When I first spoke to For All Mankind showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi last week, Apple had not yet announced the sixth and final season of the show. And yet, having seen the bulk of the forthcoming fifth season, I just had the sense it was inevitable.
More so than almost any of the previous four seasons, For All Mankind season five, which debuts tomorrow on Apple TV, introduces storylines and characters tailor-made not just to tell a great story this year but great stories for many years to come.
“What you feel this season, probably more than most, is the generational change,” Nedivi told io9 days before the season six news. “Every year, I think, reflects the theme we’re trying to capture that season. So last year, season four was about workers on Mars. So it made sense to introduce Miles [Toby Kebbell] and Sam [Tyner Rushing], these characters who represent labor. This season is about Mars being a home and what that means. The identity of being a Martian. And then you needed these children, these younger characters who have that tie to Mars and what that means to be someone like Alex [Baldwin], who grew up on Mars, where to him, that’s the small town and Earth is the exotic place. It’s like a flip on how we usually look at Mars.”
For those who might not be caught up, season five of For All Mankind is set in the 2010s. After landing on Mars in season three and populating it in season four, season five, as Nedivi said, is about making it a home. That means family. And that means new characters. Lots of them.
“I think for us that’s why a lot of these characters, as much as I want to say it was like an intentional generational shift, it came more from a natural place of what the storytelling was telling us,” Nedivi continued. “But it did give you the opportunity that I think is really unique for our show of like three generations of characters. Not only seeing Ed Baldwin age from like 30s to 80s, but then being able to see his daughter and her son and kind of how the family tradition continues.”
Alex, played by Sean Kaufman, and Lily, played by Ruby Cruz, are the two main characters in that aspect. Alex is the son of Kelly Baldwin (Cynthy Wu), whose father, Ed (Joel Kinnaman), has been the star of the show since day one. Lily is the daughter of Miles (Kebbell), a key figure in the Mars uprising last season who has since brought his family to Mars. And while we don’t know what the season holds for them, it would be wild if they didn’t come back for season six.
It would also be wild if season six didn’t take things well beyond Mars. Without spoiling anything, part of season five centers on the inhabitants of Mars making an attempt to go deeper into space, and the showrunners say that is also part of the grand design.
“A lot of the story this season is about building Mars as a home, but we didn’t want to feel like that was the end point of space exploration,” Wolpert told io9. “There’s always an inherent, ‘Okay, yes, we’re building this here, but what’s next? What’s over that next hill?’ And so the spirit of exploration was really important for us to continue moving forward. And the search for life in the solar system felt like the right way to kind of motivate that.”
So new characters and further exploration of our solar system not only drive season five but are very specifically there to give the show a place to finally land in season six. That’s something that, earlier on, barely seemed possible at all. While fans of For All Mankind love the show, it never quite received the same level of promotion or hype as fellow Apple TV shows like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, or Severance. So the fact that the show is still going is a credit to you. Yes, you.
“We’re very grateful to all the people who have found this show and who tell other people about this show, because really word of mouth to me is the greatest way to spread the fandom of a show,” Wolpert said.
The fandom will continue to spread in the coming weeks as For All Mankind unleashes its 10-episode fifth season starting Friday. It ends on May 29, the same day the spinoff, Star City, debuts. The sixth and final season is then expected to premiere in 2027. We’ll have more from Mars soon.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
