For All Mankind

[zack]

What are the production values like, is it a show that looks like it has had money spent on it?

Apple clearly spent a lot of money on it, the recreated Apollo hardware looks great and and the CGI is also great.

Having seen the first three episodes yesterday, I have to say it is a great show and can't wait for the next episode.

[Skylab]

Very US-centric, but I can't say that surprises me. The acting is good, great CGI for the American craft, far less so for the Soviets. Might be worth keeping an eye out for.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

I don’t know if this is true everywhere but the first episode appears to be viewable for free. It is for me in the UK.

[dglow]

The first two episodes are free. The third is viewable with a 7-day trial to the service.

I found the CGI passable but far from top-notch. The scripts are solid, though much of the acting leaves me wanting. More than worth watching if you're willing to put such things aside and engage with the show as an exploration of ideas.

Some of my favorite moments are the show's portrayal of Nixon. His interludes are shown as a series of still photos with subtitles, introduced with shots of spinning spools of magnetic tape. These moments do advance the plot, help to set the historical tone, and employ spot-on voice actors for Nixon's, Kissinger's, and others' voices, with particular devotion of the (ahem) colorful speech of the US's 37th president.

[Ronpur50]

The first episode had me on the edge of my seat. So many bits of our reality are still there to make it feel real, like a good alt-history drama needs. But things change and I can not wait to see were this history goes. Ron Moore at his best again.
Leonov though, that got me choked up coming so soon after his passing.

[su27k]

Looks like we have a winner.

Hopefully the rating is good enough such that it continues for a while, I want to see Sea Dragon! 

[MATTBLAK]

I say the casting and acting is good enough, and the CGI is more than adequate. If it were too good, the hoaxers and morons will just start smirking about 'how easy it is to fake going to space' and sh1t like that...

[LM13]

Other plot points: After 11 comes home it becomes a "Race for the Base" with the rest of the Apollo missions focused on scouting locations. Skylab is repurposed as Moonlab, which seems implausible. If I recall correctly proposed lunar bases in AAP were CSM derived.

There were other designs--the Lunar Exploration Scrapbook has a bunch of them, and Douglas had proposals for landing entire S-IVBs on the Moon for conversion to wetlabs. 

But this seems like a new design entirely--based on the fact that it has four LM descent engines visible in the model, it has a mass of about 11 tonnes dry.  The size indicates to me that it's probably a drylab based on an S-IVB LOX tank.  The model they showed didn't have any obvious place for landing propellant--maybe it's supposed to use drop tanks that fall off before final approach.  We'll see how they do in future episodes. 

I'm struck by the Lunar Orbiter scene--it's good to see that unsung hero of the program get some recognition.  But there was no Lunar Orbiter spacecraft operating in 1969 in our history--so this must be a fictional Lunar Orbiter 6, possibly made of surplus parts.  How did it pick up the water ice?  That was first picked up with radar in the 1990s, but the show indicates that it was photographed.  Does Lunar Orbiter 6 carry a spectrometer instrument, possibly cannibalized from the Mariner probes? 

As to effects quality, I would say that the effects are about on the same level as "From the Earth to the Moon" was.  Which is high praise, since that was shot using an actual surplus LM. 

[Orbiter]

Despite my gripe about how Mike Collins was portrayed, this show has some great history in it and is a must see for any fanatic of the Apollo program.

[MATTBLAK]

I agree about Mike Collins - he would not have rebelled like that. He is so close to his Wife and children that he would have come home for them, after waiting in lunar orbit for as long as he could though, I suspect.

[libra]

Skylab was started by NASA in July 1969
 after years of wet workshop studies. Now remember the tweak twist in Baxter Voyage ? just like here, Moonlab here we go.
Surely enough OTL 90 mt Skylab can't go into LLO, waaay too heavy.
Saturn V can throw 50 mt max with improvements here and there.
Well then after the July 1969 events you describie we can imagine a different, lighter, lunar Skylab is build before May 1973 launch.

I'm struck by the Lunar Orbiter scene--it's good to see that unsung hero of the program get some recognition.  But there was no Lunar Orbiter spacecraft operating in 1969 in our history--so this must be a fictional Lunar Orbiter 6, possibly made of surplus parts.  How did it pick up the water ice?  That was first picked up with radar in the 1990s, but the show indicates that it was photographed.  Does Lunar Orbiter 6 carry a spectrometer instrument, possibly cannibalized from the Mariner probes? 

Lunar orbiter F or Lunar Orbiter 6, yes. By may 1967 Boeing and NASA felt they could launch it late in the year. They had the spare parts and everything neeeded. It would have dirt cheap.
Alas it was not done... except in that TV series 😁

A neutron spectrometer is needed to find water. Both probe and instrument were available in the Apollo days but OTL they missed. Technology wise it works. Otherwise bistatic radar like Apollo lunar sounder ALSE was done on 17 SIM bay in 1972.

Geez guys now I HAVE TO SEE IT...

And Nixon is a godsend of a real life character for any aspiring script writer. There were things that man was and things he did, it would be hard to invent fiction good enough to beat them.
From Watergate to cottage cheese with ketchup, the rants, the slurs, the ramping paranoia... vietnam... no really the guy was better than fiction even just standing still and saying nothing. His face and his attitude spoke volume.

Just ask Matt Groening: the Simpsons and of course Futurama had so much love for Tricky Dick. He nailed the man flaws and antics to near perfection.
"ah, how stupid, what a McGovern I have been on that case !" ROTFL.

[Oli]

Watched the first 3 episodes. It's ok. Things I didn't like:

- The illegal Mexican immigrant subplot felt out of place.
- The von Braun hearing. Wasn't von Braun's role in WW2 public knowledge at the time? That Tom Lehrer song was released in 1965. Also, I doubt von Braun would have been opposed to a military base on the Moon in the first place.
- The Soviet side is completely absent, which is shame.
- For an alternate history show it has very little alternate history in it. I think in the long run they need something better than "we weren't first on the Moon" to keep the race going.

[hektor]

My assumption is that they are playing a long game. I would guess the illegal Mexican immigrant girl is the first person to walk on Mars (in the late 80s ?) in this timeline.

[hektor]

I agree that the genteel pacifist feminist Von Braun does not work for me. In addition he was a 6 ft massive guy, a squire from Prussia, not an emaciated person who makes me think sometimes of Peter Cushing.

Suicidal Michael Collins also is unbelievable. Also the exterior camera providing live footage of Eagle lifting off and tracking it is hard to swallow.

But apart from that quite enjoyable. Good soundtrack, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted and the like...

[Oli]

I agree that the genteel pacifist feminist Von Braun does not work for me.

I can see that somebody as driven as von Braun would not care about gender and thus be a feminist by the standards of the time. But for being a pacifist be worked to long for militaries on both sides.

[LM13]

I agree that the genteel pacifist feminist Von Braun does not work for me.

I can see that somebody as driven as von Braun would not care about gender and thus be a feminist by the standards of the time. But for being a pacifist be worked to long for militaries on both sides.

It's possible that Von Braun did change in his approach with time.  His religious awakening after coming to America is well-documented, and his biographer (Neufeld) observes that only in the late 1960s and early 1970s did he start to show remorse over his role in the atrocities committed during WWII.  While I have not read a biography of Von Braun, it is possible that the Von Braun of 1969 was a more pacifistic figure than that of 1958 or 1943.

[dglow]

The fourth episode is out. Any thoughts, reflections, opinions?

[hektor]

Not essential but there are not one but two very nice alternative Apollo 15 patches in the episode (Baldwin Stevens Sedgewick and then Baldwin Cobb Sedgewick) and I would love to have clean files of both of them... Love the fact that the final patch is including a black raven...

[malu5531]

Not essential but there are not one but two very nice alternative Apollo 15 patches in the episode (Baldwin Stevens Sedgewick and then Baldwin Cobb Sedgewick) and I would love to have clean files of both of them... Love the fact that the final patch is including a black raven...

What was the significance of the black raven?

[hektor]

Well I guess this is the symbol which Molly Cobb wanted for herself (and that is why she had the blue dove replaced by it).

Maybe she is a big fan of Poe ?