For All Mankind

I mean, didn't they just contaminate Titan? Good job?

Watched the 5th season. I feel this show is pretty good at making the logical next step based on its premise and exploring the challenges of that next step. So it makes sense to explore what happens to a space colony when it goes beyond a certain critical mass, making it a society. It is true though it creates a shift in themes that might be less exiting for some than the space race and it is also true that the execution of these high level concepts is not great. The detective story is lackluster, what they tried to do with the timeline of the final events is so poorly executed that it felt like continuity errors rather than clever storytelling or things like having a plot point about how little time someone has to go through the whole base and literally in the next shot another character instantly suited up, travelled across the base and got on top of a giant scaffolding, or having trouble climbing a cliff on a place with a 7th of earth gravity, etc...

I was not that captivated, but it is still somewhat cool to have a show that season after season expands its scope and stakes. A bit like the Wire that adds new layers to its sociological analysis of Baltimore or the Expanse that starts as a sci-fi neo noir and evolves again and again to become so much more. The execution is obviously much better in The Wire and The Expanse, but it's still pretty cool here.

I believe I mentioned this previously, but the series lost my interest, as it is no longer a plausible "what-if" alternate history story. There is simply no way humanity could advance this rapidly by the 2020s, full-scale space race or not. Far too many successive technological breakthroughs would be required to reach the level of capability seen in the show. They have effectively built torch drives, yet in reality we are possibly a couple+ centuries away from achieving that level of tech.

ShakyJake said:

I believe I mentioned this previously, but the series lost my interest, as it is no longer a plausible "what-if" alternate history story. There is simply no way humanity could advance this rapidly by the 2020s, full-scale space race or not. Far too many successive technological breakthroughs would be required to reach the level of capability seen in the show. They have effectively built torch drives, yet in reality we are possibly a couple+ centuries away from achieving that level of tech.

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Eh, probably true, but 'I don't care if it is impossible, here's a big bucket of money, try it anyway' returned some surprising results from SpaceX, I can't help but wonder what might have happened with that attitude earlier and continuing.

It probably wouldn't have happened anyway, because people suck, but I can forgive some starry eyed space nerd wish fulfillment fantasy in the same way I can forgive ordinary guy becomes badass action hero wish fulfillment fantasy.

binged through the season, you felt kinda sad since its obvious the budget has been drastically cut and the first 7 episodes are just people in 3 different rooms talking and yelling at each other lol. you could literally skip it all and not miss a thing, i fast forwarded liberally and probably burned through 7 hours in like 3 hours.

I did enjoy the last 3 episodes but more for the ideas than the actual execution. It was fun to watch but pretty dumb. Kelly is a hilarious character, at first I wanted to bitch about her being a professional but then I realized they captured an asian women perfectly - lies endlessly, doesn't care about consequences, and makes everything about herself. Stupid bitch may have genocided an alien life but hey she got to wade in a pool for a few seconds hahaha. The show seems to have dropped its science ball too, they kept mentioning its methane based life not carbon but... methane contains carbon (CH4) lol

i don't really get what the stinger was all about, russia on the way to titan in 2020s but... they have a hole in the ship? weird. i assume next season is last season, the show feels like its completely run out of steam and is going backwards a bit. Without Ed Baldwin the show just isn't good.