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selenakI finished the third season of For All Mankind, and thus all broadcast so far. (Youtube tells me there is a trailer for a fourth season, set in 2003, so this AU will be with us for at least one era more.) Still immensely watcheable, and I loved the big twist of the season premise. Now that's the right way to play with expectations and widen your fictional universe at the same time. (A more spoilery comment beneath the cut.) There were also new Cold War tropes interwoven, which made the The Americans watcher in me go "Are they actually giving (Spoiler) Martha's storyline? They are!". One big unsolved mystery is why, given the season premise, no episode managed to work in Bowie's Life on Mars, but hey. Maybe Moore & Co. thought it was overused by now.
This season is set partly in 1992, partly in 1995, and from an AU pov, it was fascinating to see what alternate or similar developments the show came up with. (Beyond faster technological developments courtesy of the ongoing space race; in this universe, NASA by the 1990s has become financially self sustaining courtesy of marketing their inventions originally made for the space program. This in turn meant electric cars, lap tops, touchscreens and emails happened a whole lot faster than in real life.) One way where society did not develop faster was regarding same sex relationships, which after being a subplot through two seasons involving one of the main astronaut characters becomes a main plot in s3. This is also connected to the general political American developments, which are partly different, partly parallel to rl events. (Re: Presidents - because Ted Kennedy does not go to Chappaquiddik as a result of the different moon landing fallout, he remains a viable Democratic candidate and wins against Nixon in 1972. Because he's Ted Kennedy in the 1970s, he still has sex scandals and a one term presidency, with Reagan coming in a term earlier. But Reagan isn't followed by George HW Bush, but by Gary Hart, who doesn't have a scandal and becomes a two terms president. In 1992, Bill Clinton is the Democratic nominee, but gets defeated by a (fictional) Republican candidate, who is President for the majority of season 3. The Republican party still has an evangelical wing, but so far, no Tea Party crazies have shown up. (Newt Gingrich was once mentioned in dialogue, but isn't Speaker, because with a Republican President instead of Clinton, the Democrats have the House.) Reagan doesn't seem to have been as big an influence as he was in our timeline. It feels a bit like the West Wing verse, where Democrats and Republicans are opponents and either party has jerks and backroom deals, but also a public service code and, oh eternal bliss, Fox News and the radicalisation going with same doesn't seem to exist. (There's a conservative network called Eagle News instead, but the brief clips shown so far aren't comparably poisonous and deranged.) I don't know whether that means Rupert Murdoch chose another career instead, but it certainly is another plus of this universe.
Now, so far the show while showing an increasing number of Russian characters has remained in the American pov, but it did provide some nods as to why the Soviet Union survived into 1995 instead of falling apart. Because of the Russians going to the moon first and throwing most of their money and energy into the ongoing space race, there is no Russian invasion to Afghanistan (presumably this means also no US backed Mujaheddin and no Taliban?), and Gorbachev's economic reforms actually work. (Otoh, no mention of German reunification. One hopes Putin remains stuck in Dresden among the Saxons.) (In rl, Putin was stationed in Dresden as a KGB official when the wall came down.) (It just occured to me: if there's no reunification and still a West and East Germany, one half of us is spared Sahra Wagenknecht. BLISS.)
Otoh, I was a bit slow; it took me most of the season to remember a certain spoilery rl event from the US in the 1990s which has a devastating and very appropriate for this new context parallel in the show in the finale. This despite the effect one show character is given a very similar background to the rl character he parallels. Anyway: you know how some AUs don't really bother with thinking their premise through because they just want one particular scenario? This is true for most of the "What if the Nazis won!" AUs I've seen and what makes them so annoying. I haven't come across one which didn't feel like the creator(s) wanted more than just a costume cosplay featuring the Evilest Villains (tm).) By contrast, this show so far does quite well with the increasing ripple effects.
lizbee said that the aging make up in s3 for the actors whose caracters are by now in their 50s or 60s isn't the most convincing, and that's certainly true for the majority of the female characters. (Karen being a standout in this regard - basically, they seem to have given the actress a grey wig, with her face looking like it did in the 1970s.) This feels weirdly nostalgic as it reminds me of the unconvincing age make up from the original Star Trek in that episode where you get Old Kirk and Old McCoy, looking nothing whatsoever like their actorly counterparts would some decades later. Otoh, it might simply be that the wonders of GCI have lessened aging makeup skills? Because some shows and movies were actually good with this in years past. I mean, take I, Claudius, made in the actual 1970s on not exactly a large budget. The aging makeup for Derek Jacobi, playing our titular hero from late teenagedom till his death, as well as for Sian Philipps, playing Livia from her mid 30s to her 90s, always felt very good and convincing to me. (I remember talking to someone who was surprised that Derek Jacobi is still alive, because "wasn't he an old man when he played Claudius in the 1970s?" I asked back who he thought played young Claudius then, and he had a very duh moment.)
Aaannnyway, there are some very youthful looking middle aged people in season 3, but then again, some people in rl do age very late in life, and not because of botox.
On to personal storylines, which is where it gets too spoilery for above cut remarks.
So this is the season where besides the two main superpowers, there is an increasing amount of other players going to space. There's commercial space travel happening, and having a fictional tech bro financing his own private space ship competing in the race to Mars was something that immediately made sense to me and felt period appropriate, but what I didn't see coming was the big twist and pay off to something introduced in the season opener (where a malfunctioning satellite from North Korea nearly dooms Polaris) and casually mentioned in tiny tidbits through the season, i.e. North Korea having its own space program. The reveal that for all the competition - which showcased human beings carrying their issues with them, no matter how far they go, but also their ability to overcome them - neither superpower or the young tech millionaire "won" because the lone North Korean survivor got there first was a surprise of the best kind.
Before that, I was really glad Danielle didn't get in-universe an either supporting or symbolic part but not only was made commander of the first NASA Mars mission but then showcased why she really was the better choice. Sorry, Molly, sorry, Ed, but Margo was right. And speaking of Margo, sooner or later, given the importance of the US vs Soviet Union original premise of the space race, it was a given that there would be a Le Carréan spy/mole subplot somewhere, and I like that it wasn't one of the younger characters (especially not Aleida!). Originally I wasn't sure I bought that Margo cared that much for Sergei, but in the end it did work for me, especially since the show gave her a bittersweet victory; she was never just a tool. Also, she did not frame someone else as a way to throw off suspicion, which a more cynical show would have let her do, but as dark as it occasionally gets, this show is anything but cynical.
I could see Ellen outing herself coming - I mean, if one of the original main astronaut characters from s1 is gay, goes into politics, and the difficulties of being the closet vs outing are of increasing screen importance, you know it will happen -, but I didn't realise until later in the season that this is why she had to be a Republican. Firstly, a female Democrat would have been torn apart by the Republicans before ever making it to the presidency in the 1990s, and secondly, if somehow she had, a female Democrat with a Republican dominated House outing herself would also have been torn apart. Mind you, it did not escape me that the show shoved the more shady stuff onto Larry (he's the one suggesting she needs an evangelical as a VP, he's the one having short lived affairs in the 1980s while she has only one true love, he's the one having an affair with an intern that triggers their impending discovery of them as a gay couple covering for each other); i.e. the show was very careful to make its main conservative character in a way that would not alienate anyone not conservative. Ellen, too, feels like a West Wing verse type of Republican, but then - it fits with the (fictional) 1990s theme.
Perhaps the soapiest "oh come on" plot element was Kelly not having an abortion. I mean, I can buy she and Alexei did not have birth control with them - neither of them had any idea sex with each other would be an option when they went on their respective missions - but the horrendous difficulties of having a baby on freaking Mars are so glaringly obvious that this did break my suspension of disbelief, given that Dimitri found out she was pregnant so early on that it should have been very easy and painless to induce an abortion. I mean, I can see the thematic relevance of the pregnancy, and of course it makes for a great suspenseful sequence in the finale and a personal redemption for Ed - but still, that was the one point where I said "no way".
Lastly: I guess from now on, it's Mars all the way in terms of space location for the show. Ah well, we had two seasons full of lunar beauty, and I was as excited by the pictures of the red planet as anyone.
On another note, and speaking of the 1990s:annaverse wrote a great post about the short but fascinating show American Gothic. *waves to andraste and jesuswasbatman*
This season is set partly in 1992, partly in 1995, and from an AU pov, it was fascinating to see what alternate or similar developments the show came up with. (Beyond faster technological developments courtesy of the ongoing space race; in this universe, NASA by the 1990s has become financially self sustaining courtesy of marketing their inventions originally made for the space program. This in turn meant electric cars, lap tops, touchscreens and emails happened a whole lot faster than in real life.) One way where society did not develop faster was regarding same sex relationships, which after being a subplot through two seasons involving one of the main astronaut characters becomes a main plot in s3. This is also connected to the general political American developments, which are partly different, partly parallel to rl events. (Re: Presidents - because Ted Kennedy does not go to Chappaquiddik as a result of the different moon landing fallout, he remains a viable Democratic candidate and wins against Nixon in 1972. Because he's Ted Kennedy in the 1970s, he still has sex scandals and a one term presidency, with Reagan coming in a term earlier. But Reagan isn't followed by George HW Bush, but by Gary Hart, who doesn't have a scandal and becomes a two terms president. In 1992, Bill Clinton is the Democratic nominee, but gets defeated by a (fictional) Republican candidate, who is President for the majority of season 3. The Republican party still has an evangelical wing, but so far, no Tea Party crazies have shown up. (Newt Gingrich was once mentioned in dialogue, but isn't Speaker, because with a Republican President instead of Clinton, the Democrats have the House.) Reagan doesn't seem to have been as big an influence as he was in our timeline. It feels a bit like the West Wing verse, where Democrats and Republicans are opponents and either party has jerks and backroom deals, but also a public service code and, oh eternal bliss, Fox News and the radicalisation going with same doesn't seem to exist. (There's a conservative network called Eagle News instead, but the brief clips shown so far aren't comparably poisonous and deranged.) I don't know whether that means Rupert Murdoch chose another career instead, but it certainly is another plus of this universe.
Now, so far the show while showing an increasing number of Russian characters has remained in the American pov, but it did provide some nods as to why the Soviet Union survived into 1995 instead of falling apart. Because of the Russians going to the moon first and throwing most of their money and energy into the ongoing space race, there is no Russian invasion to Afghanistan (presumably this means also no US backed Mujaheddin and no Taliban?), and Gorbachev's economic reforms actually work. (Otoh, no mention of German reunification. One hopes Putin remains stuck in Dresden among the Saxons.) (In rl, Putin was stationed in Dresden as a KGB official when the wall came down.) (It just occured to me: if there's no reunification and still a West and East Germany, one half of us is spared Sahra Wagenknecht. BLISS.)
Otoh, I was a bit slow; it took me most of the season to remember a certain spoilery rl event from the US in the 1990s which has a devastating and very appropriate for this new context parallel in the show in the finale. This despite the effect one show character is given a very similar background to the rl character he parallels. Anyway: you know how some AUs don't really bother with thinking their premise through because they just want one particular scenario? This is true for most of the "What if the Nazis won!" AUs I've seen and what makes them so annoying. I haven't come across one which didn't feel like the creator(s) wanted more than just a costume cosplay featuring the Evilest Villains (tm).) By contrast, this show so far does quite well with the increasing ripple effects.
lizbee said that the aging make up in s3 for the actors whose caracters are by now in their 50s or 60s isn't the most convincing, and that's certainly true for the majority of the female characters. (Karen being a standout in this regard - basically, they seem to have given the actress a grey wig, with her face looking like it did in the 1970s.) This feels weirdly nostalgic as it reminds me of the unconvincing age make up from the original Star Trek in that episode where you get Old Kirk and Old McCoy, looking nothing whatsoever like their actorly counterparts would some decades later. Otoh, it might simply be that the wonders of GCI have lessened aging makeup skills? Because some shows and movies were actually good with this in years past. I mean, take I, Claudius, made in the actual 1970s on not exactly a large budget. The aging makeup for Derek Jacobi, playing our titular hero from late teenagedom till his death, as well as for Sian Philipps, playing Livia from her mid 30s to her 90s, always felt very good and convincing to me. (I remember talking to someone who was surprised that Derek Jacobi is still alive, because "wasn't he an old man when he played Claudius in the 1970s?" I asked back who he thought played young Claudius then, and he had a very duh moment.) Aaannnyway, there are some very youthful looking middle aged people in season 3, but then again, some people in rl do age very late in life, and not because of botox.
On to personal storylines, which is where it gets too spoilery for above cut remarks.
So this is the season where besides the two main superpowers, there is an increasing amount of other players going to space. There's commercial space travel happening, and having a fictional tech bro financing his own private space ship competing in the race to Mars was something that immediately made sense to me and felt period appropriate, but what I didn't see coming was the big twist and pay off to something introduced in the season opener (where a malfunctioning satellite from North Korea nearly dooms Polaris) and casually mentioned in tiny tidbits through the season, i.e. North Korea having its own space program. The reveal that for all the competition - which showcased human beings carrying their issues with them, no matter how far they go, but also their ability to overcome them - neither superpower or the young tech millionaire "won" because the lone North Korean survivor got there first was a surprise of the best kind.
Before that, I was really glad Danielle didn't get in-universe an either supporting or symbolic part but not only was made commander of the first NASA Mars mission but then showcased why she really was the better choice. Sorry, Molly, sorry, Ed, but Margo was right. And speaking of Margo, sooner or later, given the importance of the US vs Soviet Union original premise of the space race, it was a given that there would be a Le Carréan spy/mole subplot somewhere, and I like that it wasn't one of the younger characters (especially not Aleida!). Originally I wasn't sure I bought that Margo cared that much for Sergei, but in the end it did work for me, especially since the show gave her a bittersweet victory; she was never just a tool. Also, she did not frame someone else as a way to throw off suspicion, which a more cynical show would have let her do, but as dark as it occasionally gets, this show is anything but cynical.
I could see Ellen outing herself coming - I mean, if one of the original main astronaut characters from s1 is gay, goes into politics, and the difficulties of being the closet vs outing are of increasing screen importance, you know it will happen -, but I didn't realise until later in the season that this is why she had to be a Republican. Firstly, a female Democrat would have been torn apart by the Republicans before ever making it to the presidency in the 1990s, and secondly, if somehow she had, a female Democrat with a Republican dominated House outing herself would also have been torn apart. Mind you, it did not escape me that the show shoved the more shady stuff onto Larry (he's the one suggesting she needs an evangelical as a VP, he's the one having short lived affairs in the 1980s while she has only one true love, he's the one having an affair with an intern that triggers their impending discovery of them as a gay couple covering for each other); i.e. the show was very careful to make its main conservative character in a way that would not alienate anyone not conservative. Ellen, too, feels like a West Wing verse type of Republican, but then - it fits with the (fictional) 1990s theme.
Perhaps the soapiest "oh come on" plot element was Kelly not having an abortion. I mean, I can buy she and Alexei did not have birth control with them - neither of them had any idea sex with each other would be an option when they went on their respective missions - but the horrendous difficulties of having a baby on freaking Mars are so glaringly obvious that this did break my suspension of disbelief, given that Dimitri found out she was pregnant so early on that it should have been very easy and painless to induce an abortion. I mean, I can see the thematic relevance of the pregnancy, and of course it makes for a great suspenseful sequence in the finale and a personal redemption for Ed - but still, that was the one point where I said "no way".
Lastly: I guess from now on, it's Mars all the way in terms of space location for the show. Ah well, we had two seasons full of lunar beauty, and I was as excited by the pictures of the red planet as anyone.
On another note, and speaking of the 1990s:
annaverse wrote a great post about the short but fascinating show American Gothic. *waves to andraste and jesuswasbatman*
no subject
Date: 2023-10-26 06:41 pm (UTC)Is the 1990s event the explosion of the Challenger and the death of Christa McAuliffe?
Spoilers for the third season
Date: 2023-10-27 06:58 am (UTC)Spoilers
No, though the Challenger explosion NOT happening is a plot point*. It's the Oklahoma Bombing that's paralleled in the finale (where instead NASA headquarters get blown up, because NASA has become a symbol of hate for conspiracy theorists). There's even a Timothy McVeigh equivalent, but the show was very cunning about how they introduced him a season earlier, as a really minor character. He's one of the marines sent to the moon (McVeigh, I think, served in the military as well) in s2. In s3, he shows up again as part of a small group of conspiracy theorists whom one of the supporting cast gets entangled with, and while it's clear they're not telling the regular everything and are up to something, especially as their rethoric escalates through the season, but the penny as to just WHAT the McVeigh character's real plan is doesn't drop until the finale. (Well, it didn't for me.)
*The Challenger explosion also likely doesn't from a Doylist pov because s1 already has a big explosion of one of the later Apollos, due to the original contractors supplying the materials getting exchanged with others as part of a political deal - and the others delivered subpar material, presto explosion. Anyway, that means the show already did a narrative arc around investigating the reasons for an explosion in which people died.
Re: Spoilers for the third season
Date: 2023-10-27 02:34 pm (UTC)This is true for most of the "What if the Nazis won!" AUs I've seen and what makes them so annoying.
The more I learn about WWII, the more I feel like any AU of that kind grossly overestimates their competence. I could believe "The nazi regime held Europe, but then collapsed from internal tensions as soon as they could no longer blame all their problems on the war, or on the Jews," but I don't know if anyone's written that.
Re: Spoilers for the third season
Date: 2023-10-27 02:48 pm (UTC)Absolutely. Leaving aside all moral aspects: there was a staggering amount of corruption going on, and such a lot of internal feuds in the party hierarchy, plus all the cult aspects were so Hitler centric, that I think it would have collapsed within a few years even in these scenarios where the US doesn't intervene and the Hitler-Stalin-Pact is maintained. Which is not to say they wouldn't have murdered a lot of more people before doing so! Also, if you look at the fascist dictators from the 30s who actually survived and died in their beds decades later, i.e. Franco and Salazar (the Portuguese guy): it's not that they were better human beings than Hitler, it's that they had a more realistic idea of how far they could go, maintain their grip on their country, and not invite alliances by everyone else against them by first attacking everyone else. Yes, if Hitler hadn't invaded Poland, no foreign power would have helped the Jews and other persecuted people within Germany. But then he would not have been Hitler. Basically, you'd have to change so many factors for an AU where the Nazis win and are able to maintain power afterwards that it becomes pointless as an AU.
Wasn't the Challenger mission, and the inclusion of Christa McAuliffe, at least in part NASA trying to get some good publicity because people had been losing interest in the space program? Which presumably wouldn't be as much of a problem for NASA in the For All Mankind universe.
Indeed!
no subject
Date: 2023-10-26 08:40 pm (UTC)And yeah, even if that contraception failed, an abortion seems like the only safe solution?
On the other hand, I listen to the score from Kelly's rescue at least once a week.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-27 07:00 am (UTC)Argh, yes, there's that as well.
On the other hand, I listen to the score from Kelly's rescue at least once a week.
It's a beautiful scene, magnificently scored! Like I said, I totally get the narrative point of the pregnancy. It's just the getting there I could not suspend my disbelief for.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-26 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-27 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-25 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-25 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-30 06:41 am (UTC)All the things you said make lots of sense to me. I really like them catching the o-rings in the alt verse, also Margo telling Sergei to watch out for them. I feel like the earlier seasons did better at making the Soviets swing from sympathetic to evil and back. In S3, it feels like individual Russians can be good guys but it's The Evil Empire and always bad. I also felt like the Aleida discovering Margo's betrayal went on too long.
Danielle and Ellen being badass commanders has been wonderful, but Ed's physical prowess and luck has become weird: he's escaped death so many times that it's kinda boring. Kelly's pregnancy arc lost me too, and the idea that they didn't want to abort felt truly odd. And not to have the baby on Mars but shooting her into space on top of a rocket was safer?
no subject
Date: 2023-11-30 04:48 pm (UTC)I feel like the earlier seasons did better at making the Soviets swing from sympathetic to evil and back. In S3, it feels like individual Russians can be good guys but it's The Evil Empire and always bad.
Hm, funnily enough I had the reverse impression, that s3 had individual Russians as ruthlessly bad but not anymore the Soviet Union per se.