For All Mankind, one of Apple TV’s many compelling sci-fi shows, got through four seasons by asking a big question: What would our world be like if the space race never ended? In its fifth season, which premiered Friday, the show is starting to hint at its answer: It’s the same as our actual world, only with some of humanity’s biggest problems on Earth relocated to outer space. The season starts the way every Mankind season starts, with a world-building montage of news clips that would seem like lazy exposition if it weren’t such pure fun, and frankly necessary, given the show’s labyrinthine universe. Season 4, which aired its finale just over two years ago, took place in 2003, when a rebel band of Martian heroes (in this case, actual humans living and working on Mars) “stole” a valuable asteroid by directing it into Mars’ orbit, thus forcing the United States and the still-existing Soviet Union to continue investing in the Red Planet so they could mine the asteroid. Now, with the fifth season, the show picks up in 2012, and all is not well. The asteroid is barely returning any valuable materials to Earth, where there’s a global populist backlash against the money-grubbing, elitist humans who are draining government coffers on Mars. (Sound familiar?) President Al Gore lost the…
Published: March 27, 2026 3:00 pm
Source: Slate — Read original