For All Mankind

this is a spoiler free piece - my hope is this gives you inspiration to seek out the show

“Right, Spaghetti night.”

FOR ALL MANKIND is an alternate history drama series on AppleTV+ unspooling a tale that questions what if The Space Race never ended. Not to be confused with the 1989 Al Reinert docufilm by the same name although they both detail the Apollo missions at NASA albeit with separate, unique visions. One a documentary “Real Life” look at the people and events that happened, the other (this series) a dramatized fictional account of what could have happened had we continued our reach for the stars. Don’t let the History Channel-vibe of that description turn you away! The show is ponderous and profound but vastly entertaining from start to finish. Miles off base from the phony antics of the History Channels current 21st Century offerings. Featuring some of the best acting and production design currently streaming. It’s not just for sci-fi and history fans, it’s relatable, thrilling, and most of all engaging. You’ll find a show brimming with humanity and passion both behind and in front of the camera, a story of broken dreams and human triumphs. It’s the best show on that no one is watching. Most of all, you can feel the care and attention given to this show from all departments, especially in their steadfast focus on character and storytelling.

An essential part of the storytellers toolkit that many modern shows forget to engage with is using tertiary dialogue during exposition to continuously build the working lives of any particular character. Meaning every line of dialogue used is to push the story forward but also to inform viewers what and how the characters are thinking. FOR ALL MANKIND employs this notion so smoothly, so efficiently that I wanted to briefly highlight its importance and why its something to keep in mind whether you’re writing or watching. Brilliant in its simplicity yet potent in its affect. Infusing bits of personalized reasoning can do a bulk of the heavy lifting for the story/character quickly without robbing the show of its thunder. Which is much sought after in terms of pacing a story while conveying information to an audience. What do I mean by that? I mean by taking any chance we get to imbue our characters with working inner lives, to make them living breathing people. For instance, as we’ll find out in the show, even something as low-key as having dinner plans with family. That information doesn’t just benefit the writers understanding of our character but by giving it to the audience they can connect with the people in the story on a deeper level. What we are talking about is not being adverse to writing what some would call non-essential information, like discussing activities not connected to the scene at hand. First, some context for the show:

Early in the 2nd season life has changed for many and we catch up with old characters in new places. They’ve grown, occupy new roles and the filmmakers craft incredible visual storytelling that snap shot the characters’ new roles through wardrobe and set design but also some of the best hair and make up jobs you’ll get from any television production. From a dingy misfits shirt and beat-to-hell headphones a quiet teenage sibling is never seen without, the pristine shimmer of a stark white Annapolis uniform the wide eyed older brother sports like armor, all the way to the beer bellies, stress worn skin and mop flop era-appropriate hair of the older crew. Seriously, the wig game in Hollywood has seen a significant slump lately but it’s evident here that they are working with a top notch crew firing on all cylinders. A prime example of why we call filmmaking craft work. Side note: this is a show that takes the opportunity to examine the time periods in which it takes place. It doesn’t use the 60s, 70s, or 80s as window dressing or cheap nostalgia pay offs like the other will-not-be-named popular Nostalgia-driven show currently airing. This uses the sociopolitical atmosphere of each decade to prop up story conflicts and resolutions.

Apple spent a ton of money on this show and it’s all up there on screen and on the page. This brings us to their use of a spaghetti dinner to build story rather than flatten. The story needs to convey where characters motivations lie now in relation to their old selves. It also needs to give the characters a meaningful reason to have whats referred to as an exposition dump (Exposition is background information on characters or setting explained through dialogue not action or essentially a large portion of talking). A straight and narrow play would be for the characters to stay in one location and speak in only essential dialogue that meets baseline story requirements. In this case we are talking about how government officials kneecapping the program and figuring out the next step. However, while this will fulfill the needs of the story, it’s missing out on a crucial element; building character along with said story. You should always be taking the opportunity/looking for places to do character work even in the more mechanical parts of storytelling.

When we finally see where Joel Kinnaman’s Ed Baldwin has landed now that he is no longer Space bound we’re made instantly aware how he has grown from season to season due to a few quick lines and clever set dressing. A main focus of Season 1 saw this astronaut pioneering the moon at the expense of time. Time with his family which has become a major internal conflict for Ed. The scene in question is simple enough: Ed, now High Ranking but also desk bound, is visited by Administrator Thomas Paine (played by Dan Donohue) at the end of the day. Ed’s fixation on the clock is palpable as seconds tick closer and closer to the hour. We can see it in his face, in his movements, how ready he is to get home and in no way wants to have this discussion with Paine. Paine needs to relay information to Ed both for story purposes but more importantly to fill the audience in on political context.

As we learned earlier the usual method we would see for this is to sit down with the 2 leads in a dialogue heavy scene that bluntly lays out the political conflict. All but guaranteeing to bore the audience, potentially disengaging them from the story, and worse yet fail to convey crucial character depth. Let’s get one thing out of the way, yes consciously deciding to employ exposition is purposefully disobeying the cardinal rule of ‘Show Don’t Tell’. While normally I would agree that showing makes more of an impact in most regards, here we see that we can harness all forms of dialogue to amplify what we are showing to greater heights. It’s about knowing when and what to bring into the dialogue. Exposition is unavoidable and sometimes even the right choice to make, even though some scholars will tell you otherwise, but as we see here it’s easy to turn a detriment into a benefit. It can be tricky to balance exposition so you don’t lose your audience but also keep the story on track. The writers use what we’ll just call The Spaghetti Method: They need to drop contextual information and set up the walk n’ talk so our scene is no longer static. Remember: Forward Momentum! FOR ALL MANKIND constantly keeps things moving but never stifles the characters. Instead of dropping only informational dialogue they give Ed a specific reason that morphs the scene from exposition into a character beat; it’s spaghetti night, which the Administrator Paine dryly, somewhat obtusely, states “Right, Spaghetti night.” Understanding that Ed is not about to sacrifice his family time for political games. Ed clearly and desperately wants to get home. Paine suggest they conduct the meeting while walking Ed to his vehicle - perfectly setting up the walk n’ talk to move things along. Now the characters move from one location to the next - keeping visual interest, we get our contextual information in exposition throughout the movement, but crucially we also now have a better understanding of our lead character and his position in life. Professionally, his home life, and his internal struggles. All through two lines of dialogue and some impeccable acting.

A seemingly simple thing to keep in mind but one that is often overlooked. This easy to remember notion can boost entire sections of a script as evident in each and every episode of FOR ALL MANKIND. The show runners are acutely aware that sometimes the most obvious script choice is obvious because its what the story is giving you. To embrace it rather than toss it aside as you would learn in school. Basics are great, but rules can be shackles. If the characters feel like real people with inner lives and conflicts they’ll show you the way and the story will unfold naturally from them. Those moments will seem unnecessary but they fuel everything else in the story.

The characters live and breath due to these little moments. By adding in a line about spaghetti dinner and hammering home the importance of it, compounded with Kinnaman’s acting, we instantly understand the state of his character. We interpret?this is a man who, now, not only prioritizes family over work but more importantly he prioritizes family bonding time. A far cry from the man we met a season prior who was work obsessed, overly determined, near sighted and naive. There is a monumental mid-season event I don’t want to spoil that rocks Ed Baldwin to his core. The shift is enlightening and reaffirms why those bonding moments are a necessity. Moments that make a person who they are, moments we should never take for granted. Moments we should seek out with unbridled passion for when they are lost to time and we are old men we won’t be filled with regret.

Take each scene as it comes to determine when and where and what you can use to deepen your characters at any given moment. It doesn’t always have to be something family related either. That’s a quick shortcut to grabbing people emotionally but it all depends on each particular scene and finding space to carve out character beats. It can be anything that opens up the characters world for the audience while also propelling the narrative forward. Never loosing sight of story pacing and character work. They should always go hand in hand. Too many modern shows are influenced by Binge Watch Culture and therefor spend significant amounts of time wheel spinning instead of being laser focused on telling a story. It’s baked into their format. 6 episodes worth of story in a 13 episode run with no time for characters to be anything other than cardboard conduits moving from A to B with little motivations nor logic. There is no value in character beats as everything only exists to service the plot. Loosing the elements the make something Human and when you don’t care about the characters, everything else becomes a harder sell. That’s a piece for another time!

FOR ALL MANKIND Season 3 has just begun and I implore you to seek this out. I wanted to highlight this fantastic show and the fun and easy to remember tools creators use to draw viewers in and give them worthwhile entertainment. You may not notice it but you’ll feel the difference when watching something that engages in thoughtful craft work rather than shallow content. No empty calories here. FOR ALL MANKIND has all the telltale signs of a good production: It builds characters at every turn while never loosing focus of the narrative, between the writing, the acting, the wardrobe, the set/sound design, we know and understand each characters internal and external lives. They aren’t static cutouts but actual people we grow to care about and enjoy spending time with and my hope is you tune in and spend that time too. I promise you will be enraptured, enveloped by the sheer earnestness and awe. Even after the episodes bring catharsis, you’ll be talking about each one long after they end.