar vein to the the original Star Trek, the series takes on current events in their own way. The employees of Helios, the political climate, and many of the other socioeconomic based story lines feel very familiar. After all, no matter the technology present, humans will always be humans that do unfortunate human things.
The season finale was undoubtedly my favorite episode of the season. Clocking in at around 80 minutes, things were tidied up fairly well, there were a couple of lefts and rights in the story line that I didn’t expect, and at times I had a hard time deciding who I was suppose to be cheering on. I thoroughly enjoyed the viewing experience.
Apple has not confirmed a season five as of yet, but the episode left room for growth without being too obvious about it. It’s my understanding the writers have written out a plot intended for seven seasons. I’m hoping they get to see that come to fruition. Though the tone of the show has changed a little bit and as the alternate universe diverges from our reality more and more as the decades go by, I still enjoy the show and while this finale was satisfying, I’d really like to see the rest of it come to its intended conclusion.
