I thought season 3 was pretty solid. Not as good as 2 but I didn't butt up against anything in it that turned me off. I actually liked the reveal that's in the spoiler above.
Agreed. The above posts lowered my expectations – a good thing, actually! – so in the end season-3 gave me more than expected. Hard to compare it to the outstanding S2 finale, which gave a grand goodbye to favourite characters. S3 leans more heavily on a newer, younger cast who I wasn't as invested in. Most of the older characters are back, with painted-on grey streaks and wrinkles, but the story's orbit shifts to Dev, Kelley, Danny, Jimmy, Tyler, etc. while the physical orbit shifts to Mars. The younger cast is less developed... obviously, since we don't have 25+ years of backstory like we do with Ed, Daniel, Karen, Ellen, etc. And let's be honest – the original characters are just plain better-written. They were the show's foundation, versus the recent cast who were secondary foils and are now being retrofitted with roles too heavy for them.
That said, the writing and story arcs are still great. In fact, S3's vision is even more impressive, given they've now branched out into an alt-reality that's almost entirely separate from our timeline. Some people in this thread questioned a particular major surprise; I thought it was clever and hilariously unexpected. In fact, there are a few major surprises, all of which were well done. FAM put as much thought into the pacing and the reveals of S3 as it did the previous seasons. Even if I didn't care as much for the new characters, I was as hooked and anxious as I was last season about how it resolves.
Well... except for Danny Stevens. Yeah... his obsessive sad-sack persona was the only truly annoying note of S3. Even Jimmy's story served a purpose, giving us a primer on modern-day domestic conspiracy nuttiness.
If the appeal of FAM is its epic scale and reach, you'll find S3 right up there with 1 and 2. It has the same balance of hope, fear, success, and failure. And yes, they kill off familiar characters.
For the geeks, the science remains steadfastly accurate (from what I know). What we see representing the 1990's is a mashup of tech fast-forwarded about 15 years, not far from today, plus little details that give us a preview of life on Mars (not sure if they gain or lose marks for avoiding the David Bowie music). Unlike the Moon, you hear sounds on Mars because it has an atmosphere, albeit not one we can breathe. Helium-3 is a real thing, an immensely valuable isotope not found on Earth but in abundance on the Moon. The brainstorming in Mission Control is a cool intro to how rocket science works, even if all the ideas seem to come from Aleida.
Maybe S3's one weakness is how it takes on cultural enlightenment. While it feels good watching the 1990s clear the cobwebs from the narrow-minded 1960s, the morality subplots are uneven. Striking the right notes between communism/capitalism, conservatism/liberalism, public/private is so arbitrary that FAM misses as many targets as they hit. FAM is unparalleled in its portrayal of rocket science, but the show is pedestrian in its vision of sociology. I guess the human mind is more complex than human toys.
For All Mankind is as bold, ballsy, and badass as any show I've ever seen. It would be great TV even as a pure drama. But by choosing to ride alongside real history, it executes a level of precision-flying that transcends genres. Its alternative world is close enough to reality to feel real, but different enough to be totally disorienting.
In some way, For All Mankind is the ultimate prequel to Star Trek.
