For All Mankind: Season One - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

For All Mankind: Season One



Movie:
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Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Now, while I love it when a TV show comes to physical media, I’m even MORE excited when I see a streaming only created show come to physical media. More and more of them are being created every year, yet only a handful ever get a release onto Blu-ray, DVD or 4K thanks to the streaming companies seemingly want to keep a tight hold onto their distribution. Most likely using their exclusivity to a certain streaming as a carrot to dangle in front of people to gain new subscribers (the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war was in 2007-2009, this is now the streaming format subscriber war, with every streaming service running at a revenue loss just desperately trying to rake in market share to where they might someday be profitable).

Well, here is one of those lucky few that get a chance to come to home video, and it comes in the form of Space Opera from Apple TV+ that was released in 2019, and is just heading into it’s 4th season this year. May be a bit odd to see only the first season, but it seems like Sony is testing the waters to see if more seasons will be dropped, and hopefully more shows as well.

OK, right off the bat, I have to tell everyone that I have never seen a single episode of For All Mankind up until this week. I have known OF it for quite some time, but Apple TV is one of the few streaming services that I haven’t actually purchased a subscription to at one time or another, so I went into this season as virginal as you can be, and came out pleasantly surprised. The show itself revolves around the idea that the United States never set foot on the moon first. It was the Russians instead, setting off an alternative time line where the space race never ended, with the U.S. forced to come in second place, and continuing on with a race that basically ended (for us) in 1969.

The first season is an incredibly slow burn to start off, but things kick into a higher gear around the 3rd or 4th episode, whern the different Apollo’s start making more and more moon landings in an effort to gain an advantage over the Russians. The season was incredibly fascinating, yet also has a heavily distinct flaw that kept me from really LOVING it. And that was that it put the Soap in Space Opera. The series has some very cool ideas, with very cool “what if’s?” by altering the time line, but there is so much soapy drama going on the other half of the time that I felt like I was watching Days of Our Lives at times. That being said, I was never truly bored throughout season one, just cognizant of the heavy layers of soapy, super angsty drama goin on in the background of every episode.

Being that I’m virginal to this series and haven’t picked up the 2nd or 3rd season to check out while season 4 JUST started airing last week (the 2nd episode of S4 drops in a couple of hours) I’m only going on what I’ve seen so far of that series, and it’s generally positive. I’m really hoping that the angst is toned way down for later seasons (I can already see someone who’s seen the show coming into the comments section and saying something like “oh you have no idea!!”), but overall it’s been a pleasant watch. Maybe not The Expanse level of awesome for slow burning gritty sci-fi space operas, but still very watchable and with a rather ingenious topic.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

This is my one love and gripe with the set. The series was shot using Sony Venice cameras, and finished off with a 4K master in the 2.00:1 framing for the series……………..annnnnnnnnnnnd we get a Blu-ray. This show SCREAMS the need for 4K as the cinematography is utterly stunning. Even the first couple of episodes where it’s nothing but dialog on the ground with a few lift off scenes, you can tell whomever was in charge of principle photography should get an award for his work. Everything is crisp and clean, with razor sharp details and some tweaks to the color palate to get it to look more like the late 60s and early 70s with some yellowing to the grading. Up in space though, the shots are INCREDIBLE, with tons of colors and detail all around, including some sickeningly inky deep black levels. Personally, I found this to an incredibly lovely looking show from the first episode on, and the Blu-ray seems to have replicated that perfectly. Would I have preferred this in 4K UHD? Abso-freaking-lutely, but the Blu-ray here is no slouch and really pushes the limits of the format.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is a solid performer as well. The show remains very heavily focused on dialog for a majority of the season, but there are commonly interspersed scenes with an Apollo rocket lift off that shakes every room in the home theater, or the blast of fighter jets rocketing overhead as they prepare at an airbase. Even the gentle hubbub of Joel Kinnamon’s Edward Baldwin and the other Astronauts singing in a bar has a fairly expansive feel to it. All in all, this handles everything thrown at it quite nicely, and even the “lowly” 5.1 track is more than enough to handle everything 99% of the time.






Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Season One of For All Mankind was a bit of surprise. I had heard of the show but never expected us to get a physical release being that most Apple TV+ shows don’t ever get a physical release. It’s just been that way for years (maybe Ted Lasso is next?), but either way, I was pleasantly surprised with what we got for the first season. Joel Kinnaman is still as robotic in his acting as he was in Robocop, and there’s a bit more angst than I’d like, but overall it made for a really good first season and I can’t wait to dig into the future season 2 (each season supposedly changes decades). My only disappointment of any measure is the fact that Sony released this on Blu-ray instead of 4K (the camera work on this show is AMAZING) and with 5.1 DTS-HD MA instead of the Atmos that it has on Apple TV+. But, beggars can’t be choosers with less and less TV making it’s way to physical media every years, so I’ll take what I can get. Solid thumbs up.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman, Wrenn Schmidt
Created by: Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, Ronald D. Moore
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony Pictures
Rated: NR
Runtime: 612 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 14th, 2023

Recommendation: Hardcore Completionists Only