In today’s episode of Bingeworthy, our TV and streaming podcast, co-host Mike DeAngelo launches into one of the best sci-fi series currently on television, “For All Mankind.” The show began as an alternate history version of the 1969 space race in which the Soviet Union beat the United States to the moon, kicking off an increasingly different reality that keeps the space race running towards new goals for decades. Season 3 has seen the race to Mars in the 1990s amidst the continued tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. The show stars Joel Kinnaman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, Wrenn Schmidt, Krys Marshall, Cynthy Wu and more.
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“For All Mankind” writers, co-creators, and showrunners, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi join the Bingeworthy podcast to discuss creating the show with Ronald D. Moore (“Battlestar Galactica,” “Outlander”).
“At the time, Ron [Moore], Matt, and I were all working on a western together,” Nedivi said. “While we were working on that, Ron [Moore] had told us about this lunch with Garrett [Reisman] (Former Nasa Astronaut), but also Apple was looking to do something looking back at the early space race days – you know the 70’s, the Apollo program. And Matt and I, at the time, had been kind of developing an idea about [Wernher] von Braun and the early days at JPL (Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) that we were kind of obsessed with. So, really quickly we kind of clicked onto, ‘OK, let’s put this western aside.’ And we started talking about this idea and I think the real spark moment was not only being able to tell history differently and being able to tell tales of the space race that no one had ever seen before but also to bring life to things that we were all really excited about that never came to light in real history.”
The interview also goes deep into all of the spoilers from the Season 3 finale, which saw many surprise deaths…and survivals.
“In this case, we didn’t know exactly how it was going to end, but we knew that we wanted the impact of this bombing to be really felt in a serious way,” Nedivi shared. “And we were intrigued by the idea that the deaths that happen are not up there on Mars, in the end, but on Earth. I think that was a flip that we thought was kind of interesting…I think that’s kind of what’s nice about the show, is that, a lot of times you’ll watch TV and be like, ‘Well, that guy’s going to live. It’s Joel Kinnaman!’ I don’t think anyone watching our show can feel comfortable that anyone will be alive or dead, which does make you feel what it is to be in such a dangerous situation.”
The series was just renewed for a fourth season, and, while the showrunners couldn’t say much, they could tease one aspect of the upcoming season.
“The thing that I think is really interesting about Season 4, which we tease at the end of season 3 is this other new world we’re opening up, which is looking behind the Iron Curtain and following Margo,” Wolpert said. “And I think that expansion of our world is going to be really interesting to play around with. Because, it’s always been an element of the show, but Russians have really been coming into the American sphere, you know? It’s really been in the setting of America. And so, opening the show up to that other dimension I think is really going to be compelling.”
The first three seasons of “For All Mankind” are now available to stream on Apple TV+. You can listen to the entire SPOILER-filled podcast below:
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