FOR ALL MANKIND SEASON FIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!
The death of Ed Baldwin in “Home”, the third episode of “For All Mankind”‘s fifth season, was a symbolic moment for the Apple TV show. Yes, Margo Madison, Danielle Poole, and (albeit played by a different actor) Aleida Rosales still survive from the show’s first season, but Baldwin was the last of the original Apollo astronauts standing.
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Fast forward to Baldwin’s deathbed 40-plus years later — with actor Joel Kinnaman now buried under layers of prosthetics to transform him into an octogenarian — and the Solar System is a very different place. In this parallel 2012, the (fictional) Apollo astronaut’s final resting place is the surface of Mars, where hundreds of people (families included) have now made the thriving Happy Valley base their permanent home.
And after four decades on the front lines of space exploration, it’s rather poignant that Baldwin should pass away on another planet. He was the bridge between two very different eras, a character who started out in the show’s original “Right Stuff“-influenced incarnation and departed a series that’s feeling more and more like a prequel to “The Expanse“.
Alexei Leonov planting the Soviet flag on the Moon in “For All Mankind”‘s opening episode is the point where the show’s timeline visibly diverges from reality. That said, series creators Ronald D Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert have said the real-world death of Sergei Korolev in 1966 is their actual sliding doors moment. Indeed, the writers surmised that the rocket engineer was so clearly the USSR’s MVP that — had Korolev survived the botched medical procedure that killed him — the Soviet space program would have continued to outpace its American counterpart.
That’s perhaps not as much of a giant leap as it sounds. Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface in 1969, the USSR had been first to every significant space travel milestone, from the first satellite, through the first man and woman in space, to the first-ever spacewalk. To use a sporting analogy, America’s victory in the race to the Moon was against the run of play, the result of an incredible collective effort and a colossal budget.
“For All Mankind” speculates, however, that missing out on the Moon would have been the best thing ever to happen to NASA. Instead of simply accepting defeat, the United States upscales its ambitions to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface. The discovery of water in the Shackleton Crater near the lunar south pole subsequently prompts the US to build the Jamestown base, turbo-charging the space race in the process. (Ed Baldwin is, of course, one of the first astronauts in residence.)
This has all happened by 1974, with the hardware still looking distinctly Apollo. But then, after the end credits of the season finale, the show delivers a major rug pull, as a time jump to 1983 reveals a rocket transporting a plutonium payload to power the expanded Jamestown base.
While no actual human has set foot on the Moon since Eugene Cernan departed in 1972, it’s almost routine in “For All Mankind”‘s second season. And by the time season 3 leaps ahead to 1995, we’re talking orbital space tourism and a three-way race to Mars between the US, the still-intact Soviet Union and — perhaps inevitably — private enterprise.
But it’s when the show’s fourth season lands in 2003 that “For All Mankind”‘s transition into “The Expanse” begins in earnest. Thanks to the narratively expedient invention of plasma drives — why spend two years travelling to Mars when you can do it in two months? — journeys to the Red Planet are almost as straightforward as flying to the other side of the world. And with ordinary people now earning a living at the Happy Valley base, humanity’s colonization of the Solar System is in full swing.
Some residents (including, of course, the ever-present Baldwin) have even come to think of themselves as Martians, and their bold mission to hijack the highly lucrative, iridium-rich “Goldilocks” asteroid is one small step towards independence. Even the long-established Martian Congressional Republic in “The Expanse” had to start somewhere…
Now that we’ve passed the midpoint of the 2012-set season 5 with “Svodoba”, it feels like the show has reached a tipping point, the moment where “For All Mankind”‘s sci-fi leanings have overtaken its alternative history origins once and for all.
With Ed’s daughter, Kelly, on the way to Saturn to hunt for potential life on the moon of Titan (yes, there’ll be a settlement there in “The Expanse”), it feels like interplanetary travel is close to becoming commonplace. But more importantly, the reaction to a leaked report about automation replacing human colonists suggests that the Martian workforce — and, most importantly, their children — aren’t going to give up their new home easily.
The “Mars is ours!” riot in “Svodoba” — and subsequent siege and ransom demands in “No Sudden Moves” — could easily have been lifted directly from “The Expanse”, where the Belters (residents of various dwarf planets in the asteroid belt) push for independence from Earth and, perhaps ironically, Mars. At this point, it’s not hard to imagine the show’s sixth and final season being set in an alternative present day where — in the tradition of “The War of the Worlds” and several other sci-fi classics — Earth really does go to war with the Martians.
It’s a remarkable evolution for a show that, aside from a few tweaks to history, often felt like a recreation of the golden years of Apollo. And while it’s undeniably lost some of its original retro charm — something we’re expecting to be recaptured in the upcoming Soviet Union-set spin-off “Star City” — “For All Mankind” continues to be one hell of a ride. Ed Baldwin, never a man to shy away from a risk or two, would surely approve.
New episodes of “For All Mankind” season 5 stream on Apple TV on Fridays.