Ugh I’d love watch this, I’ve heard nothing but god things from fellow Trekkies. But unfortunately watching it would take valuable time away from re-watching Star Trek for the twentieth time.
I would love to see the show ultimately evolve into hard sci fi extra-solar c-fractional exploration and colonization, complete with relativistic time dilation and the personal, societal, and governmental consequences thereof.
I don’t think it would be a good idea to introduce FTL (or even artificial gravity beyond spin and thrust, as they do now) to the show at any point, and I hope they don’t eventually do that.
Starting next season: Ed becomes a brain in a jar and gets a shiny new robot body. Proceeds to guide humanity into a golden era of galaxy exploration and cooperation. 20 seasons later, humanity has evolved to the point of no longer needing physical form. The entire universe has been explored and catalogued. Only Ed Baldwin-bot remains in corporeal form.
I’ve been a huge FAM fan from the beginning primarily for the show’s potential.
Seasons 2 and 3 featured some interpersonal plot twists and astonishingly ridiculous plot choices (avoiding spoilers) that made the show nearly insufferable.
Season 4 seems to have gotten things back on track for the most part. There is still a hint of ridiculousness going on, but I’m mostly satisfied.
At the same time, I wish the show was allowed to jettison some of the pulpy elements and have a bit more auteur flare. But it’s so rare to actually see a television show that’s this ambitious actually make it a few seasons that I hesitate to ask for more.
Oof. I don’t have good news for you on the Season 3 front.
spoilerDanny
remains a central figure throughout the season and is permitted to do more-different hair-brained things as well, which is both annoying to suffer though and awkward to fast-forward over without also missing exposition. There’s still a lot of genuinely interest stuff that happens in season 3 and somehow made the experience worth it, but wow, not by much. I was REALLY happy to see that S4 got itself right-sided again.
Sadly the show has been on a deteriorating track as far as plot holes, bad science, bad character aging (or lack of), and massive continuity errors, but somehow I just keep watching it like a car crash. The writers do a great job with character development and interpersonal relationships, but it’s like there’s no script supervisor looking at it with an eye for plot holes and disconnects from physical reality.
For All Mankind is the best actual science fiction show on television, hands down, bar none. For the uninitiated think The Martian, but where the space race never ended, because Russia landed on the moon first. It's so good, I hope it never ends