For All Mankind season 3

So, For All Mankind dropped the season 2 finale and gave us another end-of-season peek at what's to come in the next season: someone's going to Mars.

Despite being convinced that that's a Soviet boot treading the Martian surface a decade on from the season 2 finale I think that's wildly premature. Given how season 2 ended with US-Soviet relations getting so bad yet ending on an optimistic note1 I think that next season's story of establishing a Mar colony will involve an international collaboration.

Maybe that was a Soviet spacesuit's boot in the closing shot from Mars, but perhaps if they'd held that shot for another ten seconds the foot of an American (or Indian, or Japanese, or German) suit worn by a crewmate would step into that view? The different space agencies insisted on retaining their own suits because that makes the multinational nature of the project visible in every group shot, but everyone's travelling in the same ship and using the same comms system. And yes, carrying their own nation's brand of weaponry, if they must, but they're all using the same rounds and firing mechanism because the economics of mass manufacturing overrode the need to boost national pride by wielding your very own make of firearm.

One thing I do ask: can we please not have more than one recurring character from season 2 be part of the crew in that Mars expedition? I get that it's tempting to think that the expedition will be led by one of the astronauts from the first two seasons who will turn out to be the old hand2, commanding a crew including a couple of the younger characters who ended season 2 all set to pursue careers leading them into the space program and are now at the height of their careers.

The thing is, after it turned out that Star Wars ended up with most of the important characters being part of the same family it'd be nice if this story didn't go that way. If the program professes to be any sort of meritocracy - leave to one side for a moment the bad taste real-world uses of the term leave in the mouth, and that the term itself has its' roots in a criticism of the concept - there should be little prospect that relatives keep on showing up in the Org Chart down the years.

If we have to see our existing characters in the third season, how about Admiral Ed Baldwin (USN, retired) as the cranky advisor to President Biden3 who keeps on trying to buttonhole NASA Administrator Margo Madison4 with his thoughts on the need to beat the Soviets to the Solar System's high ground by colonising Callisto. Or how about our seeing Aleida Rosales5 being chief engineer of the first Mars colony?

Bottom line is that they can't just have season 3 be a repeat of the working-towards-having-a-colony-on-new-world-is-hard story from season 1. Given a choice between that and a let's-spend-a-decade-overcoming-suspicions-about-soviet-spies story, it'd be funny if that boots-on-the-surface-of-Mars-a-decade-on scene came in season 3, episode 2.


  1. Because the lesson of the season 2 finale's plot was that leaving decision-making to the commanders on the spot will turn out better than following the dictates of the governments involved. Very much the line you'd expect from Ron Moore, given his background in Star Trek and the Barrlestar Galactica reboot, I guess. Just as long as the politicians back home have the good sense to spot an opportunity for a climb-down when it's presented to them on a plate. Who knew that Ronald Reagan's legacy in this timeline, having got to the White House four years earlier than in ours, would be to seize just such an opportunity? Wouldn't it be ironic if his term of office was followed by the establishment of the CoDominium
  2. Fun thought. Molly Cobb for Mars Colony Commander. Either science has a cure for glaucoma, or, better yet, Molly finds herself wearing an ancestor of the VISOR and she's constantly ahead of her subordinates because she's watching all the relevant displays at once. 
  3. He didn't bugger up his first run at the top job and got there much earlier than in our timeline, before ended up handing over to a youngster called Obama. 
  4. Whose Russian husband is working on the Mars project himself, so there's no need for Soviet intelligence to try to exploit what they know about her anonymous contribution to the Buran project back in the day and we can nip that subplot in the bud. 
  5. Even better if they can slip in a romance for her with an Irish guy called O'Brien, so that a few generations down the line a young Starfleet noncom by the name of Miles O'Brien turns out to have some Mexican ancestry. Granted Miles O'Brien was born in September 2328 in Ireland, so that implies that one of the descendants of Jimmy O'Brien and Aleida Rosales ended up migrating back from Mars to Earth. But a few steps further into this alternate history who's to say that couldn't have happened, especially as a proper interplanetary economy starts up and job applicants from Mars might end up being willing to move to Dublin if the right career opening arose. So long as 24th century Dublin has excellent high-speed transporter links and decent theatres who's to say that's not a trade-off someone fleeing the economic impact of Martian First Minister M'Tumbe's imposition of austerity on the Martian economy would be willing to make, especially if there was some family connection to the Dublin region of the Celtic Confederation?