Why ‘For All Mankind’ Had To Start The Martian Revolution
The showrunners and cast of For All Mankind reveal the stakes for an explosive Season 5.
With For All Mankind Season 5, the series that began in an alternate 1969 has now jumped ahead to 2012. And although that’s still set in the past, showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi are fully aware that their historical sci-fi drama is not really a show about alternative history — at least not anymore.
“Season 5 is technically the recent past, but it also feels like it’s the future,” Matt Wolpert tells Inverse. “There’s an interesting development now, because we weren’t able to use as much real-world news as part of the world of our show, because our alternate history has changed so much that a lot of the stuff that happened didn’t happen.”
To put it another way, some of the novelty of For All Mankind in Season 2 or even Season 3 was to present a sci-fi take on the-path-not-taken in the decade of the 1980s or 1990s. But because there have now been humans on Mars for more than 20 years in this timeline, Season 5 feels different, even though every season of the show has been drastically different. And through it all, Wolpert, Nedivi, and series co-creator Ronald D. Moore have strived to make sure the core of the show isn’t just about answering vague “what if” questions about their alternate universe. Instead, the reality of this show’s status quo in Season 5 is both more grounded and more speculative than ever before. And at the center of it all is a massive revolution brewing on the Martian soil.
Minor spoilers ahead for For All Mankind Season 5, Episode 1, “First Light.”
The debut episode of the new season, “First Light,” opens with Lily Dale (Ruby Cruz) spraying graffiti that reads “Free Mars,” and it’s in that sentiment that the biggest conflict in Season 5 is made clear: The people who have now been living on Mars since the early 2000s no longer want to be regulated by Earth. And, to make this storyline feel realistic, Wolpert and Nedivi tell Inverse they had to look further into the past for inspiration.
Space Wars With Mars
Ruby Cruz as Lily Dale in For All Mankind Season 5.
“The main one we looked at was the American colonies and how they grew from being founded by England,” Wolpert says. “They kind of developed their own culture, and there was a big gap of space between them. The amount of time it took to go by ship from England to the U.S. is similar to how long it takes to go from Earth to Mars in our show. That’s what the people in our show are going through, especially these younger people who have grown up in this place.”
The Martian revolution on For All Mankind, then, is a bit like the historical American Revolution, which is a sci-fi concept explored in the genre before: Babylon 5 had a “Free Mars” movement, while aspects of Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress dealt with a lunar revolt that has a bit of a connection to For All Mankind.
“Life on Mars ain’t a walk in the park,” actress Ruby Cruz says. Her character Lily is the daughter of Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell), who was part of the crew that stole a precious asteroid at the end of Season 4, making Mars a major player in the solar system. And for Lily and Alex Baldwin (Sean Kauffman), this is the only home they’ve ever really known. This detail, perhaps more than anything, is one of the most interesting challenges for the actors this season: thinking of Mars as the opposite of an alien world. “It was really cool to sort of imagine Mars as a beautiful home planet,” Cruz explains. “The way we appreciate Earth — and I find so much beauty, spirit, and nature here — that’s the way Lily sees Mars.”
An Endgame With the Next Generation
Ruby Cruz, Barrett Carnahan, Yael Chanukov, and Sean Kaufman: The kids of Mars are alright. Or are they?
Like all things about the show, none of these high-concept ideas work if the characters aren’t central to everything. And yet, Season 5 is the boldest in the show’s history, because there are very few of the original cast members left, and with Season 6 being the conclusion of the series, the endgame of the show will clearly center on the newest generation of people, who are coming of age this season.
“This devil’s bet we had to make at the beginning of the show,” Nedivi says. “We knew, okay, for this concept to work, the cast at the end is going to be almost entirely different.”
While it’s true that we’ve still got a few Season 1 folks — Joel Kinnaman is still around as former Apollo astronaut Ed Baldwin, Wrenn Schmidt is back as Margo Madison, and Krys Marshall’s Danielle Poole will show up a bit later in the season — the majority of the power players were either young people back in Season 2, or they are literal young people in Season 5.
“No, no pressure at all!” Sean Kauffman jokes about taking on the role of Alex Baldwin, son of Kelly and grandson of Ed. “It’s so hard to think about sometimes because I always put it in the context of my own life. Like, when I was 18, did you really know about what your grandfather or grandmother did? Alex doesn’t really know who it is, and I think what happens this season is especially pivotal because I am a firm believer that it is on the younger generation’s shoulders always to create a revolution.”
Grandfather and grandson: Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) and Alex Baldwin (Sean Kauffman) in For All Mankind Season 5.
Saying exactly how this passing of the torch happens throughout For All Mankind Season 5 would be a huge spoiler. But Kauffman did reveal that Kinnaman did help give him the confidence to carry the show forward.
“There’s a really big turning of the guard this season,” Kauffman reveals. “Joel was really great. I remember this scene, and I was talking about my nerves, and there was a close-up of me, and he was like: ‘You got this.’ And we did the scene. And he looked at me, and he’s in his old-man makeup, and looks like the Godfather, and he just nods his head and gives me a thumbs-up and walks away. I got his approval. And then I was like: Let’s go.”
