Is 'For All Mankind' ... bad now?
One of my favorite shows appears to have lost its magic. PLUS: Trailers for 'Dune: Part Two' and 'Civil War,' Dua Lipa goes 'Day Drinking,' and was Cecily Strong supposed to be on 'SNL'?
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The sixth episode of the current season of For All Mankind is available on Apple TV+ today, and it pains me to ask this, but …
Is For All Mankind … bad now?
I loved the first two seasons of Apple TV+’s alternate history space epic. I loved the concept, the idea that the Soviet Union beating the United States to the moon could have massive ripple effects. I loved the show’s twists on history. And I loved the characters from the first two seasons, especially the core four of Joel Kinnaman’s Ed Baldwin, Shantel VanSanten’s Karen Baldwin, Michael Dorman’s Gordon Stevens and Sarah Jones’ Tracy Stevens.
The Season 2 finale? Fantastic. A riveting episode of TV.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I can say the same about a single episode of Season 4.
(Spoilers ahead …)
With Gordon and Tracy long gone and Karen no longer with us after the Season 3 finale, For All Mankind has struggled to find new characters that are as interesting as the show’s first wave. The show wisely scuttled Gordon and Tracy’s kids — characters who were not only unbearable but were in a weird uncanny valley where viewers didn’t know if they were supposed to be 17 or 43.
For All Mankind’s shift to Kelly Baldwin and Aleida Rosales as power players at Helios this season has proven to be a dud. Kelly somehow blatantly took NASA intellectual property and brought it to a private company? And once again, I had to go to the For All Mankind wiki to decipher just how old these two characters are supposed to be.
The aging of characters has become comical too. Kinnaman continues to play Ed Baldwin, a character now in his 70s. His fake beard never fits quite right. The hairline on his receding wig crinkles in all the wrong ways. For All Mankind’s creative team recently told Den of Geek that they have plans for the show to continue for seven seasons. Are we going to see Kinnaman playing a 100-year-old Ed Baldwin in Season 7?
I could excuse the boring secondary characters or the poor aging makeup if For All Mankind still had the the creative spark we saw in those first two seasons. The United States missed out on being the first country to the moon? Fine. They were going to be the first to establish a moon base. Then we got to see the world race to set foot on Mars. With this trajectory, I believed For All Mankind would take us to the moons of Jupiter and beyond by the end of its run.
Instead, Season 4 has been about trying to capture an asteroid. Woo. I get that’s the incremental progress we’d see in a real space race, but that’s not why anyone was watching For All Mankind.
Annihilation author Jeff VanderMeer recently summed this up perfectly.
“For All Mankind’s fourth season is answering all the questions about the daily grind of living on Mars and also space maneuvers that viewers give no sh*ts about, following the characters we do not care about,” he wrote on Bluesky. “Stellar job, everybody.”
In fairness, Caitlin has been telling me For All Mankind is bad for a long time.
We watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last Friday. I missed it in theaters not due to some moral stand against the film, but since it came out during a busy period of the summer and I also chose to see films like Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning when I had the chance.
I liked Dial of Destiny. It felt like a better way to close out the franchise than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it still couldn’t live up to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and Last Crusade. (That one was the perfect way to close out the franchise.) I got past the de-aging CGI at the beginning of the film too.
Where Dial of Destiny really fell short for me, though, was its McGuffin. The Indiana Jones movies have had some pretty iconic treasures, the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail especially. People recognize those items. They instantly know what they are. The Antikythera mechanism? That just doesn’t click.
Sadness that seeps through Dial of Destiny. Indy’s aging. Sallah craves adventure again. Not only has life has passed by for these characters, but audiences have now watched Harrison Ford and John Rhys-Davies become old men too. While Kingdom of the Crystal Skull attempted to be a triumphant end to the Indiana Jones franchise, Dial of Destiny is much more somber.
A bit of a side note, but here’s one of the reasons people aren’t bothering to see these movies in theaters anymore: Instead of milking Dial of Destiny for all the money they could, Disney sent the film to Disney+ on Dec. 1 — before it was even available on physical home media on Dec. 5. I get streaming is unfortunately the future, but why not get a few bucks from DVDs and Blu-rays before putting a movie on your streaming service that people are already paying for?
And finally, with Elon Musk not only welcoming the vile Alex Jones back onto Twitter but also openly hanging out with him in a Spaces live chat, I’m definitely done posting over there. Come join me on Threads.
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NEWS, NOTES AND TRAILERS
🎞️ The Dune: Part Two trailer heard you like sandworms …
Right in time to piggyback on the release of Wonka this weekend comes a new trailer for Timothée Chalamet’s Dune: Part Two.
I really wish Warner Bros. would put Dune: Part One back into theaters. Sure, it had a theatrical run but there are a ton of people (myself included) who hadn’t fully returned to theaters during that part of the pandemic. I’d love to see the first Dune at my local Dolby theater before Dune: Part Two opens.
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🎞️🇺🇸 “OK, what kind of American are you?”
You might not recognize the name Alex Garland, but he’s been behind some of the best sci-fi movies and TV shows of the past few years, adapting and directing Annihilation from Jeff VanderMeer’s fantastic novel, and writing and directing Ex Machina and FX’s Devs.
Garland returns this spring with Civil War, a film set in the near future as a civil war tears apart the United States. The trailer is a bit too close to home.
Familiar faces: Garland has reunited actors from several of his past projects for Civil War — Nick Offerman and Stephen McKinley Henderson from Devs, Sonoya Mizuno from Ex Machina and Devs. The wife/husband duo of Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons join Wagner Moura (who voiced Death in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish).
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James Gunn confirms that Nicholas Hoult is his Lex Luthor
Despite the trades reported a few weeks ago that The Menu and Mad Max: Fury Road star Nicholas Hoult had been cast as Lex Luthor in Superman: Legacy, director James Gunn didn’t immediately confirm that news. This was unusual, since Gunn has quickly confirmed pretty much every bit of casting news for his upcoming Superman movie.
Gunn finally confirmed Hoult as Lex Luthor on Monday.
“Yes, finally I can answer, [Nicholas Hoult] is Lex Luthor in [Superman: Legacy] and I couldn’t be happier,” Gunn wrote on Threads. “We went out to dinner last night to celebrate & discuss how we can create a Lex that will be different from anything you’ve seen before and will never forget.”
And about his silence over the possible casting?
“‘But, James, we heard this weeks ago, why didn’t you tell us it was true?’” Gunn continued. “Because, although we were discussing it, it wasn’t final until a couple days ago and I don’t want to tell you all something that isn’t certain.”
Fair point. Read the post on Threads.
Brotherly love: James Gunn loves working with his brother, Sean Gunn. After casting him in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies (Rocket’s motion-capture, Kraglin) and in Suicide Squad (Weasel), James Gunn will keep this tradition going as he reboots the DC universe. Deadline reported on Friday that Sean Gunn will play Maxwell Lord in the rebooted DC Studios superhero films that James Gunn and Peter Safran are working on. Sounds like we won’t see Sean Gunn as Maxwell Lord in Superman: Legacy, though. Read the article at Deadline.
Previously on … Maxwell Lord was the villain in Wonder Woman 1984, played by Pedro Pascal. (Pascal is now moving on to the Marvel side of superhero movies, reportedly on board to play Reed Richards in Fantastic Four.)
Not a villain? While James Gunn didn’t confirm the news that his brother will be playing Maxwell Lord, he did conveniently post his thoughts on whether or not the character is a villain. Read the post on Threads.
“When you’re the brother of the guy who runs DC …”: I don’t know why people are still asking Zachary Levi about future DC superhero movies, but they are. Despite Shazam! Fury of the Gods bombing and it being clear to everyone that Levi’s version of that character will not be part of the rebooted DC universe, he’s still talking about it. “I don’t know,” Levi told ComicBook.com when asked if he might play another character in the universe like Sean Gunn. “Listen, when you’re the brother of the guy who runs DC, I guess you get to play whoever you want.” Read the article at TheWrap.
You’re not the father, Kurt: With speculation going around that Kurt Russell might play Jor-El, Superman’s Kryptonian father, Gunn took to Twitter to debunk that possibility. “Love Kurt, and, although the mores of Krypton are certainly different than ours, I’m not sure I see him as the first-time father of a newborn!” Gunn said in a deleted tweet. Gunn and Russell previously worked together on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
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🎞️🐼 “Violence makes our tummies tingle”
By the time Kung Fu Panda 4 hits theaters, it’ll have been more than eight years since the last Kung Fu Panda movie premiered. Will audiences still be interested in the adventures of Jack Black’s Po?
Kung Fu Panda 3 pulled in more than $500 million worldwide in 2016, but that sequel lagged behind its two predecessors both in domestic and worldwide grosses.
Hold me back: We’re still doing “Seven Nation Army” covers? I assumed Justified: City Primeval and Boyd Holbrook put an end to that.
•••
Dua Lipa can’t make it through a full “Day Drinking” with Seth Meyers
As installments of “Day Drinking” go, the Dua Lipa outing began slow. Maybe she needed a shot or six to really get into the premise of the segment with Seth Meyers. Things seemed to be going along great (you know, as great as getting blackout drunk during the day for a TV show can go), until a note popped up on screen:
At this point Dua said she needed a few minutes. A few minutes later Dua’s team said she needed a few minutes more. A few minutes after that her team said “Dua has to go home now.”
Hey, it’s tough to go drink for drink with Meyers during “Day Drinking.” (The Meyers family can drink.) They can’t all be Kelly Clarkson, Will Forte or the Jonas brothers.
•••
Next Saw sequels sets release date
Looks like Lionsgate intends to return the Saw franchise to its yearly release schedule. The studio announced Monday that Saw XI will hit theaters on Sept. 27, 2024.
While the first eight Saw movies opened on the weekend before Halloween, Saw X shifted the franchise into the previous month. The most recent Saw film sits at No. 6 on the franchise’s domestic box office chart.
Read the announcement on Instagram.
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🎞️ Ryan Reynolds wants you to meet his imaginary friends
Unless there’s a very big twist in the movie, John Krasinski is shifting gears from writing and directing A Quiet Place movies for IF, a film about imaginary friends.
In addition to starring Ryan Reynolds, Cailey Fleming, Fiona Shaw and Bobby Moynihan, IF boast a voice cast that includes Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Maya Rudolph, Jon Stewart, Sam Rockwell, Sebastian Maniscalco, Christopher Meloni, Richard Jenkins, Awkwafina and Vince Vaughn.
SNL ROUNDUP
Cecily Strong was originally set to play Elise Stefanik in last week’s cold open
Chloe Troast played a starring role in last weekend’s cold open, portraying Rep. Elise Stefanik for the first time. Turns out, she wasn’t SNL’s original pick for that role. According to several reports, SNL veteran Cecily Strong played the Republican congressperson during dress rehearsal. Read the article at TheWrap.
“Uncomfortable with the sketch”: While TheWrap suggests that “speculation quickly turned to Strong potentially holding off her return to appear on next week’s episode,” the New York Post had one source tell them that “Cecily was uncomfortable with the sketch,” with another source saying that “there were a variety of reasons, and last minute Cecily pulled out of the cold open.” Read the story at the New York Post.
Return of the cameo: Regardless of why Strong chose to withdraw from the cold open, it’s not a great sign that Lorne Michaels is dipping back into the cameo well again for these political roles. His reliance on celebrity guest spots during the Trump years (Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller, Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh, Jim Carrey as Joe Biden, Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer …) robbed an entire generation of SNL’s cast of possible breakout roles. Yes, guest cameos are part of SNL’s history but I don’t trust Lorne to not become addicted to them again. Especially not with SNL 50 on the horizon.
•••
Kate McKinnon makes a Christmas wish
I see what you did there, SNL, dressing Kate McKinnon like Kevin McCallister in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York …
(Which McKinnon character do you want to see her bring back to SNL this weekend? Based on the fact that Cecily Strong was hanging around, my money is on the recurring sketch where McKinnon plays that lady who always has a rough go with her alien abduction.)
Boys night: McKinnon will be only the second woman to host SNL this season. Before this episode, six of the first seven episodes of Season 49 were hosted by men.
Let’s do the math: I’m not sure if it’s surprising or not, but this is actually pretty standard for SNL. Over the past ten seasons, half of them saw the six men/two women hosting breakdown for the first eight episodes. Four seasons saw a five men/three women split (Season 48 technically had an extra dude in that mix with Steve Martin and Martin Short cohosting an episode). Season 42 had an even four/four split.
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Behind the Sketch: Battle of the Sexes
I’ll never pass up a chance to go behind the scenes on an SNL sketch.
IN MEMORIAM
Andre Braugher 1962-2023
Andre Braugher, the actor known to audiences for his roles in Homicide: Life on the Street and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, died on Tuesday at the age of 61. According to his publicist on Thursday, he died of lung cancer. Read his obituary at The New York Times.
“This hurts”: Many of Braugher’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine castmates posted tributes on social media. “You left us too soon,” Terry Crews wrote. “You taught me so much. I will be forever grateful for the experience of knowing you.” Read his post on Instagram.
“O Captain. My Captain.” Marc Evan Jackson, who played Raymond Holt’s husband, Kevin, on Brooklyn Nine-Nine offered a succinct tribute. Read his post on Instagram.
“I'll never work with one better”: David Simon, whose book Homicide: Life on the Street was based on, wrote, “Andre Braugher. God. I’ve worked with a lot of wonderful actors. I’ll never work with one better.” Read his post on Twitter.
“You made Baltimore proud”: My former colleague
reflected on what Braugher’s work in Homicide meant for Baltimore. Read his post at Dan Diamond’s newsletter.
BLU-RAY HAUL
The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian: The Complete First Season and The Mandalorian: The Complete Second Season: I should rewatch these at some point. My memory of where certain storylines go when it comes to The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett after Season 1 is foggy. Deepfake Luke Skywalker is in Boba Fett, right?
THE LINKS
How NASA Learned to Love 4 Squirmy Letters (Kenneth Chang, The New York Times)
Why is Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot so unfunny? (Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge)
Beeper vs. iMessage is a fight about how tech works — and who’s really in charge (David Pierce, The Verge)
AND FINALLY …
The animated Harley Quinn show finally gets some merch
To the best of my knowledge there has been just one collectible created for the animated Harley Quinn series on Max, an expensive and limited-edition non-posable figure. I’ve been stumped by the lack of merch for this show since there are so many cool characters that people would easily buy in collectible form. Harley, Ivy, King Shark!
We finally have some normal collectibles for Harley Quinn, with the characters now available as Funko Pops. (Yes, I know there are literal landfills full of Pops, but fans of the show will be happy with this development.)
In addition to the basic characters, there’s a glow-in-the-dark Ivy and a two-pack of Harley and Ivy from Ivy’s wedding day. King Shark appears to be missing, but there are likely more reveals coming.
