Apple TV's For All Mankind Imagines 5,000-Person Mars as a Suburb, Not a Sci-Fi Fantasy
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 25
Apple TV's For All Mankind Imagines 5,000-Person Mars as a Suburb, Not a Sci-Fi Fantasy
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 25
About 5,000 residents now populate the Mars of Apple TV’s “For All Mankind,” where the latest season focuses on code violations, bars and teenage romance rather than futuristic spectacle.
Ben Nedivi said the creators wanted the colony to feel “real” and grounded, avoiding a “Jetsons” vision even as the show includes asteroid mining, shuttles and low-gravity rides.
Most Martian settlers in the series are drawn by well-paid jobs tied to a local asteroid mine, making the red planet look less like a heroic frontier than a working town.
That approach sets the show apart from common TV sci-fi formulas centered on either incomprehensibly advanced societies or post-apocalyptic collapse.
Will a Martian colony just replicate Earth's problems, or could it become a true societal reset?
Does grounding sci-fi in mundane reality make it more compelling, or does it rob the genre of its wonder?
As asteroid mining becomes reality, who will write the laws for the new 'gold rush' in space?