For All Mankind (spoilers)

[Maia]

Well, I liked these 2 episodes, they are very much elevated by the absence of the Stephens brothers! Speaking of Danny, it was strongly hinted that he didn't survive his solitary confinement on Mars.

I am not sure why they claim that Parks and that woman belong(ed) to the lowly maintainance grunts, though. Surely  work that they did on the asteroid was very prestigious and required highly qualified people? That's why Kuznetsov was also involved.

Looks like they are going to do the fall of USSR after all, though with much better economy in this alternate timeline it doesn't make that much sense. I disliked Margot's survival and defection in the previous season, but she works pretty as well as "fish out of water" viewpoint here.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Maia said:

Speaking of Danny, it was strongly hinted that he didn't survive his solitary confinement on Mars.

Saw some speculation that

Spoiler

When starvation set in, he may have killed himself or perhaps been killed... maybe just to not have a mouth to feed, but some wonder if there wasn't a cannibalism issue as well...

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 11/17/2023 at 10:18 AM, Ran said:

I find it a bit hard to believe that the deal to go to Mars is so bad that after the various fees people are taking worse paychecks than if they were doing the same work back home. I understand that Helios is presented as a fairly libertarian, incentive-focused work place, but base pay for such a hazard should have been more in line with what oil rig guys get, I expect.

Had a workmate that was going through the screening process to work in Antarctica for Raytheon several yrs ago. The base rate was very unimpressive. The way they hooked people was by offering a large bonus that you only received if you stayed down their for the whole year. Apparently there was an option to go back after 6mos for people but you'd only receive that very small base pay if you bailed early.

Conversely the same type of contract work in say the Iraq green zone or in Afghanistan would be compensated 4 or 5 times higher.

The workmate ended up being rejected over having a DUI ,7 yrs earlier, on his record still

I didnt feel sorry for him.

[3CityApache]

12 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

The workmate ended up being rejected over having a DUI ,7 yrs earlier, on his record still

Considering Antarctica's traffic, yeah, that makes sense.

I wonder if they even gonna explain Danny's fate at all, or just leave it like that.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

I dont understand Margots situation- is she being forced to stay in exile by the USSR and serve them? What leverage do they have at this point over her? That they will reveal that she was a spy for them all those years and the US will imprison her for that ? 

[DireWolfSpirit]

3 hours ago, 3CityApache said:

Considering Antarctica's traffic, yeah, that makes sense.

I wonder if they even gonna explain Danny's fate at all, or just leave it like that.

In my region (U.S. Central) the next episode will run on Wednesday, im hoping it contains some "backdropping" type scenes that clue me in a little better. I fealt like I had missed some significant scenes or something.

Relieved to know that others are also questioning the mystery.

[felice]

13 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

I dont understand Margots situation- is she being forced to stay in exile by the USSR and serve them? What leverage do they have at this point over her? That they will reveal that she was a spy for them all those years and the US will imprison her for that ? 

The US were already investigating her for spying thanks to Aleida, and would have arrested her if the USSR hadn't faked her death. It looks like the USSR no longer sees much value in her, but she doesn't have anywhere else to go.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

21 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

In my region (U.S. Central) the next episode will run on Wednesday, im hoping it contains some "backdropping" type scenes that clue me in a little better. I fealt like I had missed some significant scenes or something.

Relieved to know that others are also questioning the mystery.

I never liked Danny’s character… but I do wonder what happened to him.

[Ran]

Margo's story was pretty harrowing, shades of certain episodes of The Americans.

Spoiler

Kind of odd that a 2nd Directorate KGB operative, or at least someone high enough in their graces to be able to offer contact and protection through them, is now head of Roscom, but whatever. Kind of curious where the Russian side of this story is going.

All in all, pretty good episode, I thought, between Aleida and Kelly working with Dev, seeing Bill again, and the Mars story with Miles and then that surprise twist with Lee Jung-Gil.

Spoiler

It does seem to strain credulity that Ilya can get so much shipped up to him regularly, but I suppose they'll explain it as a chain of corruption that has carved out some empty cargo that they can fill up without anyone checking. How they're going to smuggle a live woman up, though, I've no clue...

 

[DaveSumm]

I’ve only seen the first two, but the magic has kinda gone for me sadly. I’ll keep watching, but as far as characters, dialogue, writing and acting go? This just isn’t first rate television. Maybe it was always like this, but there used to be something so exciting about seeing the advances on the show. But this season it’s like .. eh, the Mars colony is bigger. When the Russians shot up the moon base back in season 1, I was so invested then, it still felt close enough to history that somehow it made it shocking.

We have our mandated first episode Space Disaster. A moron who decides to put his family back together by leaving them for two years without reading the fine print. I dunno, it all feels cliched somehow.

The ‘we’re a pair of screw ups’ conversation was weird with Aleida and Kelly. Aleida has entirely understandable PTSD, Kelly is a hugely successful NASA scientist whose project got delayed through no fault of her own.

[Werthead]

Alternate-history stories are the most interesting they closer they are to the point of divergence. The further afield they go, the less interesting they tend to be, until they collapse into apathy. Harry Turtledove is the master of this phenomenon. The first 2-3 books of any alt history series of his are excellent, the last few tend to be dull.

The few exceptions tend to be those where the point of divergence isn't actually the focus of the story and we're well in the future anyway (Fallout, Cyberpunk 2013/20/77 etc).

Edited November 25, 2023 by Werthead

[Spockydog]

All I could think about was poor Ed's weak-ass hydroponic setup, and his tiny, sorry-looking buds. 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Spockydog

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

All I could think about was poor Ed's weak-ass hydroponic setup, and his tiny, sorry-looking buds. 

Don’t get me started on Moore’s obsession with people inside closed environmental systems smoking… are they really that stupid???

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Don’t get me started on Moore’s obsession with people inside closed environmental systems smoking… are they really that stupid???

Shh dont judge their lifestyle choices, as the folk in the GC thread are so quick to remind me everytime. If they wanna risk dying in space, its their freedom dammit! 

[Maia]

I am not really sure why, if USSR was prosperous and powerful through space exploration/cooperation, people would want to go back? It seems to be more of a comment on RL situation and history than anything that makes sense in this alternative time-line.

They also play fast and loose with the whole "grunts vs elites" thing - a nephew of a party bonze  now counts as a grunt? Really? And he was working for Helios, despite his ultra-nationalism and their not-so-great-pay, too? It already didn't make sense with Samantha and late Parks(?), who had to be highly qualified and rare specialists to participate in  the EVA part of the very important asteroid capture mission, but they just keep piling the absurdity up.

Margot's narrative was pretty good, though. And thankfully there was finally some push-back against Ed. Hopefully, Dani also replaces him as a pilot for the second attempt at capture - he really shouldn't have been doing it in the first place at his age.

[3CityApache]

Miles's stupidity dangerously approaches Danny's from the last season.

And everything points out at some kind of riot on Mars, which would be massively stupid.

[Ran]

5 hours ago, Maia said:

I am not really sure why, if USSR was prosperous and powerful through space exploration/cooperation, people would want to go back?

I feel that there must be something between the claim of a massive GDP rise in the USSR... and the fact that people are barely living better than they did in the nadir of the early 90s -- there's food, yes, but everything is old and rundown. I don't know if we're to take it that oligarchs have already sucked up much of the wealth for themselves or not, but I guess the contrast from the argument that under Gorbachev things were better than ever but the reality felt anything but is what created the wedge for a hardliner to come in.

Yeah, on the whole this episode is a bit weird in how it causes its conflicts. Seems that they didn't really think it through and just knew they wanted the conflict.

Are we to take it that the Roskosmos head having a cosmonaut's personnel file on her desk means this guy is a KGB mole, or perhaps is going to be involved in diverting Unity to land in Soviet territory?

Re: Miles,

He's got a lot more right to be dumb than Danny, I will say, just because he doesn't have all of his training and experience and education. But yeah, he's lucky he survived... though that seems to be in part thanks to Samantha developing feelings for him, eh? Wonder where that will lead...

[Maia]

They are a bit trapped between trying to keep things recognizeable and relateable and with what the consequences of all the changes _should_ have been. Yes, maybe oligarchs, maybe statistics were somewhat massaged, but given the unprecedented level of cooperation with the West and much cheaper energy, things should have looked different. Like, there should have been all the western cars and consumer products around that did appear in late 80-ies and early 90-ies, which iRL were far from prosperous

 

11 hours ago, Ran said:

Yeah, on the whole this episode is a bit weird in how it causes its conflicts. Seems that they didn't really think it through and just knew they wanted the conflict.

 

Yep. In this season so far, really, not just this episode. Though, thankfully, the conflicts themselves are more interesting than the Stephens boys- related ones in the previous one. I don't see why they needed to make Vasiliy a relative of somebody important - surely Svetlana's open opposition to the new regime + deadly assault on someone who was an ardent supporter of the same would have been more than enough. It would have fit the "grunts vs elites" narrative much better, too.

 

Quote

Are we to take it that the Roskosmos head having a cosmonaut's personnel file on her desk means this guy is a KGB mole, or perhaps is going to be involved in diverting Unity to land in Soviet territory?

 

Oh, Svetlana is totally getting grabbed by the USSR. Though I have to say that I have  little sympathy with her - she was supposed to be a highly trained professional operating in a deadly environment and she is guilty of manslaughter at the very least. She'll probably get executed, though. I somehow thought that it was her file on the table - but if it was somebody else's, then that's indeed a hint.

Is the new head of Roskosmos Sergei's ex-wife? I remember that when he had been first introduced, he was supposedly married, but later it never came up again.

 

Quote

. But yeah, he's lucky he survived... though that seems to be in part thanks to Samantha developing feelings for him, eh?

 

Pretty sure that she would have done it anyway - his other pal was worried too. But yea, more feelings...

 

[Ran]

The Svetlana story seemed to not go where I expected, though maybe it'll rear its head up later. Guessing that file on a cosmonaut will end up coming into play with the Goldilocks capture mission.

So we get some insight into what happened to Danny, but kind of interested to learn what happens... well, after that point. I have seen an interesting theory that

Spoiler

Yes, they ended up having to eat him to survive... and Ed's shaking hands are the first signs of prion disease. Erk.

Also, liked the touch that Dani was giving a share of her rations to Danny, and that Ed saw that she was doing it. It makes the situation more fraught between them, because however much he may blame her for Danny's death by not letting him back to the main habitat, at the same time he knew she was starving herself to try and keep Danny alive.

Obvious that Aleida and Margo are going to run into one another. I  haven't gotten a total sense of what people understand of her -- do they believe Margo died in the explosion? Or do some people know she defected to the Soviet Union?

Wonder what Dev is up to, deciding to go to Mars permanently. Like his scene looking out the window as Kelly told him of her idea to bring Alex with her, and his emotional reaction given his own relationship with his mother and late father.

Oh,

Spoiler

And what to make of Ilya and "Milosh"? Did he just go and poison Miles? Feels like it might be more of a warning than something intended to kill him, but it sure seemed like he didn't really drink...

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The incredibly fake looking beard on Ed is bothering me.  Just use age up make up…