EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT FOR ALL MANKIND SEASON 2 ON APPLE+
Ever imagined what would have happened had the Cold War space race never ended? What would have happened if the Soviets had been the first power to have a successful landing on the Moon? Well, you needn’t trouble yourselves anymore, as Apple TV+’S For All Mankind tells you exactly that. The show, created by Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, was a hit for Apple when its first season debuted in November 2019. Today, we are discussing the show’s ongoing second season and the information we know about the announced third season.
The review site Rotten Tomatoes summarized the show in these words: “‘For All Mankind’ presents an aspirational world where NASA astronauts, engineers and their families find themselves in the center of extraordinary events seen through the prism of an alternate history timeline -- a world in which the USSR beats the US to the moon.“
If anyone is a good reference for a great sciencefiction show, it’s Ronald D. Moore. The guy worked on both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, and has won numerous awards for his work in the genre. He is also the creative mind behind the historical drama Outlander, which made this show a brilliant new challenge for him. In light if Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, For All Mankind is an alternative history science-fiction series that chronicles the continuation of the space race and also the continuation of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The show’s first season, consisting of 10 episodes, aired from November to December 2019 on Apple TV+ and has received mostly positive reviews from both the fans and the critics, with both noting that the show had a lot of space for improvement. The main cast included Joel Kinnaman (Edwin Baldwin), Michael Dorman (Gordo Stevens), Sarah Jones ( Tracy Stevens), Shantel Vansanten (Karen Baldwin), Jodi Balfour (Ellen Wilson), and Wrenn Schmidt (Margo Madison).
The second season of the show was announced in October 2019, i.e., even before the series premiered on Apple TV+, which showed us that the service had a lot of faith in
its upcoming series. The second season added several new main characters, including Sonya Walger’s Molly Cobb (who was a recurring character in season one), Krys Marshall’s
Danielle Poole (likewise a recurring character in season one), and newcomers Cynthy Wu (Kelly Baldwin), Casey W. Johnson (Danny Stevens), and Coral Peña (Aleida Rosales). It premiered in February 2021 and is planned to air until late April this year. The show has, so far, received critical acclaim and holds a 100% positive score ratio on Rotten Tomatoes, which is proof that the show did, indeed, capitalize on its good reputation and made a big step forward, which is exactly what everyone wanted after season one.
The currently ongoing season was summarized in these words: “Set in the summer of 1983, ‘For All Mankind’ season 2 reveals that the never-ending Space Race between the USA and USSR has brought about technological innovations earlier than we got it. They have email, except it’s called “d-mail”, and electric cars albeit with the same problems: range and speed. And John Lennon is still alive — he was assassinated in 1980 — and Prince Charles got his desire: to marry Camilla Parker-bowles rather than
Diana Spencer. While some events are a logical leap, others just seem like the For
All Mankind writers having fun with the alt-history world they inhabit. Speaking of getting things earlier, the USA is involved in a coup in Panama — it occurred in 1989 in our world — which here contributes to Cold War tensions.“
For All Mankind also heavily relies on its recurring cast, but also on both actual
(through archival footage) and fictionalized versions of historical figures. The former, thus, brought us archival shots of John Lennon, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter,
Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and others, while the latter category enabled us to see fictionalized versions of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Wernher von Braun, and John Glenn, among others.
Now, while we cherish on the success of season two, we can also proudly announce that Apple has renewed the series for a third season back in December 2020, again even before this exceptionally successful second season began airing. This seems like a regular thing on Apple’s side and it seems to be paying off for them, as we’ve seen with other shows that are airing on the streaming service. The third season is expected to begin production sometime during the 2021 spring season, with a targeted release date being either 2022 or 2023; hopefully, it’s the former. The main cast is expected to make a return for the new season and we have to wait and see which new characters are going to be added to the series. Also, we’ll have to wait and see how the second season develops in order to fully know what to expect from the new season.
For All Mankind is undoubtedly a hit for Apple TV+ and its successful run is something we are definitely going to be following. While we’re currently enjoying the show’s second season, we know that we can look forward to another season that is going to be, hopefully, at least as successful as the current one, if not even better. Until then, we know what to do!