I will get everyone I know watching For All Mankind. It is my Mission of the Month.
You waited this long to tell me about this series?!? Seeing the lunar regolith do that... knowing that each of those plumes is a backscattered collection of thousands of huge molecular pieces of moon dust all energized from a SINGLE proton. Absolute chills. I was like "STAY IN THE CAVE, GURL!". One of my advisors built the particle detectors that measured this event, which is (obviously) very minor compared to a Carrington-level storm: After they got the data down and processed, NASA management pretty much gagged them. Couldn't publish or present the results publicly until the Apollo program was over. Sadly, pretending like we need to further characterize the space environment for astronauts is, at this point, a relatively dishonest funding ploy. There are still very worthwhile endeavors, namely modeling and remotely inferring (via helioseismology) the interior of the sun to allow us to predict solar flares and coronal mass ejections (usually the two occur together) as far into the future as we can. But to say "well we still dunno everything about planetary radiation belts, and, by golly those can impact astronauts", at this point? Nah. We don't send people through rad belts. Donezo. psst don't tell my friends I said that Since I hate myself, I watched Knowing the other day, which, for the uninitiated, features (SPOILERS:) a solar flare and CME much more powerful than the Carrington Event, a global extinction event. We still don't know if that's impossible. It's a vanishingly small possibility, maybe a one in a few hundred million chance something like that comes our way within our lifetimes. edit: Raised by Wolves was infuriating. A total violation of viewers' trust that even one fucking detail of the plot line would ever be resolved. You don't get to make content like that. Totally abusive.The solar storm of August 1972 is legendary at NASA because it occurred in between two Apollo missions: the crew of Apollo 16 had returned to Earth in April and the crew of Apollo 17 was preparing for a moon landing in December.
That scene takes place in Season 2 Episode 1. It's ostensibly 1982. Theoretically, this one. Ron Moore was a goofy kid who ended up writing Star Trek: TNG. He parlayed that into Roswell, Carnivale, Battlestar Galactica, Helix and Outlander. I'm pretty sure For All Mankind is the one he wanted more than all the rest. There's an absolutely heartbreaking attention to detail in that show.
lol My wife was kinda sorta into Outlander until Lord Stiffpants absolutely beat the ever-loving shit out of Claire at which point she noped out real hard. Haven't tried the Jon Stewart thing. It's been described as "Last Week Tonight but completely un-funny" and considering LWT is 30-40% Frontline clips by volume, I'll stick with Frontline thanks. Foundation is poo. Not utter dogshit, but poo. For All Mankind is unrelentingly brilliant.I just found out it's created by Ronald D. Moore.
Foundation turned out to be dogshit. Not quite Raised By Wolves dogshit, not quite Lost In Space Season 2 dogshit, but real close. Everyone insists I need to see Ted Lasso, which is a real good goddamn reason for me not to watch it. For All Mankind, on the other hand, is one of those vanishingly rare works of art where the creators took the money and made something for themselves. Watchmen the movie is this. It's a fan making a movie for fans who doesn't give a fuck what anybody else thinks. Cyberpunk 2077 is this. CD Projekt Red took all the money they made from Witcher 3 and piled it into a passion project they'd been hammering at since 2012. I'm pretty sure Ron Moore has wanted to do a worm-logo NASA alternate history since Challenger exploded. And he dragged along all his Star Trek: TNG buddies. Ron Moore et. al. managed to make a marquee sci fi series in which the mutherfucking Sea Dragon features prominently. it is a #kleinbl00batshittery tour de force. Season 1 finale post-credit scene (no spoilers):
Was there ever a chance that Foundation wouldn't be dogshit? (And I say this as someone who hasn't watched it and probably won't.) I guess one of the things that I find difficult to imagine about adapting it is that the only real character in the series is Hari Seldon, and everyone else are basically cogs on a wheel. I've read the first three books in the series and the only characters I remember besides Seldon are the Mule and Han. And I only remember Han because I read Asimov long after I saw Star Wars. I remember plots and situations and lots of other things about Foundation, but characters just never seemed to matter. And in a highly character-driven format like serialized TV, I just don't see it working without threading a really tight needle. Then again, I know fuckall about screenwriting, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.
It looked really pretty. And I enjoy Lee Pace, and I enjoy Jared Harris. I would go as far as to say Jared Harris was the best thing about Mad Men and the best thing about The Expanse. But they kill him off in like Episode 2. Foundation was Gibbon fanfic. It reads like Gibbon fanfic. And yeah it was gonna be crap but I mean, at least everyone acknowledges that the source material is unadaptable so do what you want with it. They didn't do good stuff.