I come in peace... three times a night -- FOR ALL MANKIND (Apple TV Plus)

Good write-up. I like all the characters, I guess, although it did take me a while to warm up to Wayne, but if I had to pick two (PO2- Flight, give me a read on those PO2 levels!) I'd go with Gordo and Kelly, I think.

Soillers galore, obv, but: https://www.vox.com/culture/2021/4/23/22396461/for-all-mankind-season-2-finale-recap-the-grey-review-ron-moore

Heh, interesting typo

S3 Predictions:

-Most of the cast will return having been aged up by sprinkling baby powder in their hair, and nothing else

-In contrast, millions in special FX will be spent on de-aging Michael Stipe to redo the "Man on the Moon" video

-Ron Moore will make a cameo as a young writer at a newsstand reading a Variety article about TNG launching as two Cylons look on

Lol!

Absolute favourite moment was Margo's toothbrush pen

this is embarrassing but I knew literally nothing about Flight KAL 007 until this episode

wikipedia read got me like O_O fuk

if anyone can recommend me a good book about it i’d be grateful

Lol had no idea that was a real event either

the wikipedia article is bananas

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

It truly is, 1983 was such a fucking minefield, I'm glad I was only 11 and all 'tra-la-la' not knowing what terrible cold war, human error shit was going on back then.

I had forgotten about the Soviets shooting down that Korean air lines flight. Question for season 3 (seems to be '93-'95), what event(s) from our timeline will show up in the FAM timeline? Soviet Union or Russia, the Balkan war, Bill Clinton becomes president, Hubble Space Telescope, tech/internet innovations?

I guess Clinton will be knocking about doing something but the timelines should have diverged too much for any of the tech stuff to make sense (they already had video calls and electric cars in 1983, who needs AOL?). Oil presumably not so important so maybe Gulf War I didn't happen. USSR longevity is I guess the big question for the writers - they already didn't invade Afghanistan, does Chernobyl happen?

Speaking of real events in the series, I was somewhat relieved to not to have to relive the Challenger tragedy in '86. I think the show hinted at it a couple of times -- made it seem as if it was about to happen -- but then diverged.

yeah they obliquely reference it in the ep with the korean airliner is shot down
when Margo says to the Russian dude about the Apollo Soyuz (paraphrasing terribly) “we discovered a flaw in the o-ring that it cracks when it gets cold” the subtext is the challenger disaster was averted

There's an awesome power these alternate history shows can have in avoiding historical tragedies. Though it wasn't as striking as, say, what Tarantino did in Inglorious Basterds or Once Upon a Time, I loved that the Challenger explosion was avoided

KInd of hate alternate history unless it is done right, maybe that is a content-free statement, if so, sorry.

yeah i liked how they handled it here
still really impactful & moving without any real signposting

this is embarrassing but I knew literally nothing about Flight KAL 007 until this episode

wikipedia read got me like O_O fuk

if anyone can recommend me a good book about it i’d be grateful

I was 17, just graduated high school and have vivid memories of the KAL007 shootdown. IIRC, the plane was overdue but there was already suspicion that the Soviets had shot it down because they had already shot down another KAL jet in 1978. A week later Jeane Kirkpatrick gave her speech to the UN Security Council. I listened to it in the car on I-40 somewhere between Barstow and Ludlow - I couldn't decide if I wanted to keep going home or turn around and hang out another couple of days with my stoner rockclimbing friends who were out at Kelso Dunes. I went home, but I was convinced that this was going to lead to some sort of retaliatory first strike and then an all-out nuke war. I was in OC - even the Laguna Beach commie hippies demanded bloodthirsty revenge.

Weird associative memory: I saw the Talking Heads at the Pacific Amp the night of the shootdown. I was listening to them constantly through this time.

The Air Crash Investigations episode on KAL 007 is well done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYYqcDUDc44

fuck, I don't want to sound like I'm age shaming, but as I watched the episode and realized that Tom was on a Korean Air jet I was seriously "oh shit, they're really going there!"

As for future events? It's difficult to say, because everything that FAM season 2 has portrayed so far is performatively better than what aerospace engineering and NASA was proposing in the 1990s. I'd love to see the Star Raker make an appearance, but it's a 1978 proposal. After thirty years of a gung ho and well-funded NASA, spin-off tech can presumably be anything but I suspect the collapse of the Soviet Union (maybe the Mars mission will hasten it?) and the internet will be in season 3 somewhere.

KInd of hate alternate history unless it is done right, maybe that is a content-free statement, if so, sorry.

Long time since I've seen it, but I liked how Dark Skies worked itself into history (especially the UFO shooting down Francis Gary Powers). Too bad season 2 never happened.

Get the Project Orion variation Freeman Dyson was working on calculations for and go to Alpha Centauri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

}At 0.1c, Orion thermonuclear starships would require a flight time of at least 44 years to reach Alpha Centauri, not counting time needed to reach that speed (about 36 days at constant acceleration of 1g or 9.8 m/s2). At 0.1c, an Orion starship would require 100 years to travel 10 light years. The astronomer Carl Sagan suggested that this would be an excellent use for current stockpiles of nuclear weapons."

Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Daedalus

That's the scene after the credits play at the conclusion of season 3. USA & the fallen USSR team up and fulfill Sagan's vision.

finished s2 and i bawled my face off

was not expecting it to go that way even though rationally i knew Moore always likes a good named-cast bodycount with finales

please respect my privacy at this time ;_;

I change my mind this show pulls its punches and leaves the important questions unasked and thus blows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuv6TVv0r44

We're not quite done the first season, but I think the premise of this show is totally ingenious. I love how it creates drama from subverting history (omg, are they going to kill Neil Armstrong?! etc.), making you root for characters who are not real but real-adjacent (omg, I can't believe we did it, I can't believe the pretend first woman on the moon pretend discovered water!!!). Like, sometimes you have to remind yourself that yeah, we *did* put a man on the moon, didn't we?

twelve of them, even

so many mens

Men on Moons

In any case, this topic caused a recent revive by me of DSKY-DSKY Him Sad: Official ILB Thread For The Heroic Age of Manned Spaceflight

Can’t remember if I brought it up on this thread or the other or neither, but Gene Kranz never actually said “Failure is not an option,” it was something written for his character to say in Apollo 13 and the real GK liked it so much he used it for the title of his book and ends up being spoken by his character in this show as well.

Wonder what will be the musical accompaniment to Margo's morning routine in the opening episode of Season Three. Speculations are welcomed.

Anyway, rewatching a bit and enjoying, although I am a little more weary of the Forrest Gump-like musical cues, which I tolerated better the first go ground

We just reached the high stakes space rescue episode of season 1, thrilling stuff!

Gordo in all phases is my favorite thing about this whole series, he is so great

I loved Molly most of the way through but i think she got ~too~ ornery somewhere in there & wore out her welcome

I feel bad but I didnt really care much about the lesbian astronaut? name?, but I didnt really enjoy that actor much, felt like she was just doing “bambi eyes” & hoping for the best

ellen?

didn't recognise molly as penny from L O S T but don't think I'd have remembered penny from L O S T if I hadn't looked up molly

I have enjoyed this programme

I really like the way Ellen is portrayed, the way the extra level of repression and her career feedback into each other in some kind of chicken and egg way, but then again maybe I have some special interest in repressed characters, see also longstanding fascination with Mary Woronov.

We're a few episodes into season 2, and while I'm not terribly interested in all the domestic drama, the soap opera stuff, I'm loving the space drama.

Yeah, there’s always that to fall back on.

Wow at that season 2 finale. It almost felt like a situation where, just in case, they came up with something that could stand as a series finale. Just in case. But I look forward to season 3, whenever it arrives. I think filming is done, at least.

love u gordo

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/for-all-mankind-gordo-michael-dorman-s2-1619444342.jpg?crop=0.4993489583333333xw:1xh;center,top&resize=480:*

Some of the rest of family has made it to S2E8 but they are blinking at watching the last two episodes.

buy the ticket take the ride, baby

Wait, are you saying they've watched 18 of the 20 episodes but don't want to watch the final two?

Yes, because too stressful especially after guy who got shot caught fire

Oh, in that case, it doesn't really get less stressful!

Yes exactly.

Yeah, episodes 9 and 10 famously stress free