Hopeless Optimism: For All Mankind Review

 

There's a scene in the first episode of For All Mankind, Apple TV+'s new alternate history show, just after the astronauts find out that Russia has beaten them to the moon. Director Deke Slayton talks to the group, all crowded into a small, windowless room, and recounts the story, back when he was a Mercury astronaut, of when they learned that Yuri Gagarin had flown in space. He talks about how "yes, even John Glenn" said a bad word. "Tomorrow," he says, we'll get back to training. They will work harder and faster, stronger and longer, because this is only the beginning, "but that will be tomorrow." Today, they are free to just be angry. After a few seconds of pensive silence, the men begin to file out of the room, and contemplate what they are to do next. Someone shouts, "last one buys!"

The group of men start by walking calmly, then sprinting down the NASA hallways to their cars. They race down the empty Houston roads, cutting around each other and flipping off their coworkers as they floor the pedal. In the bar, the men who have been lauded as heroes by the American public for so long lean on each other and toast to the air while singing, "what becomes of the broken hearted?" It's such a hopeless yet carefree and joyful scene. It is happily embracing the end of the world. It perfectly demonstrates the tone of the show and the characters. Even just the act of them calmly exiting the room to zoom off in their cars is indicative of who these characters are. They are astronauts; they are incredibly intelligent, physically fit, and professional, but they are also daredevils doing exactly what they love being told that they are special. The song choice is remarkable: Jimmy Ruffin's 'What Becomes of the Broken Hearted'. It is a jovial tune released in the 1960s, thus matching the tone and historical accuracy of the show, but the lyrics are entirely hopeless. "All we're left is an unhappy ending."

This hopeless optimism carries throughout the show. At the end of the first episode, communication cuts off with the Apollo 11 lunar landing module, Eagle, just before it hits the moon's surface. After repeated attempts to contact the crew, Mission Control assumes the worst. They notify command module pilot Michael Collins, who is orbiting the moon alone, that he will be making the return journey alone. He leans back in his spaceship, looking up at the stars, and calmly says no. He relays that he always considered what he would do if the landing failed and Neil & Buzz were lost, and he's decided that he'll stay on the moon with them. He is declaring that he has given up, but looks elated in his decision.

Over the summer, a combination of boredom, availability, and a lingering fascination with Damien Chazelle's First Man, I watched nearly every available documentary about the Apollo program. These get repetitive, obviously, as it's just different versions of the same story, but it becomes fun to be able to recognize certain characters and elements and be able to say, "I know them!"

So of course when I heard of this show, which was going to show me all my favorite characters but put them in a new, unfamiliar situation that didn't have a predetermined ending, I had to watch it. Now, I have a multitude of things against Apple TV+ not exclusive to the increasing problem of too many streaming services and the obvious fact that they are simply throwing lots of money at various things to see what will stick.

However, this is the most fun I have had watching TV in a long time. The first several minutes of the pilot are a "previously on..." of NASA's history, before propelling the viewer into an alternate history where Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first man on the moon, only a month before the planned landing of Apollo 11. At this point, that is the only diversion from history, except for the replacement of the crew of Apollo 10 with fictional characters. But this spins off a completely different narrative of what could have been. Suddenly, the intelligence that the US has gathered about the Soviet space program is under fire. The crew of Apollo 10 is forced to re-evaluate their role, as they completed a "test-run" of the moon landing months prior, and are questioning whether they would have been able to land. In all this drama, Massachussetts senator Ted Kennedy cancels a weekend getaway to Chappaquiddick to focus on the intelligence hearing. Engineer Wernher von Braun, whose flaws were previously ignored in return for the use of his brain, is being questioned for his role in Nazi Germany. And of course this scene must use the infamous song that is listed on the soundtrack for every documentary that merely mentions the name of the German scientist: Tom Lehrer's comedic Wernher von Braun.

At the end of episode two, our protagonists find out that Russia has scored another victory: they've landed the first woman on the moon. NASA now has to try to catch-up to that success, despite the fact that it was never part of their plan, and they don't even have any female astronaut candidates, let alone astronauts. Some characters are pushing for focus on a lunar base, for defense reasons or to serve as a refueling station on the way to the rest of the solar system, while others say that they must catch up to the Soviets first and land a woman on the moon. They are thus propelled into an argument as old as time: play catch up, or attempt to dart around.

This spawns the biggest departure from history: the introduction of the first slate of female NASA astronauts. And with this comes the show's attempts to address themes of race, idolism, roles in marriage, and a whole slate of other things that are laid parallel in an entirely awesome shot of all the women lined up on the tarmac in blue jumpsuits with super cool aviators.

There is plenty wrong with this show. The characters are often one dimensional caricatures of themselves or historical figures, the story does not run in a straight line, certain plot points or characters are forgotten for a couple episodes and then brought back as if having been frozen in time. The end of every episode feels like a soap opera twist that wasn't necessarily foreshadowed or necessary. There's a parallel storyline about immigrants that I don't quite understand its significance, and a multiplicity of other things.

One thing that this show does extremely well is episodic structure. With the majority of shows being released on streaming services, it is increasingly popular for all episodes to be release at once in order to promote binge watching. This has converted episodic television into little more than long-form movies. And there's nothing wrong with that on its own, but sometimes I want to feel satisfied with a complete arc at the end of an episode. There is sometimes a need for each episode to have its own theme, its own arc, and its own main idea. It should tie into the central story, but it should be obvious that you are watching different parts. Every episode of For All Mankind is recognizable as its own story. Each focuses on a certain event that is, for the most part, tied up at the end, and a new problem arises in the final few minutes. And this episodic structure allows the show to explore all kinds of things: the often overlooked heroism of mission control. the invasive nature of the press, hidden sexuality in the age of Roy Cohn, the lengths astro-wives go to in order to appear perfect, isolation, mental illness, and the ever true sentiment that Elton John once sang, "it's just my job, give days a week."

And the ripples that come from one small event are not limited to the space race. President Ted Kennedy, not weighed down by a non-event at Chappaquiddick in the summer of '69, is doing his best to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, which contributes to another spiral of misfortunes. This contributes to one of the most obvious themes of the show: the unintended consequences. There are a few other central themes: hopeless optimism is one of the most central guiding principle. When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. Self-assurance is another big one, born from the sentiment of 'if the world is ending why shouldn't it be me?'

There's one more episode of this show, coming out on Friday, and I am very excited. When I excitedly told my friends about this show, I said, "it's my favorite!" to which they responded, "you say that about everything." And to their credit, that is correct, but it is still true.