For All Mankind Season 4's Biggest Asset Is Time
"For All Mankind" has become not only one of the best sci-fi shows around right now, but one of the best ever. Ronald D. Moore, the mind behind the reboot of "Battlestar Galactica," has made a show that bridges the gap between our reality and far-future shows like "Star Trek." This alternate timeline sci-fi drama not only excels at delivering speculative fiction, but also at delivering intimate drama.
What started as a relatively simple drama about an alternate reality where Russia got to the moon first has now become one of the most optimistic, thrilling shows on TV, one that has reached the cosmos to deliver shoot-outs on the moon, labor strikes on Mars, and even an asteroid heist.
The key to the show's narrative success lies in its use of time. Time is the enemy of people, but it is the greatest asset of "For All Mankind." By skipping forward a decade in time with every season, the show is able to show the repercussions of this alternate timeline on human history, like John Lennon being alive and then becoming a full-time activist, but also the progression of technology, like electric cars becoming common in the '80s and nuclear power being safer and replacing fossil fuels (in turn doing wonders to stopping global warming). More importantly, however, the passage of time with each season means "For All Mankind" often plays on the decades' worth of history between characters, their shared experiences and their traumas.
Case in point, the arc of Joel Kinnaman's character, Ed Baldwin. We first meet Ed in 1969, and over nearly 40 years we've seen him lose his best friend, his wife, and his firstborn son, but also make it to the moon and even Mars. Now, his past is haunting him.
Time comes for us all
After enduring many tragedies, Ed Baldwin has become a man out of space and time. He has spent years on Mars with zero desire to go back home and face reality. So when he is left alone to babysit his grandson Alex, Ed has no idea what to do. To make matters worse, Alex is afraid of Ed, and sees him as a big, frightening bear — which makes Ed remember how his late son Shane used to be scared of him, too. It's a powerful moment that turns things around for Ed, who makes a bigger effort to bond with his grandson.
The reason the moment works as well as it does is that we've seen Ed work through his grief for four seasons and nearly 40 years. We saw how his grief made him kidnap and torture a cosmonaut back in season 1; how he nearly crashed a jet in season 2, and then overcompensated on the loss of his son by giving way too much leeway to Danny, a guy on the brink of a meltdown, in season 3. Shane's death is the line that carries through every season for Ed, and it echoes how grief works in reality: something that never quite leaves you, even if it fades.
The same thing happened earlier in the season when Ed and his longtime friend Danielle Poole had a falling out. That talk didn't come out of nowhere, but was the result of tensions that were pent up for decades. Tensions resulting from Ed's stubbornness and sexism, of his refusal to accept change. "For All Mankind" may be a sci-fi show about grand ideas and spectacular space disasters, but it is at its heart a character drama, and a mighty compelling one at that.
For All Mankind's long-term moves
It's not just character drama that "For All Mankind" builds up to over the years, however. There's the case of Margo Madison's spy thriller story. In season 2, Margo met her Russian counterpart, Sergei, and the two bonded over their love of science and frustrations with bureaucracy. But things got complicated when Margo decided to leak some information to Sergei in order to save lives, an arrangement that continued during season 3. As Margo's secret became harder to downplay, her treason grew bigger, and she ended up sacrificing her safety for Sergei — smuggling him into the U.S., but fleeing with the Russians herself.
With each season, the weight of time makes Margo's actions more meaningful, as we see the impact they've had not only on her life but those around her. She betrayed her friends and her loved ones, as seen by Aleida's mistrust of Margo this season. And it also put her in danger as she is now working for a dictatorial regime in Russia. In the latest episode, a returning Sergei revealed that Margo's current boss is the former KGB operative who handled Sergei back in season 2 — the person responsible for both of their misfortunes.
Even as "For All Mankind" starts moving past the point where there's any logic to the original season 1 characters still being alive and active, it is exciting to see four seasons' worth of story, of time spent with these people pay-off big time. We may not have spent eight seasons and nine years with Ed, Danielle, or Margo, but we still have seen them grow and charge over the years — with heartbreaking results.
New episodes of "For All Mankind" premiere Fridays on Apple TV+, with the season 4 finale set to release on January 12, 2024.