US: For All Mankind

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Re imagines the space race as if Russia made it first to the moon and America is left constantly playing catchup.

Its very The Right Stuff / From The Earth to The Moon with a mix of historical and fictional astronauts.

Written by Ronald D Moore.

Its not bad, 3 eps available so far, its one of Apple Tvs launch series.
 

v0n

v0n

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I stopped 3/4 through the first episode after I realised the "alternate history" doesn't really serve any larger fantastical/fictional arc (like Man in The High Castle for example). At that point it just seemed like a waste of time - watching several hours of men making stern expressions and raising voices to deliver solemn speeches for what purpose, to what end? It's a tale that doesn't lead anywhere. It doesn't teach you history, doesn't reflect any real struggle that revealed interesting side of human condition, and as a pure fiction it's just hours of Kinnaman's constipated face for no particular plot gain whatsoever. What would happen if Americans lost space race? Nothing. In fact, for all intents and purposes they lost space race in our timeline. Sputnik 1 was the first man made object in outer space for the Soviets. Gagarin was the first man in outer space for the Soviets. Tereshkova was the first woman in space for the Soviets. Luna 2 was the first unmanned craft on the moon for the Soviets.

US moon missions obviously had more hollywood flair and were delivered with better PR tube, but it was that kid who's really ecstatic about his third place medal - it was all done and achieved by then. Moon missions didn't change anything in space race, they didn't produce any viable advancements - we stopped flying to space and stopped reaching for the skies ever since, we lost the ability to send men so far into space shortly after and never ventured outside of earth's orbit with a manned mission ever again. All American moon missions ever gave us were tons of conspiracy theories and a Apollo 13 near disaster story to warn other space crews not to overdo it.

So, a show that shows America "loosing space race" (for the third place) to the moon. What would change? Nothing. It's an alternative history show about nothing. I won't spoil much if I speculate Kinnaman will eventually beat Russians to some other milestone achievement. So I'm out.
 
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JRS

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The second half of the season is better than the first half IMO. The first half is spent on trying to introduce the insanely large cast and give everyone screentime while doing so and it drags. Second half, it turns into a proper Ron Moore show.

Lots of it is still utterly implausible even as alternate history. But it doesn't completely suck, which IMO says one hell of a lot these days given the unremitting awfulness of the writing being done for sci-fi on TV.
 

Kyo

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Glad I stuck it out past the slow start. Been pretty good to very good by the end. Of it. Can't wait for season 2.

@v0n suggest you might want to give it another go.
 
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Glad I stuck it out past the slow start. Been pretty good to very good by the end. Of it. Can't wait for season 2.

That's cruel, I got excited and thought the second season was out.
For info - due for release on 19th Feb
 
Soldato
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I've been watching this over the past week or so since I bumped into the trailer for S2.

I finished S1 just last night and was confused why my AppleTV 4k box didn't mark the episode as 'Watched'. So I went back and forwarded past the credits to make sure it was watched and then realised there was an after-credits bit and wow! I really, really enjoy the show!
 
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