Ariel and Sasha Experience ... For All Mankind!

Ariel: Okay, Sash, I assume you know why we're here.
Sasha: Uh ... to talk about For All Mankind like it says in the title you typed?
Ariel: Yes -- but also, there's more.
Sasha: Aaannnd, what would that be?
Ariel: We need to stop being so lazy this year!
Sasha: ...
Ariel: I know, I know! I'm the worst at being lazy around here, but honestly, EVERYBODY is starting to compete with me in 2024!
Sasha: Hmm. I guess you may be right.
Ariel: Whew! That was easier than I thought.
Sasha: In fact, I'd almost say we've been lazier than season 4 of For All Mankind.
Ariel: Oooh, that smarts. I mean, even I noticed they were being lazy with that season. I didn't think we were being as lazy as they were.
Sasha: I said almost.
Ariel: That's true. Well, is there anything about For All Mankind that's not a spoiler that you want to say before we tell people to put their spoiler blankets on?
Sasha: Sure. It's not a spoiler to tell people they should watch seasons 1 to 3. At least, it's not any more of a spoiler than saying how lazy I thought season 4 was.
Ariel: Oh! Wow, I was so busy feeling burned by you saying we were that lazy, I didn't even notice it was a spoiler.
Sasha: I mean, not much of a spoiler, but a little bit spoily. Anyway, it's not a spoiler to say we thought the first three seasons were pretty great, right? Lots of exciting space stuff, lots of good characters, lots of twists and turns ...
Ariel: Lots of history! Wow, did I learn a lot of history watching this show.
Sasha: Um ...
Ariel: Politics too, which I don't usually try to pay attention to because I see how stressed out paying attention to politics makes our boyfriend. Although honestly, the politics stuff in this show didn't seem quite as bad as he always makes politics out to be.
Sasha: Well ... the thing is ...
Ariel: Oh dang.
Sasha: What?
Ariel: You've got that look on your face like you always get when you're thinking, "How do I tell Aers she's being really dumb without embarrassing her?"
Sasha: I didn't say you were being dumb.
Ariel: I know, but you were looking it.
Sasha: No, because we both know you're not dumb. It's just that ... sometimes you're missing a couple of facts here and there.
Ariel: Well, sure. Everybody is. Right?
Sasha: True.
Ariel: So go on, then, what's the big-deal fact or two I'm missing about this show?
Sasha: It, uh, may be the whole idea behind the show.
Ariel: What? It's super obvious what the idea is. It's about people going out in space doing space stuff. And also about how there's this competition going on with all the countries of the world trying to be best at it, especially the U.S. and the SoViet Unam.
Sasha: Why did you type that that way?
Ariel: What way?
Sasha: SoViet Unam.
Ariel: Because that's one of the history-political things I learned in the show. I always heard there was a big fight with Vietnam around the same time we were going to the moon, but I found out in this show that "Vietnam" is short for "SoViet Unam."
Sasha: Aers, that's "Soviet Union." It's a totally different place from Vietnam. I mean, it was, back then.
Ariel: Well that doesn't make any sense. I mean they're both to do with Viet, right? Whatever that is. "Vietnam" starts with Viet, and "SoViet" is even more Viet than Vietnam. So they can't be totally different.
Sasha: No, it's -- why are you saying it's "more Viet"?
Ariel: Because it's right in the name. It's So Viet.
Sasha: ...
Ariel: Haha! I got you! I'm totally joking.
Sasha: Oh are you.
Ariel: Yes! I actually went and looked a whole bunch of stuff up before I told you we needed to blog about this show. Which is good, because it turns out I was like, super wrong about a lot of what was history in For All Mankind and what was made up. Kind of a lot of it was made up.
Sasha: Yeah, definitely. This ... really isn't like you, though. I mean, that would have been a lot of work.
Ariel: It WAS. But I'm trying to be less lazy and see if I can encourage the rest of our yams to be less lazy too. Hardly anybody's been blogging this year, our boyfriend hasn't been writing, we haven't done much emailing each other so far ... we're kind of just being a bunch of big lumps.
Sasha: Hey, we've been doing a lot of rpg stuff with that Dragonbane game. That's not being lumps.
Ariel: Sure, but that's pretty much it, you know?
Sasha: I'd say we've watched a lot of TV too, but sitting watching TV is pretty lumpish, obviously.
Ariel: Especially if we don't blog about it!
Sasha: Well, that's what we're doing now, at least. I mean, not what we're doing now, because what we're doing now is talking about how lazy we've been. But my guess is we'll get back to the experience-blogging part eventually.
Ariel: We can do that now. I just wanted to see if I could trick you with my joke, and then I had to explain it. So that part's done.
Sasha: How about the no-spoiler part, is that done too?
Ariel: Sure, I guess. Now I'm going to make you tell people to put on their spoiler blankets, because I'm trying to make all our yams be less lazy, and that's a good start, I think.
Sasha: You kind of already announced that it's spoiler-blanket time, but what the heck, sure. Everybody put on your spoiler blankets if you don't want us to spoil For All Mankind for you.
Ariel: You can start off the spoiler-telling part too. Same reason.
Sasha: Hang on. Is this whole deal of you trying to encourage all of us to be less lazy just a smokescreen for making me do all the work in this post so you can be lazy about it?
Ariel: No. I mean, that would be a lot of work for me to do just to be lazy about one post, wouldn't it?
Sasha: Okay, you've got a point.
Ariel: So then, spoil away! What are you going to spoil for people first?
Sasha: Nothing, deliberately. It's not like we're ever trying to spoil stuff. We just talk about stuff and sometimes that means we say something spoilery.
Ariel: But if you had to spoil something, what would be the biggest thing you'd want to spoil?
Sasha: Hmm. That's a weird question. Let me think about it.
Ariel: Okay. But you have to think really hard. No lazy thinking.
Sasha: Sure. Whatever. I think the biggest thing I'd --
Ariel: What?!? There's four whole seasons of this show to think about. You can't have thought about it very hard if you came up with something that fast!
Sasha: No, but you didn't ask me to think of the hardest thing to think of that I'd want to spoil, you told me to think of the biggest thing. And the biggest thing wasn't that hard to think of.
Ariel: Really? What is it?
Sasha: It's actually the biggest thing that didn't happen. In season 4, it seemed really obvious that people being absolutely crazy-dumb were going to crash an asteroid into Earth and destroy it, so that season 5 would be about the people left alive on the Mars colony trying to survive without Earth. Only when we got to the end of the season, the asteroid didn't crash at all. It didn't even come close.
Ariel: Holy moley. That's a really big thing to spoil.
Sasha: Yes. But our whole house-full of people spent half the season griping at the TV because we couldn't believe the characters on the show would do so many incredibly dangerous things that might result in Earth getting destroyed. If we'd known from the start that Earth wasn't going to get destroyed, we might have been able to enjoy season 4 a little better.
Ariel: Probably not.
Sasha: Why do you say that?
Ariel: Because I didn't spend the whole season thinking Earth would get destroyed, and I still didn't think the season was very good.
Sasha: Oh, really. So, episode after episode, all our yams who know stuff about space kept going on and on about how irresponsible all the different plans to move that asteroid were. But you weren't worried at all?
Ariel: No, because nobody in the show was worried about it, and they were all astronauts and scientists and engineers and stuff who know tons more than I do and even tons more than our yams. So obviously there couldn't be much chance of that happening, or they would have talked about it.
Sasha: Okaaay ... but you know the show wasn't written by astronauts and scientists, right? And one of the laziest things about the season was the way people kept saying things that they didn't need to say for any reason except to make sure the audience knew those things. Like, if you and I were in a room talking, just the two of us, neither of us would mention the fact that we use the word "yam" to mean one of our poly-partners. The only reason for us to explain that would be if we were talking in front of someone who didn't already know what it means.
Ariel: Er ... but didn't you kind of just do exactly that, because now any of our readers who didn't know that before know it now?
Sasha: But I didn't say that to tell the readers what it meant, I said it as an example of the kind of thing people kept saying during the season.
Ariel: Well then why didn't you just use a real example? People have their spoiler blankets on, so it wouldn't spoil anything to use a real example.
Sasha: Because I didn't remember any real examples off the top of my head.
Ariel: So you were being lazy by not trying harder to remember?
Sasha: Fine, yes, guilty as charged. Do you want to wait ten minutes now for me to think of an actual example?
Ariel: No, but you could say, "Don't you remember that kind of thing happening?" and then maybe I could think of an example for you.
Sasha: How would that be any less lazy of me?
Ariel: Oh. I guess it wouldn't. It's just I did think of an example just now, so I wanted to point out you could have asked me.
Sasha: Uh-huh. What's your example, then?
Ariel: It was during that strike by the workers on Mars, and the NASA administrator guy said something like, "This strike has been going on for seven days now, and it's really putting us behind schedule," when he was talking to somebody who also would have known the strike was going on for seven days and making them behind schedule.
Sasha: Thank you. That's exactly the kind of thing I meant. And they did that through the entire season all over the place, so it would have been really easy for them to say something like, "Now that we've triple-quadruple-checked our calculations to make sure we don't crash this asteroid into Earth ..." And they didn't. Nobody in the show even mentioned the possibility that monkeying with asteroid orbits to put an asteroid into orbit around Earth might be even a little bit dangerous. Which was a ridiculous thing for nobody to worry about.
Ariel: Okay, I agree with you about that now, then. But I still don't think it would have helped anybody enjoy the season, because I didn't need to know that in order to not enjoy the season as much as I didn't enjoy it.
Sasha: I didn't quite follow what you meant there, but how about if we move on. Do you want to talk about why you didn't enjoy the season, if that's not the reason why?
Ariel: The reason I didn't think it was a very good season is the whole being lazy thing. I kinda felt like they weren't even trying very hard with season 4.
Sasha: Me either. 
Ariel: Like, the things I really really liked about the other seasons were how even though the characters were kinda realistic by being big jerks sometimes like I hear a lot of people are, they also spent a lot of time being heroic and doing great things. And there was a lot of exciting space-exploring stuff and also a lot of interesting society stuff like President Lesbian and Housewife Astro-lady and Mr. All-Alone-On-Mars Korean Guy.
Sasha: Yeah, those were some really cool things in the earlier seasons.
Ariel: Right? Especially since it turns out some of the stuff really was partly historical, like they really did test a bunch of women candidates to see if they could be astronauts in the 1960s. 
Sasha: Definitely cool.
Ariel: And then in season 4, what do we get instead of astronauts and engineers being cool and a lesbian becoming president?
Sasha: Not much.
Ariel: Not much at all! Like, half the season was this dumb oil-rig loser doing maintenance work on the Mars base and being crazy irresponsible to try to make extra money because the company that did the maintenance work was giving its workers the shaft. And the main astronaut dude from earlier seasons spends the whole season being a dingus instead of a hero.
Sasha: And the main astronaut chick is in charge of the Mars base but basically does zero cool things with that all season long and then gets shot in the last episode's shocking big finale scene only to basically be fine five minutes later.
Ariel: And they got rid of some of the coolest characters at the end of season 3 or in the first 15 minutes of season 4. Boo.
Sasha: Uh-oh, though.
Ariel: What?
Sasha: I think we're being lazy here. We keep talking about season 4 and how lazy it was instead of thinking a little harder to talk about seasons 1 to 3 and how great they were. Like, season 4 is a pretty easy target, you know?
Ariel: Dang, you're right.
Sasha: Also, season 4 was partly lame because so much of it was about negative stuff and hardly any about positive stuff, and here we are being mostly negative and hardly positive at all.
Ariel: Oh no. This post is turning into our version of For All Mankind season 4!
Sasha: It kind of is. What do you want to do about it? Go back and delete some of the negative stuff and write more positive stuff about the earlier seasons? Or just tack on some positive stuff about the earlier seasons here? Or ... do you want to just be lazy and wrap it up at this point.
Ariel: ...
Sasha: Well?
Ariel: I kind of just want to be lazy.
Sasha: Me too. Humanity is doomed.
Ariel: Well ... at least it's probably not much more doomed than it was before.
Sasha and Ariel: See you next time, everybody!