Season 2 of 'For All Mankind' Now Available on Apple TV+

[Johnny907]

I agree with him, that is filler. I never got around to finishing season 1 at that point in the show. Its not what i watch sci-fi for. Same thing with The First on Hulu and Away on Netflix. Both of those focussed more on the family drama of parents leaving for mars missions, and not surprisingly.... both got cancelled after the first season.

The First was infuriating. It had a great premise and a somewhat interesting first episode but after that it spent most of its runtime dealing with the relationship between brat daughter and useless father instead of, ya know, this massive mission to Mars! At least For All Mankind had an equal mix. The revisionist history got old but again at least it wasn't as bad as NatGeo's The Right Stuff, which took well known and documented events and historical figures, and took a steaming dump on both. The part that almost lost me was the writers fantasy-fulfilling indictment of Von Braun. Again, handled better than The Right Stuff's bizarre racist drunken Santa Claus treatment, but it was still ridiculous.

 

[siddavis]

I almost gave up on the series after the first few episodes. I would say somewhere around 4 or 5-8 were great, but the last 2 episodes were just OK for me. I guess for entertainment, the last 2 were good, but some of the stunts they pulled were a little goofy and far fetched I thought.

That said, I am very interested to see where they take it this season and will definitely give the first 2 or 3 episodes a shot.

Off topic, I had the exact feeling about Ted Lasso. Everyone kept saying how great it was, so I watched the first 2 episodes and thought people were nuts. Then I really got pulled in midway through that season. Glad I stuck with both of these.

Just my 2 pennies...

 

[technole]

Good first episode of season 2. Already have electric cars.

 

[Scoob Redux]

yay! i've had trouble sleeping lately. this should do the trick.

 

[psac]

I hate this "one episode a week" approach. It drives me mad so I will have to wait for it to be all out before I start watching. I want to watch on my schedule and not on theirs. Thats why I prefer Netflix way of releasing stuff.
Anyway, first Mankind was not bad but the second (just looking at the trailer) looks like awful patriotic nonsense.
Lets see how it goes but it doesn't look good

I disagree when it comes to "Event" television, there can still be meaningful suspense with a weekly release. Disney+ has shown this can still work with the Mandalorian and WandaVision. I don't think it's necessary for all shows, so this show (I haven't seen it) may not be the best use of that model, but it can still work in some cases.

 

[Freida]

Not at all. Totally disagree. Even Mandalorian I watched it all in about 3 days.

Having a week off between episodes mean that you forget nuances, details etc. that make the whole "feeling" better.
Watching one episode and then jumping on the next right away is just way more enjoyable especially when the first one end with something unfinished. You get to enjoy it and "live through it" much better.
If you wait a week, most of that is gone.

I disagree when it comes to "Event" television, there can still be meaningful suspense with a weekly release. Disney+ has shown this can still work with the Mandalorian and WandaVision. I don't think it's necessary for all shows, so this show (I haven't seen it) may not be the best use of that model, but it can still work in some cases.

 

[randfee2]

why don't they release all episodes at once? I'm not gonna watch it like this.
Also Netflix stopped doing that, that was my favorite feature about streaming. Want to see another one, do it... waiting for one week... no... I enjoy shows much better if I remember all the details of the prior episode.

 

[erthquake]

I've enjoyed this show so far.

I wish they would just release it all at once. The waiting a week for an episode of anything is so 2001...

I'd argue that it's very 2021. Weekly releases enable more time for episode analysis on many media sites, which helps generate more buzz for the shows and their platforms.

It also helps even out cash flow by preventing people subscribing for a single month to binge watch and then cancel. Maybe there could be a subscription model in which paying annually allows access to all episodes at once.

 

[Johnny907]

I disagree when it comes to "Event" television, there can still be meaningful suspense with a weekly release. Disney+ has shown this can still work with the Mandalorian and WandaVision. I don't think it's necessary for all shows, so this show (I haven't seen it) may not be the best use of that model, but it can still work in some cases.

Yeah no AppleTV+ show is “event” television.

 

[tongxinshe]

Have been waiting for a long time! Yes!

 

[Steve686]

Ok, I enjoyed the first half of S1 but lost its way into is it a drama about 50's housewives or intrepid Astronauts? I have faith that this will have found some form. Looking forward to checking it out.

Well, it is called, “For ALL Mankind”.

Some people thought the show was boring in the first season.
My reply is, 99.99% of space exploration takes place on earth in labs and control rooms, not actually involving any astronauts at all. So, the series on an actual basis, is pretty damn exciting and full of action compared to real life.

 

[Johnny907]

Well, it is called, “For ALL Mankind”.

Some people thought the show was boring in the first season.
My reply is, 99.99% of space exploration takes place on earth in labs and control rooms, not actually involving any astronauts at all. So, the series on an actual basis, is pretty damn exciting and full of action compared to real life.

Right, but the minutia the first season loved to focus on was pretty boring stuff when it came to events on the home front. I spent a lot of time fast forwarding through any scene that didn’t involve NASA or an actual mission after the first four episodes because i didn’t care about the individuals enough for their drama to matter to me. It’s a great cast so I know the issue isn’t with them.

 

[SuperMatt]

I am really shocked at how many people are upset at the idea of one episode per week. Up until the recent boom of streaming services, that’s how every single TV show was released. I guess kids these days prefer to sit in front of the TV for 6 hours in a row?

 

[chucker23n1]

Agreed. This weekly tv schedule thing is an anachronism.

Water cooler chats are much more fun when everyone follows the season at the same pace. No problems with spoilers, and you get to speculate on cliffhangers together.

 

[chucker23n1]

Maybe there could be a subscription model in which paying annually allows access to all episodes at once.

If that’s your cup of tea, you can just subscribe at the end of the season, watch it, unsubscribe.

 

[Steve686]

Right, but the minutia the first season loved to focus on was pretty boring stuff when it came to events on the home front. I spent a lot of time fast forwarding through any scene that didn’t involve NASA or an actual mission after the first four episodes because i didn’t care about the individuals enough for their drama to matter to me. It’s a great cast so I know the issue isn’t with them.

So I guess you probably should just watch NASA TV from now on for your space fix??

 

[oneMadRssn]

Water cooler chats are much more fun when everyone follows the season at the same pace. No problems with spoilers, and you get to speculate on cliffhangers together.

The notion of a water cooler chat was killed by DVR loooong ago. “Wait I haven’t watched that episode yet, no spoilers.”


To say nothing of covid...

 

[oneMadRssn]

I am really shocked at how many people are upset at the idea of one episode per week. Up until the recent boom of streaming services, that’s how every single TV show was released. I guess kids these days prefer to sit in front of the TV for 6 hours in a row?

Many people DVRed/pirated each episode and binged once the last one aired, long before Netflix streaming.

The one episode per week thing only makes sense in ad-supported linear broadcasting before time-shifting was possible. It just makes no sense today.

 

[SuperMatt]

Many people DVRed/pirated each episode and binged once the last one aired, long before Netflix streaming.

The one episode per week thing only makes sense in ad-supported linear broadcasting before time-shifting was possible. It just makes no sense today.

I don’t agree. Not everybody wants to “binge-watch” a dozen episodes of something.

 

[chucker23n1]

The notion of a water cooler chat was killed by DVR loooong ago. “Wait I haven’t watched that episode yet, no spoilers.”


To say nothing of covid...

There’s still plenty of that on social media.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I don’t agree. Not everybody wants to “binge-watch” a dozen episodes of something.

But nobody is forcing you to binge-watch anything. When they post all the episodes of a season all at once, you can watch all of them at once, or one per evening, or one per week, or whatever you want. The watching schedule is up to you.

However, with a weekly release schedule, they sort of are strongly encouraging a particular watch schedule - weekly. You can wait until the season is over before engaging, but that is a bit different.

 

[SuperMatt]

But nobody is forcing you to binge-watch anything. When they post all the episodes of a season all at once, you can watch all of them at once, or one per evening, or one per week, or whatever you want. The watching schedule is up to you.

However, with a weekly release schedule, they sort of are strongly encouraging a particular watch schedule - weekly. You can wait until the season is over before engaging, but that is a bit different.

I like the weekly releases. Something to look forward to. For those that don’t like it, some other streaming networks release stuff all at once, so there’s something for everybody out there.

 

[EdT]

Try the following. They don't cover the entire space program histories and they focus on the US / NASA programs, but they are good at what they cover:

• The Right Stuff (book and movie). Mostly the US test pilot program and the Mercury space program.
• From the Earth to the Moon (mini-series). Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs.
• Apollo 13 (movie). The Apollo 13 mission.

There are probably some good documentaries, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.

I own all 3. In addition, you could (maybe you still can) buy Apollo 11 which is a documentary that follows Apollo from rolling out the Saturn 5 rocket to the moon landing to its return. The only “Narration” is from journalists reports as the launch was being covered.

There are hints in The Right Stuff about conflict between the astronauts and engineers and (in the movie) a relatively brief mention of Dr. von Braun but little about the politics that put a lot of German rocket scientists on both the US and USSR rocket development and space programs.

I have also heard that JFK wasn’t as enthused about going to the moon as he was about denying that accomplishment to the Russians, but other than a sentence or two I haven’t heard or read a lot about that. I don’t know if it’s true or just low grade conspiracy gossip.

I think that there was a lot more to getting the spaceship conceptualized and built and tested among all the major contractors who didn’t normally work together than is commonly known.....like I said, there is a whole lot of political/technical/personal story that I think has never been told. Someone decides to highlight a particular mission or just the astronauts and those are the books and documents and movies that get made.

Especially if it’s only lightly fictionalized I think that would have made a very interesting series.

 

[EdT]

I'd argue that it's very 2021. Weekly releases enable more time for episode analysis on many media sites, which helps generate more buzz for the shows and their platforms.

It also helps even out cash flow by preventing people subscribing for a single month to binge watch and then cancel. Maybe there could be a subscription model in which paying annually allows access to all episodes at once.

Or you wait until the whole season has run and then you subscribe. And cancel the next day if you watched them all. I don’t binge watch anything so a weekly release is fine for me.

 

[BigMac?]

Great first episode!