Kevin C. Wong

Apple TV+ - For All Mankind s3 (2022) [+]

For All Mankind season 3 continues Apple TV+'s alt-history space race show. [SPOILERS]

We jump a few years forward to 1992. The first three episodes are setup to create a three-way race to Mars:

  • USA: Led by Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) and includes Ed Baldwin's daughter Kelly (Cynthy Wu).
  • Russia: New characters. Their ship uses engine designs given to them by head of NASA Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt)
  • Helios Aerospace: A tech company headed by the brilliant Dev Ayesa (Edi Gathegi), who brings in Karen Baldwin (Shantel VanSanten) and hires several people from NASA including Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) to head the mission.
In episode 4 we jump to 1996 as the spacecraft take off then land on Mars and try to do science/exploration in a few months before their return window closes.

After a space catastrophe USA and Russia combine their surviving teams and land on Mars first but even though cooperating each team has their own priorities. Meanwhile the Helios team has a big ship and lots of resources but a ticking time bomb in Danny Stevens (Casey W Johnson) who has been slowly feeling the pressure and started taking drugs to cope.

Back on Earth, NASA engineer Aleida Rosales (Coral Peña) realizes the Russians stole her engine designs and is determined to find the NASA mole while being subtly blocked by Margo. Danny's brother Jimmy Stevens (David Chandler), still bitter from the deaths of his parents and blaming NASA for a coverup, falls in with an extremist group that threatens NASA. President Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour) reaches a crisis that threatens her administration and legacy when her husband has an affair then lies to Congress about it...

The really interesting parts are the race to Mars and then being on Mars. Reminds me of the National Geographic Mars (2016) fictional tv series that ran two seasons. They had 13 episodes and less characters/back story so could concentrate more on what it would be like to colonize Mars. For All Mankind gives us a more dramatic/character-focused take.

Season 4 moves to early 2000's though no indication of the big thing (season one ended showing a big Lunar moon base, season two ended with a brief shot of astronauts setting foot on Mars, season three ends with a shot of Margo waking up in some Eastern Bloc city).