Well here I am blasted off in space cadet mode again. Now that Season 5 has finished, I went ahead and jumped on board that next transport via Apple TV for the red planet and I'm watching For All Mankind again. Like so many of these shows these days, the vast amount of time between seasons forces me to rewatch at least the whole prior season in order to get back on track so yesterday, from about 8am to roughly 8pm, allowing for little breaks... that's what I did. A full day of binge streaming. Could I have simply watched a reviewers Season 4 recap like Pete Peppers which would have been a good hour or so at least of clips and commentary to get me back into the groove? Not with my Shameless brain. I need the full monty.
So now it's Sunday and I'll be starting a fresh day of streaming, likely finishing the series off to the current end sometime later today. Oh, yes, the show is continuing. It's already been renewed for a sixth season, but when's that going to air? 2028? Right now, I'm in the third episode, I think, where Ed's just festered the North Korean dude away to the other Mars city (the other Mars city?... surprise!) which is like the Cold War non-aligned nations coalition. Oh, and Ed is dying of cancer, so there's that drama.
My one critique, and I'll soon see if it's corroborated by likeminded folks on Reddit, is that Season 4 and, so far, this season, are great in character development and drama, this one seemingly going down a very "whodunnit Colombo path," but I want more SPACE! More spaceships, more science, more awesome spectacle. What we get is a lot of grey, dark corridors and now a Deep Space Nine-like promenade, replete with familiar eateries (and did I spy a Starbucks sign?) and the "smuggler duo's gone straight" bar & grill which is pretty much just Quark's.
We know... budget, budget, budget. Guys, don't cheap out on us. Read the subreddits. We fans are out here. We watch quality sci-fi and remember the good ones, not just for the run of the show, but for decades thereafter (BSG 2004, I'm looking at you... which, BTW, Ronald D. Moore, you are the EP for this show as well so...) That means return viewers for subscription based models and for commercial-supported TV. More subs = more direct revenue, more viewers of commercials = increased ad revenue. I mean, isn't that what it's all about? We know it's not all bread and circuses. Money doesn't make just THIS world go 'round, baby. Mars spins on them greenbacks too.