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

Awesome show, can't wait to get started on the second season.

About to watch S1E1 which is free, I guess.

Gus?

Thanks for starting the thread Leee! I was very taken by this show. Article about the deepfakes they pull off in S2 here

Third season has already started filming and I'm very excited that it will cover the 90s and Mars!

Does anyone else think Gordo looks kinda like Ron Swanson with that mustache in S2?

heard Michael Dorman from Patriot is in it so automatic add to watch list

Happy to see the thread. I'll try not to spoil until enough folks here have seen S1.

Love this show, the attention to detail is both brilliant and never overwhelms the story.

s2e1, lol at Margo's chili hair.

I wholly attribute the single pop-culture alt-history bit that keeps popping up to Ron Moore’s boomerism (as some here have already heard me mention)

Trying not to read the thread yet. Just watched "Red Moon." Great stuff, right in my wheelhouse. See you soon. Now entering LOS.

i just realized i have hardly watched any s2

:O

will start putting that right tonight

Cape cookie sighting early on, S1E2!

This is really good, says I after watching three episodes.

Real James is correct in his description.

Season 2 Gordo is a thing of beauty (beauty = sadness)

S1 = TOS cowboy/cowgirl lawlessness
S2 = TNG apex of bureaucratization (at least 2 episodes in)

As for Gordo: Damn this show for making me empathize with an ex-jock has-been!

oh when we were talking about fact v fiction

i forgot add for anyone who is unfamilliar, Molly Cobb’s character is based on aviator/Mercury legend & badass Jerrie Cobb (who rules) - S1E4 is dedicated to her

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

The story about the big rocket at the very end of S1

Another weird fact vs. fiction which is a small S2 spoiler: Ellen Wilson seemed likely to be based on Sally Ride (particularly keeping her sexuality private), but then Sally Ride also becomes a character on the show!

This is so good, says I 1/3 of the way through S1.

:D

WVB stuff is incredibly well done imho

Probably didn't need to hide that, but who knows.

James: agreed -- I thought it a very important thing to show people who are urbane and charming were capable of being complicit in atrocities, and also the human cost of scientific progress.

S2: early on when Tracy eyes Danny all grown up, it was REALLY uncomfortable because of the smaller age difference between the actors.

Yes, at first I thought they were going to shy away from von Braun's past, but they really DID NOT

If I may go there, while there are some obligatory retro quotation marks, all the personal emotional relationship stuff is deeply, um, relatable, those quotation marks are not at all of the moronic ironic scary variety, as someone like our old friend Momus may have described them.

Feel like maybe that is TMI. We don’t talk about those things.

Houston, how long until that TMI?

can you re-state it in a less oblique way? sorry to be dim but idgi

Sorry I was obfuscating. Just feel like the characters aren't just stranded in their fate in the alternate timeline past. There is some bit of self-awareness in them under the uptightness. Which seems to have been done pretty carefully, so they seem both of their time but more up to date as well. I imagine this becomes more apparent later, I am only in the episode after "Hi, Bob." Don't know if I have explained any better this time around, sorry.

Maybe I just don’t watch enough tv these days and every show already does a good job of avoid this trap 🪤 I imagined while I was suffering from space isolation

Or, to paraphrase what I think JM said on this thread or maybe it was the other, I came for the tech fetish but stayed for the characters.

Okay, maybe I didn't want to go there, but I am especially relating to some of the stuff about being married and being a parent, the way it is handled.

the parenting / marriage stuff is so good, and it just gets more impressive/affecting/devastating as it goes

i know Moore only had a hand in writing a few episodes but careerwise his strength as a show runner & writer has always been his ability find the humanity in characters over beating you over the head w tech/concept

the writers are never so locked into the era/concept that they ever deny a character’s ability to respond like a human person

it’s a really underrated quality

i bawled my damn eyes out over s2e3, let alone s1 — will need tear duct surgery soon if they keep it up

Roger, VG, you are go on that TMI.

Showing the consequences on the characters' personal lives is a strong theme, and I think it's handled very well. Sci-fi as a genre doesn't have the best track record with it either

Watching this episode now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clvrPmTx4n4

Also wanted to say it was driving me crazy wondering who that actor was until I saw in the credits it was James Urbaniak.

So my ickiness at Tracy ogling Danny gets doubled down on in s2e7 when Danny kisses Karen.

Just you wait

Just finished S1. Now to see what this S2 is all about.

I get the impression that the creators of this show definitely watched Halt and Catch Fire. And it’s not just the parallel Gordons.

Just you wait

Hah ikr. Also, s2e8: THAT ENDING. OMFG talk about nightmare fuel.

S2E1 was kind of big adjustment for me but now getting into it

yeah its weird getting used to seeing Ed wuth a few extra pounds & riding a desk

I get the impression that the creators of this show definitely watched Halt and Catch Fire.

Another show I completely adored

wow yeah the gordos are definitely of a piece

Love this show, I feel one of the connections with Halt & Catch Fire is (for me) unfortunate and that's being a bit bashed over the head with seemingly unconnected period music, HEY it's the SIXTIES! Sitars!!! Jumping Jack Flash!!

Although that one Petula Clark song they chose was rad.

yeah some of the music cues have been kinda dumb

can’t remember which ep it was but early in season 1 i got in an argument w mr veg about a better song choice for one of the cues & he was basically like “why are u like this” lol

I would speculate that it could be because they're mixed way up and positioned in this slightly obnoxious, Good Morning Vietnam sorta fashion.

Fully expected Gimme Shelter to appear at some stage (well, S1 EP9), it's like the Helvetica of period film music.

love to hear what John Lennon would have thought about a moonbase

iirc that's what the song "Jealous Guy" is about

I didn’t get the burn right
And made you miss
The TLI

I didn’t want to burn fuel
Until the LOI

Finished S2. Generally, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as S1, for the more bureaucratic orientation of the action, which was nearly all backloaded into the final 2-3 episodes, while all the melodramatic swerves were a little overwrought (the whole Karen/Danny thing was -_-). Even in episode 9, the maneuvering to set up the climactic finale felt heavy-handed, with some very unsubtle foreshadowing that made all the military characters seem like trigger-happy idiots, where every problem has a gun/missile solution. BUT -- jeeeeezis that finale turns things around. I'm not sure I buy Ed's sudden turnaround to fire on Sea Dragon, but the Stevenses? Right in the feels. However, the reveal that Sergei is being forced to try to turn Margo felt heavy-handed too, but I think that's my intense desire for a happy (or more accurately speaking bittersweet) ending.

Okay, settling into S2. Agree about some of the musical (mis)cues I guess, but it doesn't really bother me that much for the most part.

Lking some of the incidental original music though. Just heard some nice Philip Glass-style strings that seem to occur quite often, during an important discussion at the Baldwin house.

S2 Gordo reminds me of C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

The period music thing feels a little more toned down in S2.

yeah def

I feel like the cliche is that 70s period music lends gravitas, whereas 80s music does the opposite. I'm sure there are many counter examples to that (The Americans had a few), but that's my general impression as someone that watches way too much TV

I mean that across all TV/movies, not this one specifically, but might explain why they would use less period music in S2

It’s just the LOI, watch out
It’s just the LOI, look out, babe
It’s just the LOI

S2E6Loving this discussion about Laika over what seems to be a Ramones song I can’t hear loud enough to identify

Also liked Tracy talking to Deke’s memorial/burial site

.

Made it to the end of S2.

My reaction roughly similar to Leee’s, perhaps I will have more to say later

What to watch next after this, The Patriot?

Also I guess I shouldn’t be surprised but still am at all the completely convincing non-Americans in the cast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7OGzlpkH74

Kinnaman’s father was from the US and he spent some high school time here so even though he grew up mostly in Sweden he naturally speaks with American accent, but Jodi Balfour is from South Africa, Michael Dorman is from New Zealand and Sonya Walger (not in the video) is basically British, born in London to an Argentine father, although she is now a US citizen.

Wrenn Schmidt is from South Carolina so she comes by her accent pretty naturally, although I’d guess she amps it up for the character.

Patriot is a black comedy, very different show, but Michael Dorman is also great in that. Halt and Catch Fire has some parallels to FAM (computer pioneers rather than space pioneers, takes place over different time periods, with heavy focus on their personal lives) but no alternate history, basically. I know Man in the High Castle IS another alternate history show but I haven't seen it

I don’t want to admit how far into this show I was and the sense of loss I felt when I got to the end of S2. Except maybe others like VG and JM already said something similar, I think.

Even though I nearly stopped watching when Margo was getting ready to go to work to the tune of "Rockit"

Man In High Castle is great (but also can be maddening & make you want to throw your tv out the window at times).

The Imposter is another good alternative reality show (on prime)

alternate *history

Do you have a link to that imposter show, vg? Please! The stuff I’m googling doesn’t sound right.

lmao would help if i had the name right

COUNTERPART ffs

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4643084/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZzDKUkJB6E

lol

Counterpart is so low key, definitely worth your attention but it absolutely doesn’t loudly telegraph the important parts — which are really the little characters moments and JK Simmons doing subtlety

Aha, cool, thank you!

Counterpart is amazing! I think I raved about it on a different thread. I never would have made a connection between the two shows, but I can see it now that vg has mentioned it

In that video I posted Kinnaman is talking over some of the other cast members, which is kind of obnoxious, I think.

Apparently that whole Gary Cooper thing was just acting. Who knew?

Okay, since I pretty much trust y’all on these things I will take a look-see at this Counterpart.

:D

It seems to affect a lot of recent shows with otherwise high production values but this show in particular seems to be not even trying to age up the actors with makeup when 10-15 years are supposed to have passed, with the exception of colonel droopy's fat thor arc -- and he ends up looking younger than in season 1 by the end!

!

the trick is that you de-age every time you go to space

Flight, we are go on S1E1 of Counterpart.

Wilco

Trailers are not an option.

Re: Counterparts S1E6 enjoyed the big reveal at the end, even though of course they had already made it pretty clear before

Ha, sorry, no ‘s’ at the end, it’s not the story in Dubliners.

Just wait till the next episode, I think it was my favorite of the whole series

OMGWTF at that episode

Meaning Excellent payoff, detailed and creepy

Going to be hard to top. Btw is S2 worth watching?

i am saving s2 as a gift to my future self

lol

Absolutely worth watching

Thanks! Just as long as there is no 80s hair "Rockit" montage

I could watch any number of montages, time-appropriate or not, set to that wonderful song

So the guy who played Gene Kranz in For All Mankind went on to play Chris Kraft in The Right Stuff.

DO U SEE?

Have to say the use of pop music in Counterpart show is a little more sparing and subtle and less Forrest Gump-like than in the titular show. Particularly liked discovering this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ55A__qO3o

Also there was a John Cale song I didn’t know too well that was cool.

“Big White Cloud” from Vintage Violence, which I haven’t listened to too much.

Enjoying James Cromwell much more than I though I would.

This show is so dumb but Im watching it anyway, thanks ilx

yr dumb
and yr welcome

how could anyone not enjoy james cromwell

Sorry, he's always good but, and I know I am dating myself, I always have to get over the tendency to still think of him as Stretch Cunningham from All in the Family.

Is this a spoiler free thread or what. Cause I want to complain about stuff

Thought we were keeping it spoiler free, yes. Do you know how to use the Hidden Text tags?

Stretch Cunningham from _All in the Family_.

i fear i created a monster and i accept blamd but dude you HAVE to stop posting about Counterpart itt now i beg you.

I figured it was annoying, and I will stop now that I have received official notification, sorry.

Push this link at oh-eight-hundred and burn for three seconds: COUNTERPART: Alternate History w/ Creepy Cold War Vibe

PRIME, you are go on that D2 injection

fuck hidden tags

hardcore cringe at gordo’s son making moves on Baldwin wife

2/3 of the way through S2 and drunk Tracy in space is a thing I never knew I needed #spacetruckinfuckyeah

Oh, hadn’t realized you hadn’t finished S2.

taking it slow :)

Good approach. I binged and crashed.

S1E7 touches some deep place in my existence.

Like various things I am interested in or can relate to were collapsed into one tissue-paper spacecraft-piercing meteorite.

Several implausibilities in s2e10 cheapened the experience. the handshake changing everyone’s mind and Reagan diverting Air Force one to Moscow (really????) and Ed’s last minute decision to fire on his own payload (???). Not to mention the wife/kid storyline was shit…and the reveal that the Russian dude isn’t really interested in poor Margo… …. Feel like the overall quality of the show went slowly but steadily downhill.

Is there an ETA for Season 3, anyone know?

They're already filming but imagine a show like this has a ton of post-production. There's no release date yet but guesses are early 2022

Really enjoyed the show but agree with calstars, Several implausibilities in s2e10 cheapened the experience

I went with S2 and enjoyed parts of it a lot, including the boffo last two episodes but yeah. had a bunch of issues, same one calstars did. I even found a Reddit thread deploring the somewhat icky and probably unnecessary "Stacy's Mom" subplot.

oh hey I watched this show in just over a week, and now I say things like "Negative, Flight" when I don't want to do something. It's been fun learning about space stuff (lots of time spent looking up FIDO/GUIDO/astrowives/Sea Dragon/etc on Wikipedia)* and as called out before it shares with H&CF the joy of following the characters hang out/invent the future/screw up over the course of decades. Every scene in mission control is great.

The broader story and character arcs had a tendency to veer between predictable and wtf with not much in the middle, esp in S2.

most bizarre part: wartless portrayal of Reagan, double bizarre given some of the show's other themes

best characters: Margo and Molly by a distance. Wayne is cool too.

Roll on S3, though I guess the timelines must be diverging totally now and I don't really care about the next generation (I will not be happy if Kelly+Danny are the next couple with relationship issues; Aleida is fine)

*One thing I learned while looking into Ed's accident while dogfighting with Gordo was that the top cause of death for astronauts in the 1960s was crashing your T-38 while travelling between bases

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

the last 2 eps are good enough to scout out on your own and then take family along for the ride

Just skip past the stressful parts so your family can enjoy the other *checks notes* 12 minutes of content

Ha, exactly.

the last 2 eps are good enough to scout out on your own and then take family along for the ride

Ride with Sally (Ride), too.

the s3 ending bummed me out for another reason

I was so gutted by Gordo's death because he was my hands down favorite character. But also I was looking forward to the moment when Gordo learns that Karen boned down with Danny. I'm still looking forward to Tracy finding out, and dragging Karen out of her house by her hair and beating the shit out of her on the front lawn, and Ed finding out and going nuclear, but I still wish Gordo was going to be alive for that particular show

Um…

Yes, some bad news for you, VG

ok what now

nvm forget i said anything my brain is so stupid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZKcl4-tcuo

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2021 season is nominated in the ILX TV poll, with voting ending this weekend:

ILX's Best Television of 2021 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends After January 31, 2022

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (3 minimum, 25 maximum, ranked by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Chose an interesting week to binge watch both series...

May have shed a little tear at the end of S2E10.

season 3 on june 10

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

!

yaaaaaay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNmwwz07ftA

Gemini Cricket!

Lol

Is that voice over from Ellen as president?

Oh, good catch!

Whoooops I thought you meant Ellen Degeneres, that would've been some non sequitur.

haha, I had the same thought. I was having waking nightmares of Ellen Degeneres as president in the 90s as a stand-in for… never mind, not moving the conversation there

Lol, forgot Ellen’s surname in the show (?Wilson) and didn’t even think about Ellen Degeneres.

This Friday!

! ! !

No freaking way! Yessss

hooray

Wait, what?

🚀

🛰

WOW!

I love this show.

Your post was what got me started.

After Better Call Saul, probably the show I'm most excited about getting a new season of

Wonder if anyone else watched yet?

are all episodes available now or are they coming out over time?

One by one.

good stuff guess Danny gets the commander job; Ellen as a Republican v Clinton is kind of interesting, wonder how much of a part it will play in the season

Also yay to blown-up Thatcher

I did not catch that first time round!

parts of this episode felt super-Expansey, not just the credits and the space station

(not a bad thing!)

Fair enough

pls lmk where can i rent “Love in the Skies” starring Dennis Quaid & Meg Ryan

Lol

Tbh I was ready to give up about halfway through but then they hooked me all over again.

the news report mini-episodes covering 1984-1992 are fun: no need for oil -> no Gulf War

Got most of the way through the 1st series I think. Was pointed to the show by somebody mentioning they realised the main guy in Patriot was one of the original group of potential astronauts.
So have been watching it intermittently and may pay it more attention if it is seen to be worthwhile up to date.
Just been watching a number of other things at the same time.

Has been pretty annoying in places cos the subtitles are either on all the time or Spanish doesn't get translated or have to keep switching it on and off and rewinding a bit. Not sure if that is the version I got or if it is widespread, subtitles came as part of the videofile anyway.

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

― Spiral Scratchiti (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 12 October 2021 00:13 (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol - I am not up on my classic hiphop so didn't catch it, but I did wonder how it connected to Margo in any way

it was Dont Sweat The Technique by Erik B & Rakim (title’s right there in the song lol)

i loved how they deployed Mariah’s Someday at the wedding (the one you gave away will be the only one you’re wishing for)

Gordo’s youngest (forgot his name) crushed that wedding speech in the best possible ways ie full Gordo maudlin

2nd half of the ep was v exciting - had thought maybe Ed & Danielle would get their time to shine & save the day but still v tense & a great 1st ep

Ed is still an uptight ass, good to see

otm

Super tense first episode. Was thinking it was going to turn into The Poseidon Adventure in Space at one point.

yeah me too, very much that vibe

very "space wants to kill you"

the whole time i was like this is exactly why space tourism wigs me out - when shit goes wrong in space it goes wrong in twelve ways simultaneously

otm

Good return! I agree parts of it felt a bit more like your usual episode of the week sci-fi show, but it kept me on the edge anyway, because I would not have put it past the show to kill everybody in the cast in the first episode.

lol dark but true

I wondered for a sec, but it’s not that show

spoiler re: our newlywed probably otm

it’s insanely classic tv drama that the kid of the lovestruck martyrs has this kind of episode (for both kids, maybe) but it’s a heroic trope nobody does anymore! I feel like there are a lot of things about this show that seem par for the course in 80s shows that don’t get used regularly now

I was thinking about all the Trek veterans on the production side of this show (mostly in a "Why can't nu Trek be this good?" way) but maybe those old tropes are a product of writers who've been around that long.

i def think that has a lot to do with it
plus the shifted time setting maybe means they can play with those kinds of plotlines in a pastiche kind of way without being so heavyhanded about it

Yeah, I think the jumps in time have been genius, and allow for tons of flexibility. Whenever they want, they can essentially just skip a season or two and land wherever they want to, plot-wise.

If I was doing the soundtrack for this series it would be very tempting to try to remix the tracks used, a different world history leading to different artistic outcomes.

Very simple but I loved the science explainer of saying climbing the ladder in 2G is like climbing carrying another you. Of course Danny makes it but that looked like a long exhausting climb.

with Sam dying and Ed fighting with his significant other, are we setting up a return to the Ed & Karen show? with a jealous Danny in the mix?

Plus cool visual at the end of the episode.

I think those two characters are going to get backgrounded, tbh. This was the realization that they had their moment, maybe K gets involved in some hearings or advocacy

I’ve only made it up to the intro credits, but if they do a real afrofuturism arc in this show, this week in tv has made me feel that mainstream serial fiction is doing ok

lol nope, they might try a curveball but this no-hierarchy thing is going to be another tragedy arc

I thought this was the weakest FAM episode since...maybe ever? Just not very interesting. The Ellen kid reveal probably the most complex moment. "Non-hierarchical organisation in space" is a kind of interesting prospect I guess.

very much not here for Karen/Danny content

Jesus Christ that bald cap.

early-90s space google??

All posts otm

Although even though it wasn’t an exciting episode rather much more of an expositional episode, I didn’t experience it as particularly weak. Now wondering WTF is up with Aleida’s husband.

bring back Wayne

Yeah, was wondering about him. Assume they are saving him for some especially dark Molly moment.

Didn't think this was a weak episode at all, setting up a whole bunch of interesting drama that finds way to avoid more US versus Russia tropes. Now it's US versus private industry, which, along with some other political stuff, is the first time the show seems to be leaning into a parallel track with current events.

Objected to Smashing Pumpkins bit - that song didnt come out til a year later dammit. Unless I spose you cant kvetch about that stuff being as its alt history.

I’ve kind of learned to tune out the musical selections on this show to the extent possible, one of the few obvious consistent flaws.

There is a pleasing and accurate beige and oyster-grey 90s blandness that they've nailed in the sets this time around.

I feel like they learned something from the Season 2 startup tbh.

Didn't S2 end with a Nirvana cue?

Yeah but that was to set up the jump to the 90s

If anything it might have overshot the mark, right? Doesn't S2 end with boots on Mars? Which means (I guess theoretically) that S2 "ends" in the later '90s, past S3. Anyway, yeah, this is alternate history, maybe in this world Siamese Dream came out a year earlier.

Josh, I do sometimes wonder if you watch all these shows whilst distracted on your phone or something.

S2 ends with boots on the moon, Nirvana's Come As You Are playing and 1995 in big fucking numbers on the screen

lol, sometimes! But I just watched it again, this second, and no, S2 ends with them on Mars! The song starts and the camera approaches the moon, it shoots *past* the moon in space (wby would S2 end with the moon, anyway?), toward Mars/red planet, it reaches the surface, and then you see a pair of boots of unknown nationality take a step forward.

Yeah, I meant boots on Mars.

It was a cliffhanger/teaser ending showing that S3 would be set in the 90s and all about the race to Mars

Yeah, that I got. I meant as far as year signifiers go, "Come as You Are" is off by a couple of years (forward), too. Should have been "This is How We Do It."

I guess it was just letting the audience know we're now in the 90s (before the 1995 flashes up).

The whole show is an alternative timeline anyway so it doesn't really bother me if they're a couple of years out musically.

smdh can't believe they showed the beatles reunion tour in the mid 80s when we all know it happened in 89

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kid

Kids

Sorry. In a coffee shop and hearing an enjoyable playlist of well-worn 60s but mostly 70s favorites, thinking how they are used up for any future soundtrack appearances so might well appear on FAM. Currently playing: “Spirit in the Sky.”

“Behind Blue Eyes”! This episode is writing itself.

so they have set up [Danny & Danielle (plus Margo) vs Ed & Karen (plus new age tech guy and hopefully Molly)]. It has some interesting possibilities least interesting of which is the love triangle. Will be annoying if that takes up a lot of screen time in future episodes.

format fail, sorry

Failure not an option iirc

Unfortunately I think that the love triangle is going to be a thing this season.

either Danny has to rescue Ed or vice versa, and we have to watch him take a long time to decide whether he's going to do it

hadn't thought that though but makes sense, yeah.

The show's been decent at setting up things where you think they're taking it one way but end up changing it up a bit, though

The profile picture for Wrenn Schmidt on IMDB is wildly different than her Margo look.

that's acting, baby!

FUCK YEAH!

re the episode, that was

tfw your man is getting all sexual but he really just wants your engine design

sad we missed the presidential debate about regulation of private space travel :(

(this is a timeline where there isn't even private internet)

poor Margo :(

What did I just watch?

Or, what Real James said.

Nice that both Aleida and Kelly end up on team NASA but for opposite reasons, one to stay with Margo and the other to get out from Ed's shadow

xpost, care to elaborate on what you watched :)

Great opening. Not sure I can watch the rest until tomorrow.

FUCK HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT ANOTHER WEEK?

Good episode! Starting to see how things fit together. Still very unstoked for whatever the Ed/Danny denouement turns out to be.

really? lol ever since Karen boned Danny all i have wanted it is for Ed to find out in the most awkward way imaginable and blow all twelve remaining gaskets over his ex wife boning his dead best friend’s kid 😂

(i’m way behind in the new season)

OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

They fixed Larry's bald cap.

holy shit that was fucking terrifying

goddamn the “space goes pearshaped”segments always feel real as hell in this show

as the credits came up i shook my head and said aloud to myself "these motherfuckers"

I knew Dev would turn out to be a Marvin

Episode delivers

earlier baldcap was kind of a Conehead/Talosian tribute

keen to see more of:

- What is North Korea up to?
- What will Aleida do when she realises the Soviets have her rocket?
- Is there any culture original to the FAM timeline except Love in the Skies?
- Ed + Danielle + Cosmonaut captain work out how to work together
- Cool flying

keen not to see more of:

- Extended Ed/Danny/Karen drama (obv it's coming but please get it over quick)
- Soviets try to hijack Sojourner (even worse if they somehow staged the accident)
- Ellen impeachment trial
- Jamestown truthers

Drinking of Shiners made the truthers especially scary to me for some reason

how do i get you all to ride w me for Ed/Danny/Karen drama. You all are some basic boring bitches ffs

But came to post this episode now reminding me of one of my old screennames

Okay, thing dropped Thursday night at nine so I think we are safely past the 24 hours from Jamestown rule and can dispense with h-tags.

xp it's ok - when they pause the plot for an entire episode of manly brawling and tearful SpaceTime calls, I'll be less miserable in the knowledge that someone out there is enjoying it

some FAM-reminiscent beats in this article about some of the first female US fighter pilots : https://www.vox.com/features/23179441/combat-top-gun-kara-hultgreen-tailhook-f14

EKD drama could be interesting but better not distract from whatever actual disaster it is peaking with at the same time. It shouldn’t just be Ed and Danny eyeing each other up down a NASA-Helios Jefferies tube like the classic starving and stranded (or snowbound) hot dog vs. hamburger man thinking “do I space him or do I carry him? Which one of these two things should I do?”

This singularity hereafter to be referred to as the EKD denouement, or simply the EKDD.

the only thing that irks me slightly is the actor playing Danny is kinda dead-eyed which will ultimately ruin whatever payoff i get
Gordo deserves better

i feel like i have built up the EKD meltdown in my mind so much that i’ll probably be disappointed when it happens

but also :D :D

separately- is Danielle the fucking best? she is, isn’t she

i do like how the show really confronts privatised spaceflight vs NASA spaceflight in a way that is kind of expected but still somehow weightier than you anticipate

THIS SHOW RULES is what i am ultimately saying

Yeah, loved Dani this episode, particularly the pirate nonsense when they were unfurling the sail, which also fast tracked my endearment to the redshirts.

I especially liked how Dev undermined Bill and Karen by having or subtly or not so subtly encouraging the underlings (to) vote with him and saying "See? Unanimous group decision!"

And yeah, Dani has been great this season, particular this episode.

yeah Dev’s heel turn was v good
you knew it was coming the whole time which made the slow (?) burn worth it

I kinda read the Dev voting thing differently, in that Helios tended to attract a bunch of libertarian-leaning people who were convinced they knew better than government space programs and so why should they bail them out? But since literally the only Helios employees we know are Karen and Strausser and neither of them seem to fit that description, it's probably as yall have been saying, i.e. the boss subtly prompting his underlings to vote the way he wanted.

I think what's kind of astonishing about the last episode is that it's the FOURTH out of an apparently 10-episode season -- like, if things are this wild before we even hit the halfway point, what do they have in store for the finale?!? Please help keep my expectations in check, friends.

Also, DEK (pronounced deek) would be a more pronounceable acronym for the triangle that dare not speaks its name.

Lol.

And yeah, OTM. Last season this would have been episode nine or maybe eight at the earliest.

goddamn what a great show this is.

That woman being crushed by the slow roll of the other ship... aauughh. Horrifying.

Oh God. I almost think that unhooking herself and floating away would have been better. Some absolutely nightmarish deaths on this show that are based on science (suit fire) just compound the nightmare fuel.

From bullets to ships, this show has done a brilliant job depicting the physics of an atmosphere-free environment. Also the nuance of ego and the differences between being first and the less visible win of being best/right. From the Musk stand-in to plausible conspiracy theorists/protests, impressively subtle nods to (our) current events, too, without (imo) being too on the nose.

Are we doing spoilers? Just in case, anyone think that maybe Margo *didn't* give the Russians what they wanted, or maybe gave them incomplete info, and that's why the ship failed? The show is playing her character pretty close to the vest. After the two-year fast-forward it did nothing to resolve whether or not she was still providing the Russians information, or even whether her friend was still alive. That's got to be intentional.

I think this is possible too. Also like the ambigious "if their engine is anything like ours" or whatever she said.

Also
Neptune Records just called and the protomolecule is coming from INSIDE the reactor!

Sergei was sitting at the press conference on TV next to the head of the Russian space agency, so he's still alive. FOR NOW.

I can't even imagine what the next episode will be like except very generally and I don't really want to speculate.

That was an awesome episode. Space sucks and everything can go fubar in an instant. Great hard stop ending with a callback to episode 1 this season.

The season trailer showed boots on Mars with Pres Wilson voiceover so someone has to make it.

WE’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU LARRY

Lol

Very sad it's not Friday yet

I have some life events going on that are somehow in my mind are merging with FAM but don't know whether I will dsicuss on this or even another thread.

Weird shooting script-based subtitle discrepancy this episode.

FUCKIN'-A!

What was the discrepancy?

Subtitles don’t like up with what is said several times in the first dozen minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGeCF1aS-o

Don’t line up

Moscow vs. Star City for one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPCZJFVL3aE

THIS SHOW.

Almost wished Ed kept going (and becoming a smear on the surface) to spare us anymore Bad Danny Decisions. Kiddo is putting his head into the lion's jaw on the regular. That said, Devios lost, so that's a decent consolation. Dani and the cosmonaut with the newscaster doing play by play was a nice and surprising bit of slapstick to ease us down and also a genuine lol.

Question: does anyone know how long the descent took in episode time? Was it actually 7 minutes, because it felt like it.

The Devios space suits are CHONKY.

Perfect episode, one of FAM's best

- They brought back Wayne! I am 100% fine with fan service when I am the fan
- Enjoying the Karen Baldwin/Donna Emerson symmetry. Maybe she'll found a startup?
- Kelly and Aleida are the only good "next generation" characters
- Landing scene, Danielle, rolling onto Mars: perfect

Margo thinks it will work out ok, because she has a plan :(

Margo plans, Gorbachev laughs

goddam the stakes per episode in this show are so fucking GOOD

space is awesome, why arent all shows set in space

that final sequence was very “roger Houston we’re breathing again” JESUS CHRIST … dying at Danielle wrestling the russkie to be first on mars, goddamn she rules!

and WAYNE our king returns to get Karen high yaaaaay thank u wayne

meanwhile Danny is a little psycho and my new theory is he straightup kills Ed now because uh

Ha yeah me and the feller also wondering if Danny just gonna kill Ed/Sabotage something to fuck him up. He's got nutbar in his eyes.

for real!

Danny's already got a hero streak in him. Wouldn't be surprised if he went the way of his parents. Could also, yeah, imagine him trying to kill Ed, or leaving Ed for dead. Or Ed leaving *him* for dead. Or Ed wanting to leave him for dead but doing the right thing and saving him. Or trying to do the right thing, but Danny preferring to die. Or Danny saving Ed. And so on. This show is full of surprises.

Was Danny sending a message to his (similarly not quite right) little brother? Which means his brother knows about him and Karen?

i wondered that too!

The way he referred to Gordo, I assumed it was his brother (Jimmy).

Could anyone else see Karen running for president against Ellen Wilson?

Maybe after she's done being a VC, as a rough stand-in for Forbes or Romney.

yeah i can kinda see it now that you say it

It will be a battle of the secret lives, Karen's past vs. Ellen's. They'll have a big dramatic scene together like Pacino and DeNiro in "Heat." "You know, we are sitting here, you and I, like a couple of regular gals. You do what you do, and I do what I gotta do. And now that we've been face to face, if I'm there and I gotta put you away, I won't like it. But I tell you, if it's between you and the White House, sister, you are going down."

or like DeVito and Dreyfuss in Tin Men!

Do we think Margo knows Ellen’s secret? Other than being President, Ellen hasn’t had too big a role this season. Margo and Danny are getting very stressed by their secrets. Could it be Ellen’s turn soon? Maybe that’s Margo’s play to get out from under the Russian kompromat and free Sergei (though he doesn’t look like he will survive too long).

Xpost Danny. I kinda think Ed and Danny will have to rescue the NASA folks. Danny going out in a blaze of self-sacrifice glory on Mars would be a neat parallel to his parents.

Thing about this show is it's only one five-year fast forward away from changing everything with no preamble.

Yeah but you really think they are going to do that after they just landed on the Redd Planet?

who knows

moore is not exactly the kindest of showrunners, re expectations etc

He was definitely sending V-mail to Jimmy: his name came up on the screen for a moment. (many xposts)

I’m guessing that the Ed/Danny thing is going to play out in a way that subverts expectations, but I think I’d rather be surprised than guess at this point

Kind of hope it involves Danny growing the fuck up and growing past the whole Karen thing

Right, feel like he should move on from Karen to Lee Remick.

I wonder if they'll find Martian life? Would that be the first time the science itself has gone speculative?

Dunno, but one of the upcoming episodes seems to be called “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” if that’s any indication.

Solid episode. Appreciate the small twist that it's (presumably) Larry not Ellen who will cause the scandal.

So is Ellen going to be forced to come out?

No, she is going to throw Larry under the Mars-94

I think it depends on whether the Oval Office recordings get subpoenaed as part of an investigation into Larry (iirc Watergate didn’t happen in this timeline so Ellen doesn’t know that recording everything is a bad idea). The Larry/Ellen conversation about Deke happened for one reason (coming up with DADT) but maybe it happened for two.

it feels inevitable that Danny is going to try to kill Ed now lol - also omg that Dino & Ricky needledrop from Rio Bravo for Ed’s arrival on Sojourner was the fucking BEST <3

Yup.

As someone who has liked every episode of this show so far, this is the first one that I completely disliked. Not the acting, not the writing, not the FX, not the characters, not the A/B/C/D stories. Nada. Don't care where any of this goes.

.

Should stress that "don't care where any of this goes" was just my reaction to a lot of these melodramatic sub-plots, like Danny and Karen, or Kelly and the Russian, or Ed and Danny, or all the closeted characters, which all seem more ... conventional TV tropes to me. I'm definitely sticking with the show, though!

You forget to mention the Margo triangle!

yeah, I don't really care about Margo and that Russian either.

basically, I like all the drama about space, the space drama. not the drama in space.

I liked the family stuff about Ed and Karen and Shane in the first season, felt that really got at something. But after and apart from that yeah, it seems to have just become some more generic plot device stuff.

The fiveheaded hippy kid is offputting for reasons I cant put my finger on but its his head/face. I dont know.His hair? Is that a wig cos he looks weird.

lol, yes. and they keep implying he’s a rube for the people wanting to sabotage shit but are doing a slow burn. they’re gonna fuck you, man

I feel like this show is just doing a trope of people who are on the train to success, and the people inadvertently derailing the train, and you’re on one team, the other, or wildcard

Obviously in point of crisis they try to make us think everyone is wild

I feel like they might have one plot point that gets fixed by the kgb this season because ffs you space idiots, kgb just makes it work

Danny hijinks fortunately not enough to derail the show getting its 4th season picked up: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/apple-renews-for-all-mankind-season-4-1235184977/

jfc christ Danny, even Gordo wasnt this much of a screwup

that toy dog sucked tho tbf

i was thinking oh these weirdo friends of jimmys are going to blow the building and pull some kind of oklahoma horrorshow but no they just stole the statue lmao wtf 🙃

however sunny def gives me normcore squeaky fromme vibes

run far far away jimmy

otm

that toy dog sucked tho tbf

yeah that scene went a long way towards humanising Danny

I don't think I got the truthers' plan - steal an access card so that they could vandalise a statue that's not even inside the building? I guess they must have something else going on

yeah you would have to think so?
otherwise it makes zero sense
like if thats all they have to show for it then they are the wet bandits of trutherdom

didn't spot it but apparently one of Ellen's advisors was Karl Rove

Feel like they are somehow grooming Jimmy to do something himself.

xpost we were laughing abt that!
- also he invokes “Lee” ie Atwater at one point too, special easter egg for the neocon hive watching along at home lol

thinking a bit about the faithfulness to our timeline - even after 30 years of divergence, the main non-space storylines are shaping up to be:

- alternate timeline DADT
- alternate timeline Lewinsky
- alternate timeline Oklahoma City

not sure whether to ascribe this more to laziness or to an intentional concept of "even with space, people are more or less the same"

i think they feel like they have to keep ~some~ historical signposts so that it’s less of a heavy lift & just to try to ground the series overall somewhat

it’s a little eyeroll-y and not necessarily effective but it doesn’t bother me too much

This season feels slight by comparison, but still enjoyable for sure, can't wait until a golden-eyed being teleports in to save them all from the crazy dust storm caused by the drilling mishap and take us off in another direction.

Joel Kinnaman's Ed, not the most dynamic of characters seems weirdly enervated this season, like he's half asleep all the time.

Ha, waiting for some bee gun or something too.

Feel like his shtick is to be kind of tightly coiled guy with a short fuse, like Toshire Mifune or Gandolfini as Tony S. Assuming he survives, there's going to be a moment when he has to back away from offing Danny the same way he backed away from doing something else at the end of last season. Not sure why I think this, just a funny feelling I get for some reason.

Why is it that when there are pill-popping, psyche-unraveling drug scenes in tv and movies there's always a bathroom mirror involved? I'd have thought if you were a wretched husk, beholden to oxy or somesuch, the last thing you'd want to do is watch your own emotional breakdown in the mirror.

i said to Mr Veg it’s not just that Danny has become a terrible crewmber but Ed is the worst commander you could have in this situation esp wrt interpersonal crises

chewing danny out in front of everyone for being strung out AND challenging him to a FIGHT in the command room is pretty much peak Ed

HI BOB YOURE DOING GREAT

(of course I’m here for it)

Sorry, Toshiro.

Maybe the placement of “My Rifle, My Pony and Me” signaled that this was going to play out like one of those embittered old man Westerns? Oh wait.

This episode was better than the last one but jesus

Ed: "You are a huge fuck up! You're hopped up on goofballs! You can barely stay awake! You're zoning out all the time! What are you going to do, hit me? You're pathetic! You're a psycho that smashes dogs! OK, one more fuck up from you and I'm locking you up. In the meantime, here, take over the second most important ship duty on the mission."

Also, how the fuck do a couple of crazy galoots steal a giant statue from NASA's front door?!

"You! You three! What the fuck are you doing out there?!!"

"It's ok, we have an ID."

"Oh. In that case, keep removing that big heavy statute. Do you need a hand putting it in the back of your pickup?"

I like this show when it at least skirts some sort of proximate "what if?" realism, but this kind of shit is just stretching it.

OTM x 2

JIC OTM WRT FAM H2O!

Ed: "You are a huge fuck up! You're hopped up on goofballs! You can barely stay awake! You're zoning out all the time! What are you going to do, hit me? You're pathetic! You're a psycho that smashes dogs! OK, one more fuck up from you and I'm locking you up. In the meantime, here, take over the second most important ship duty on the mission."

To be fair, with limited crews and everyone having different skill sets, this is exactly the sort of thing that happens in real life space/deep sea missions.

.

I mean, you can't confine someone to a brig or do without them; you've already slimmed your crew down to the most efficient lowest number possible.

yeah exactly

Maybe but...still seemed like that the Heilos crew was kind of oversized and some of them were missing. Were they sleeping? On the mothership? Tear the roof off the sucker! Can you imagine Dino in your funk? Gamin' on ya!

Also, you haven't addressed the Manson Family statue abduction issue.

Also, couldn't Robot Dog Boy have done what he was doing whist still keeping one eye on the pressure gauge? Hmm I'll just mosey one over to this conveniently distant corner of Phoenix Base and come back in a half hour to see if everything is going swimmingly. It's like William Demarest giving Eddie Bracken a chance to escape in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek: You get me?

Robot Dog Boy, who has seen firsthand the psycho side of Danny *multiple times.* "Doodidoo, don't mind me, just going to take my headset off and turn my back on this lunatic for a minute while I jot some really important things down at the peak of this dangerous mission, don't do anything I wouldn't do!"

Love that they set up even more space romance between Dog Boy and the Cuban. That's what this show needs, more space romance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH4XGRDJ0P4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKEqGcES4Xw

Yeah the statue theft scene was fucking ridiculous. What was the point of the pass? How would they have done it without being seen? How, for that matter, did Jimmy and lil miss Squeakyfromme stroll around in there without being challenged based on what I know of govt secure buildings, even if he was "space royalty"?

My theory, which is mine: they didn't actually steal the real statue but made a replica which they brought to Jimmy as part of his initiation/brainwashing.

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmO48lOXVe4

not into the jimmy stuff, worse than the danny stuff, quite cringe

the sunny actor is the daughter of actor bryan cranston

What was the horrible song playing in the background when Jimmy was making the phone call to Sunny? Was it Creed or Matchbox 20 or one of those bands?

wasn’t it Sunny Day Real Estate?
iirc

ie def not either of those bands lol

It was totally SDRE. Predicting William Goldsmith level fall out for this character.

Jimmy’s going to end up
a) with his remains being transported to a forensic van in several garbage bags
b) hosting a pirate AM radio conspiracy show from the basement of the Denver airport
c) in jail

d) on a podcast still crying over having his drum parts overdubbed by D Grohl

if it was SDRE and he was calling Sunny, well

The thing I'm hoping doesn't happen is that Aleida finally pins the leak on Margo, confronts her about it at JSC, and Jimmy blows up the building and kills the two of them.

I haven't been watching all that closely lately but aleida knows it was margo doesn't she

If she does, she hasn't admitted it to herself yet.

She looked at her picture and made a face! Film editing 101!

yeah she knows now for sure

Just rewatched s1 - what stands out is how confident the season is, it knows exactly what it's doing with each character and where they're going.

Looking forward to revisiting s2 now (though I may skip the Danny/Karen scenes).

Grump. They way over invested in the Danny and Jimmy plots lines. There is more than enough interesting stuff to build the season without them taking up so much time.

To seandalai’s point, it feels like they lost confidence in what made the show great (minus Danny and Karen) in S1 and S2. Hopefully they can right the ship over last few episodes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DYyds9shCA

really wishing Danny would take his Draco Malfoy routine and go be on another show, just poof, disappear

And while we’re at it, send Jimmy back to theBad News Bears sequel from whence he came.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rui0hzN-EFE

this was fine (didn't even hate Jimmy) until evil Russians discussing MASSIVE UNEXPECTED TWIST right at the end

i mostly liked this ep

definitely inspired by the Apollo 13 #worktheproblem CO2 filter fix … but it’s a good device at this point in the season from a storytelling perspective bc it refocuses character strengths so you get to see Margo run shit, Dev using his engineering knowhow, Karen going back to her Astronaut Wife roots… plus i think it was great to dig into ancient history ie Danny as Shane’s best friend, Ed as Shane’s Dad, to reclarify their tension & relationship though obv a bit too melodramatic

the Russian reveal at the end was a bit too much though, like do we seriously have to do THIS storyline ugh

also i could give a shit about Ellen & Pam tbh but thats just me

Def better. First episode I felt a touch of empathy for the ne’er do well Stevens kids. ||agree with veg grrl’s likes and dislikes. Do any of the survivors know Danny f’ed everything up with the drill? So far the big secrets are still buried waiting for some explosives…||

Arg used discord hidden text formatting

lol

Yeah it occurs to me now (duh covid brain) that the only person who did know what Danny did, is dead. And I liked that nerd too.

That occurred to me too, unless there's some sort of mission data recorder that's logging all configurations.

Given the hab they were in was trashed, I suspect not.

And I liked that nerd too.

Rewatching s2 and young Nick Corrado is the nerdy astronaut who gives Tracy and Gordo the tour of Jamestown when they arrive.

The show is pretty good at callbacks; the fanmail to Tracy that Rossi showed Jimmy in s3 first featured in s1 as letters to the female astronauts when they were still in training

starting to have a feeling that Danny will survive s3 - the way these things usually work is that he will redeem himself and die in the process, but with no witnesses and his confession to Ed being interrupted, maybe he lives and has to learn to live with himself (pretty nervous about what that might be like to watch)

This episode was better at what the show does best, and increasingly sometimes just as silly as every other show that tries to do what this does best but does it worse. Which is to say: focus on space danger, don't get distracted by goofy melodrama! If we're dealing with life or death space situations all the time, that's more than enough suspense to not need scheming Russians, love triangles, etc. If that shit comes up, let it come up naturally, don't make it so, I don't know, TV-like.

Incidentally, why does it matter that the Russians know what they seem to know? They're all stuck on Mars for months and years, what are they going to do kidnap the space baby and raise it as a Russian in their corner of the habitat? It's kind of played for menace, but I'm not sure how menacing you can be stuck in a Mars box.

Points for this episode calling it a marsquake and not an earthquake, I guess.

You can sneak abortifacients into someone’s food/drink.

Oh, great, so is that going to be a subplot now, too?

Finished my s2 rewatch. It's definitely the 80s blockbuster version of FAM: compared to s1 they've turned up the action, the drama, the plot(holes) all the way. It just about hangs together and it's a hell of a ride - the final episode is so kinetic that even if I'd seen it before, it still felt like anything could happen.

(I did skip the Karen/Danny scenes)

You can see how you get to s3 from s2, just keep going along the same trajectory and lose sight of where you started.

Glad they didn't go with the hinted subplot re pregnancy, HOLY SHIT at the end of this episode.

wtf was that ending!

I was hoping Ellen would do the thing, aka the I'M GAY, Y'ALL speech at some point as I couldn't see this going into a drawn-out political clusterfuck

I mean, it will be that, but not probably not with her turning into Nixon

Though not without teasing us with some Watergate Greatest Hits first.

I know that largely speaking we're here for the spaceships but the emotional beats still got hard, even if some of it is a little undercooked.

But yeah this show has been spoiling us stupid with their endings this season.

With the twin towers appearing prominently behind every news clip, wondering if Jimmy or the truthers are going to do 9/11 at the beginning of the next series.

Also no one seems to have noticed the missing statue yet.

yeah wow @ that ending

i expect a great many things but i truly never expected that

lol I jokingly called it a second or two before the reveal! My wife was like, no way. And the show responded a moment later with: way!

this was an ok ep, good human drama (as opposed to silly human drama).

Yeah good drama. do we think the North Korean dude was sent up to Mars without a way back home Laika-style? He looked like he was on his own. And how did the eye in the sky on the Phoenix not spot their activity? But still cool twist

I imagine Phoenix wasn’t looking: they only knew the probe was there just before they went to find it because the Russians gave them the coordinates.

The Watergate-y subplot, can anyone clarify.

The original incriminating conversation was in the Oval Office right, not on the phone? Or am I misremembering?

So if they're reviewing the tape in the Oval Office, and there are mics are in the room, wouldn't it just get taped over again?

The incriminating conversation was taped in the Oval Office not on the phone. When they showed the portraits on the wall in show Oval Office pretty sure it was Nixon in the center flanked by Lincoln and Washington. And yeah listening back to their conversation would re-record it.

just got to the new episode now lol that was ridiculous

good parts of the episode:

- Pam watching TV
- "you're dead to me" after Bill does to Aleida what her boyfriend did in S2

agh meant to do hidden text not quotes but I guess it doesn't matter much

Ah, they should have played How Bizarre over the end of episode reveal imo.

*bump*

HOLY SHIT

But no post-credits flash-forward!

What do you mean?

Oh.

Curious to hear what the non-James posters think.

my review: mostly lol, kind of sad

One thing I meant to post about after my recent rewatch was the almost-totally-unexamined evocation of the colonisation of America as the precedent for space exploration...like I think literally once someone says "what about the Indians?" but it's all Lewis and Clark and the Mayflower and Jamestown and pioneer days. I get that it is totally how e.g. Gordo would see things but considering that attention to other aspects of social justice is a defining characteristic of the show it's pretty weird to put it in the season-closing monologues in S1 (by Ellen) and S3 (by Kelly).

the Margo exfiltration twist was ridiculous and totally out of established character (not to mention how did it even happen)

oh yeah Danny in space prison (with a halfheartedly buried gun nearby) also ridiculous

This season was okay, it feels like the excitement of the alt-history aspect has faded, not that they're not pursuing that line, obv, but maybe it's just not sustainable. I liked the cold-war-iness of the first season best.

If the whole Jimmy plot was just a device for the last episode, then ugh, that could have been so much better done, and the exact purpose of this weird cell of 'activists' should have been telegraphed a bit more clearly and could have been written with more genuine threat imho.

Rmde at Radiohead.

pretty bad season, i expected a downturn but not one this steep

the Margo exfiltration twist was ridiculous and totally out of established character (not to mention how did it even happen)
I assume it was organised by the Russian lady from the Americans? And the fact the building got blown up was a convenient happenstance to let Margo look like she'd died.

I assume, speaking of which, that was based off the Oklahoma City bombing?

LOL @ Danny in Space Jail.

hm I meant to spoilertag all of that oh well.

I was with every single ridiculous moment all the way to the end INCLUDING dangerously pregnant Kelly propelling herself into orbit if only to prove that NASA still thinks of astronauts as crash test dummies AND exiling Danny to Shuttle North Korea AND bewigged weirdos blowing up JSC because, well, uh. its 1995 and we have to…. but they just couldn’t help themselves and they just fucking make Margo LIVE?!

for why?

I trust Moore for one thing and that is to just fucking wholesale kill major cast members on a whim and if he is not going to do that them what are we even doing here

also i really fucking hate Pam and her stupid groucho eyebrows

i do really love this show though

or i will in a couple of days

sorry last thing

cut to kelly delivering baby on earth and the doctors being all sorry you are both completely made of radiation theres no way either of you can live we’re sorry beeeeeeeeeep

I really wanted some sort of alien contact scenario to happen and for the whole series to make a left turn, also given the episode's ending, jump-ahead moment, they're gonna run out of timeline pretty soon, totally praying that they're not cooking up some sort of Q/Trump/4Chan/Conspiracy/tinfoil hat story.

…isn’t that what we just had???

In a way, sure. But I wonder if there will be a full-on Trump analog (with all the bullshit that goes with it) in the same way this was an Oklahoma Bombings one.

wtf VG, Pam’s great

i can’t stand her & i don’t know why so i’m putting it down to eyebrows and I stand by it

Love Pam.

I see a lot of love for Pam elsewhere too, but I kind of think she's something of a non-entity? Probably her s1 appearances coloring my outlook.

Nitpicky complaint: Apparently the trip to Mars takes 6-7 months -- how could the DPKR capsule sustain TWO people for that long? If their capsule had more compartments for food/pooping, wouldn't any other space agency have been able to determine it was bigger than an unmanned probe?

Also this isn't another point, I just wanted to see how adding an empty newline works in spoiler tags.

I think the capsule that landed would have only been a part of the larger ship that got them to Mars, so the capsule itself only needed supplies, etc, for the time AFTER landing.

And then with one crewmember dead, the survivor then had twice as much food.

Presumably there’s an uncrewed North Korean ship in a decaying Martian orbit that nobody has spotted yet, since Mars hasn’t got a big network of satellites looking out for such things.

yeah that was my thinking too

So Margo and Sergei kinda switch places ? I like Sergei as a character and actor - though sounds unlikely he will survive to next season with all the torture. RIP Molly and Karen but Molly more. The whole Jimmy / nutters angle was poorly written. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of the Stevens brothers. The original cast should have aged out of active roles, it’s should be up to the Aleida, Kelly and space baby in 2003. Overall not as good as S1 and S3 :(

Why are we assuming S4 will jump to 2003? That couldve just been a flashforward, and Margo wont be seen again (a la Martha), or much anyway.

Surely at least they'll have to do a catchup of what happened to the remainders on Mars. Jumping 8 years without any explanatory story would be utterly daft.

WTF why does the hide tag fail if I have a line spacer?

In S2 and S3 the previous season's flashforward comes about halfway through the story, so S4 may start late 90s ish? with the millenium bug as the primary antagonist?

https://www.vulture.com/article/for-all-mankind-wrenn-schmidt-margo-finale-interview.html

I second her suggestion to get even more members of The Americans cast on the show. I was going to joke about hoping Margo meets up with the Jennings, but considering the Soviet Union seems much more successful in this alternate history, maybe they never had to feel the US. Sergei better be careful of any new neighbors that move next door...

Isn't air in a show like this pretty much a supplied commodity. so if a craft with seemingly heavily limited resources crash lands how does it remain breathable for however long that was. Seems not to be very likely surely.
It is something I have wondered about before in shows with low budget space travel. Air needs to be present in some form even if it is cannisters to supply a spacesuit. Having it freely available creating an atmosphere inside a ship surely does take some doing. Not sure what you need for it and presumably a lot of the time they create a mcguffin to cover how it's sustained. Looked like Korean guy was stranded for months.
Am I missing something.

Also killing off Molly offscreen is kind of a dick move, though probably happened for budget reasons.

With efficient carbon dioxide scrubbers you can reuse your atmosphere for a long time. The ISS reuses its atmosphere repeatedly, it isn’t constantly supplied with big oxygen tanks.

More hints about s4.

https://www.theringer.com/tv/2022/8/12/23301727/for-all-mankind-season-3-finale-joel-kinnaman-interview-apple-tv

I always thought the show was going to have a hard time introducing itself to the audience because it’s not until Season 3 that you really understand what the grander vision of the show is.

so happy that S3 revealed the true nature of the show :(

I get the sense that he may not be a good interview subject.

Wrenn Schmidt comes across as a much more thoughtful interviewee. I’d forgotten about the Werner von Braun plot in S1.

I had a long piece typed out that got fucked up, but I'll say I agree with "mostly lol, kind of sad."

But anyway:

So much of this season's finale, which was generally competent (acting/directing) was set in motion by so much silliness and stupidness and people being stupid in service of stupid television. Just totally contrived. It's a show about space and solving space problems. I don't need all this manufactured cliche drama.

Jimmy's whole subplot was dumb. Who hates NASA that much? Why? And we all know NASA security sucks, because look what this news van managed to bring in, and the stolen statue, but pistol whipping Jimmy in a crowded news scrum parking lot? Then tying him up? I mean, come on. There are dozens of reporters there with cameras etc.

And Karen, when she learns that something is clearly going on, when someone not Jimmy picks up the phone and she *sees it*, she ... doesn't get security?

I'm glad Ed put Danny in his place, again, finally saying out loud what we'd all say - "you think after that I'm going to put you in charge of something so important!?" - but space jail? Really? To what end? I'm not sure I want to watch a show with Danny and Jimmy still in it. Fuckin' Stevens kids.

And North Korean guy, how had he survived? Where did he get enough food? How was he planning to ever get home in the first place? Was the gun sent as a suicide failsafe? Anyway, it is now Chekov's gun, because for no good reason they conveniently buried it and marked where it was buried ... right next to the space jail. (How did Ed remember so much Korean several decades after his casual war exposure?)

Kelly ... who even cares about Kelly and her stupid space baby? She was dumb to even risk getting pregnant in the first place, and her flying through space was super dumb.

And Margo ... not only was escaping to Russia dumb (how?!?), but why would they smuggle her intel-connect boyfriend into America after learning he was the other anchor of a multi-year spy ring?

And so on.

Whoops. Spoilers ahoy!

("Sorry, don't know what went wrong." - me, and also the show's writers)

who hates government agencies? and what if they’re maybe hiding big things? maybe they’re a corporatist lesbian conspiracy! maybe one of the two

seriously though, man, “to even risk getting pregnant” like, space condoms are 100% magically and doing it in the space program isn’t hot?

have your experiences been like “yes earth wife, the condoms are tight and the time is right and we’re on earth so variables are ok”

Some of these are not questions needing asking:

And Margo ... not only was escaping to Russia dumb (how?!?), but why would they smuggle her intel-connect boyfriend into America after learning he was the other anchor of a multi-year spy ring?

Margo’s military contacts smuggled him in, who are seperate from the FBI, and so had no idea he was part of anything.

nd North Korean guy, how had he survived? Where did he get enough food? How was he planning to ever get home in the first place? Was the gun sent as a suicide failsafe?

He was the sole survivor if what was probably meant to be a multi-month 2-person mission, so had double the food he needed, and as for planning to get home, he obviously wasn’t (landing craft wrecked) hence the whole intending suicide thing. The gun was presumably included because 1. it was a traditional part of Soviet space kit (Gagarin had one on his first man in space flight) and 2. this is a history that has already had armed US/Soviet combat on the Moon, so who knows what would happen

When I saw Margo looking around her office then sitting down at the piano I was certain they were gonna find her in there at some point having taken her own life.

And Karen, when she learns that something is clearly going on, when someone not Jimmy picks up the phone and she *sees it*, she ... doesn't get security?

She does get security though? And then the guy triggers the bomb when he notices her doing so.

No she doesn't, iirc she gets that weird call from Jimmy, then she heads outside the building to look around, then she calls Jimmy back and sees the phone ring and young Josh Brolin pick it up and hang it up, then she goes to investigate, then she finds Jimmy in the back of the van, lets him out, then she gets security, then it blows up.

DOWN AND TO THE LEFT

I wonder if Moore and the other showrunners even understand why people liked season 1 and 2. There's a lot of interesting science drama (wait, there's more than enough buried water on Mars to bring down a cliffside? Helios' merging of their ship with the hotel) that previous seasons would have devoted more time to instead of Stevens brothers' bullshit. Felt like the North Korean plot was lifted from Arthur C. Clarke's 2010 Odyssey Two and bolted on here. Presumably everyone is supposed to remember that it was a piece of DPRK space hardware that damaged the hotel in the season opener and *irony alert* it's a piece of DPRK space hardware that brings everyone back.

In a way, sure. But I wonder if there will be a full-on Trump analog (with all the bullshit that goes with it) in the same way this was an Oklahoma Bombings one.

I'm guessing Season 4 will be a full-on Global War On Terror + 9/11 season as petrocrats who don't have lunar Helium-3 investment economies act out.

I don't think the ideas are that bad, you could have made a good season out of:
- Government and private initiatives compete to be first on Mars
- The stress of the Mars expedition stretches the astronauts to breaking point, and some do break
- Because of its dominant influence on the economy and culture, NASA becomes a focus of anti-government sentiment
- Margo realises she is in too deep with the Soviets and has to keep her head above water while dealing with all the above

But the execution didn't really work. The stories were underdeveloped or didn't make sense (the anti-NASA storyline went protest->stolen statue->bomb with pretty much no connection between them). Danny and Jimmy needed to be characters that we cared about (e.g. the Ellen storyline wasn't that great either but Ellen is a character I feel invested in so I enjoyed it).

Just started Season 1. If the last season has been bad, should i just give up now?

I suppose BSG got worse and wose from around the end of Season 3, but I'd still happily watch the first seasons

No, first two seasons are really good, and the third one is still competently made, just frustrating after the first two. Sort of like Battlestar Galactica, iirc.

first two seasons are fantastic, don’t hesitate to jump in

I thought season 2 was boring, but season 3 is awesome (finale aside).

pvmic lol

i just finished season 1 and thought it was excellent. we’ll probably keep it rolling until our free apple tv thing expires but i’d 100% endorse season 1.

will agree that seasons 1 and 2 are almost miraculously great television while season 3 feels like a different creative team took over and had two weeks to get some scripts in

Have to wonder what season 4 is going to be like.
It can be pretty gung ho even at its best. I guess anything to do with the US space programme may be a tad propagandistic about the underlying message of what America is supposed to be. & other people have mentioned that settler colonial message that keeps popping up in speeches throughout. But it does have a liberal side in the presence of women early on in the space programme and some black presence even if the main moneymaker guy is black & at least giving the surface level idea of egalitarianism in his workplace.
But keeping communist Russia as the bad guys after the point the Soviet Union ceased to be in the real world has some message to it surely.

Season 3 does move further away from real history than other things have. & the feel does change. Might have been better to have further exploration of motivation for some actions and wonder if suggestions of this were progressively written out or just plain skipped. I need to look further into Carbon dioxide scrubbers and in what circumstances they do and don't work and how much energy they need. I'm still stuck with it being odd that a person might survive that long in what must have been a damaged craft surely. Though it must be intact enough to be used for its final purpose. Though how convenient that is to the story seems to rankle a bit too.

Deciding what to do with the USSR seems like an important question - if communism still rules in the 2000s what does it look like? Keeping it basically the same as in the 1980s would be odd, Putin-like authoritarianism would match FAM's liking for sticking close to our timeline for inspiration (even if the dates would be off). Or they could just ignore it and just keep the Soviets as sneering adversaries without any texture.

So The Expanse starts in 2350 with a unified government on Earth and the Moon with competition from Mars and the Belters caught between. How we get from FAM in 1990s to whatever future comes 100+ years later would be a fascinating to explore. Like does FAM's space baby unify Russia & the US and head Earth down a path towards planetary government? The quick glimpse of Margo at the end of S3 suggests not. I guess we will get the story of early colonization of Mars. They didn't really deal with what's happening on the Moon in S3. Maybe they can keep the plot running for another 10 seasons to cover the whole 21st century. Current cast will need some serious make-up work lol.

Just caught up on this season the past week. The space race episodes were pretty strong and it got weaker when they got to Mars. The subplots were hit and miss - everything involving Jimmy totally terrible - and more leaning towards dramatic storylines you'd find on any show. Liked Ellen's story though. Dunno if anyone mentioned it but Kelly's rescue was also extremely similar to the movie The Martian, which... I imagine the writers must have realized, right? Weird they'd copy it so closely. Still a good season overall for me, ready for S4

It’s strange how little China figures into this show. Does the survival of the Soviet Union mean that China is somehow kept from rising?

well, in our timeline the chinese space program didn’t really hit their stride until after the most recent season of the show and I could see them waiting for their own independently-developed technology instead of buying last season’s soviet gear

It’s strange how little China figures into this show. Does the survival of the Soviet Union mean that China is somehow kept from rising?

In the beginning montage of season 3, episode 1 there's a newspaper headline with a clear "China set to open first moon base next month" headline dated 1987.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/for-all-mankind/images/0/0b/FAM_301_PressReview_20_China_Moon_Base.png

lol that's some attention to detail!

pvmic lol

Was this to me? lol I swear I'm not trying to be contrarian.

no we just often end up at opposite ends of the spectrum in tv viewing etc, i like it!

I know VG doesn’t like for me to mention other shows on this thread but I just came to say that I am currently getting a Gordo fix by watching Patriot for the first time.

i need to do that

It’s so good, some absolutely astonishing sequences, and he is great in it.

To muddy the waters further, his brother is played by the same actor who plays Ricken on Severance.

talented family!

Indeed. Syd Straw’s significant other is in it too.

When you’re ready, there is a Patriot thread since awesome shows should have a thread

Patriot on Amazon Prime: Let me Walk You Through Our Donnely Nut Spacing

Was wondering, thanks!

Ricken also is an Imam(?) on Ramy.

wait a fucking minute here

Gordo, like, Michael Dorman, is from fuckin NEW ZEALAND? 🤯

well his accent is on point bc i bought him as from Texas even back when i started & dnf Patriot

hat’s off

which reminds me i need to try that Joe Pickett show he’s starred in recently

Gordo, like, Michael Dorman, is from fuckin NEW ZEALAND? 🤯

He's in a great movie called "Triangle" where the entire rest of the cast is Australian, and they are all playing Americans. Weird to have an all Antipodean cast that's playing Americans.

talk of Gordo's new show reminded that (can't remember when reading thread ages if noted)

was amused by the fact that the biopic made about Gordo and Tracy starring Dennis Quaid & Meg Ryan means that regardless of the erasure of the film The Right Stuff in that timeline, Dennis Quaid still got to play an astronaut called Gordo
cosmic balance and all that

Starting to watch Triangle now, thanks. Seems to be a worthy addition to the thriller on a (sail)boat genre.

And good call about DQ.

I HAVE JUST REALISED GORDO WAS CHRISTIAN IN THE SECRET LIFE OF US WTF

lol this guy is full of surprises!

Right now I would watch this dude in anything.

= how i am feeling

plus he’s kinda hot? esp in patriot

I recently watched the whole of excellent/ridiculous crime show BANSHEE starring Anthony Starr, now on The Boys, and he's another NZer whose accent work is astonishing.

We are three episodes into For All Mankind and loving it.

Enjoy! First season especially is the most pleasantly surprised I've been with a show in years.

This show is so good. It's like Mad Men had it's DNA replaced by GLOW.

There are some things I roll my eyes at once in a while, but its relentlessly positive vibe has just won me over. Who wants to nitpick when we are exploring space?

Exactly

for real

Absolutely.

Man, Patriot is like watching a whole series based on “Hi Bob”/dinner club circuit Gordo.

haha that’s very true!

S1 E7-8. Holy shit, just devastating. What a show.

Haven't been giving episode by episode reaction here, but I'll just say this is one of my favorite shows I've ever seen. The ending of S1 was pretty amazing.

The S2 build up capped by the one-two punch of E9-10 was possibly even better. The end of episode 9 with the scene of the cosmonaut team climbing through the windows of Jamestown with AK-47s was just pure menace. And E10 was a masterclass in sustained tension even though I pretty much guessed the ending.

I like that the show does an excellent job of zigging when you think they are going to zag. I have noticed they like to really tease you by making you think a worse outcome is going to happen before pulling back, but they are so assured it works.

Also, did not realize how much soap opera there was going to be or how much I wouldn't actually mind. Like some sort of space . . . opera.

S3 E1 was the worst episode of the series by far. More ridiculous sentimental action in that one episode than in the previous two seasons. Felt like a later Game of Thrones episode. Hope the whole season isn't like this.

Makes me feel better that your reaction is very similar to the reaction many of us had to S3.

You couldn’t pay me to watch S3

It's not *that* bad. I'd watch it again if someone paid me.

Ha, yes, exactly.

I wish the show had done another season set in the early ’70s before time jumping. Aside from being more fond of that era than the 80s, I liked the show best when its alternate history wasn’t so fantastic. Also, when had more relation to its advertising as a show about women astronauts. I don’t find the new cast as compelling as the original, so not looking forward to them taking over as the timeline gets further from the first season.

^OTM 100%

My wife referred to S3 E1 as The Towering Inferno.

Molly in S3 E2 : Pacino in Scent of a Woman.

The show is bad now, but in kind of a fun way.

Oh yeah, Danny Baldwin has all of the gravitas of James Hurly in Twin Peaks.

Thought pretty much the same thing about S3 E2. Keep ‘em coming!

Oh yeah, Danny Baldwin has all of the gravitas of James Hurly in Twin Peaks.

lol good comparison. maybe Danny will give us some singing next season

OMG

Is next season when one of the Baldwins gets a cute little alien sidekick or is it TOO SOON?

My wife was dying at the scene of Danny glancing up at the statue of his parents outside NASA HQ, looking like a petulant teen who just got grounded.

UGH, we just finished s1 and I want to dive into this thread but it starts at s2, whyyyyyyyy

Really good stuff. Between this and Patriot I'm pretty much onboard to watch literally anything Michael Dorman does. And even though I thought the show itself was pretty awful ('though the acting was mostly very good), I'm glad that we watched The Killing before this so that I can fully appreciate Joel Kinnaman's incredible range. Kinda love everyone here, though, even though I haven't encountered most of these actors previously

Took me waaaaay too long to realize that Deke was Frank Sobotka.

For All Mankind costume designer plays part in NASA’s next-generation space suit

Henry Fool is the film of the day on MUBI today, which reminded how long it took me to realize James Urbaniak was in this.

Just watching a show on Apple and a trailer for the new season popped up.

November 10th!

Will watch, I suppose.

Everyone seems consistently aged up by not aging them up at all except for Baldwin whom they've turned into David Harbour.

omg new season :D

and S4 starts on the 10th

Saw that

Season premiere was fine. I hope they don't lean too hard into the soap, but I have a hunch that's what we're gonna get. Between this and "Battlestar Galactica," Ronald Moore has become the top name in not knowing what to do after the success of the first two seasons.

The 4 minute info dump was a little much

lol at (presumably) killing Danny between seasons

feeling good about the H&CF Season 2 arc for Kelly and Aleida

ed looks like villain-mode malkovich in his old age mskeup

i like all the margo in russia stuff.
the whole swan lake on the tv was a great touch i

An H&CF story arc would be v cool.

We’ve got Daniel Stern playing the head of NASA on FAM and Paul Reiner played head of the lab in Stranger Things. Guess the cast of Diner is ripe for the kindly but still kinda evil head bureaucrat roles.

I want Margo to bump into Martha!

lol, glad I'm not the only one who starts mixing this show up with The Americans every time we're zapped back to Russia.

smorking that lound in space

Poor Margo.

Bill/Aleida was special, the rest was fine

Wayne shoutout though!

they teased us with class warfare in space and a coup on earth, and we got more black market capitalism and a different type of coup succeeding

this season is kind of a yawn

like theres ok moments, the margo stuff is ok & yeah bill & aleida was cool

but also we are so far from Gordo now its like what are we even doing anymore

I think the series owes more to Halt and Catch Fire more than any other recent tv show, but having the core cast evolve and age out/die definitely pushes the focal point more to the altered history and politics

The hvac guy has an interesting plot arc but it’s underserved by having him be a pretty stock character so far. Seems like that whole thing might have been a setup to bring our NK friend back into the mix

Some silliness with the Kelli & Aleida plot this week. And some seriousness with the Margo plot. Hopefully that’s sufficiently vague.

Solid episode, finally enjoying the Margo storyline. I'm guessing that something Miles saw on his excursion - the shiny rocks, the crevasse, something - will turn out to be a crucial plot point later on, otherwise what was it for.

Gonna be like magic life-housing space rocks that no one noticed before.

I don't really care about that dude, and when they gave the cosmonaut a sad farewell this ep I thought, you know, I didn't care about her, either. They're juggling a lot of different overlapping storylines this seasons.

Not clear if Ed has anything to do. Dani should send him home.