For All Mankind — Series 1: Episode 5 — Into the Abyss — A Review

1st February, 2020.

Really: seriously … 

Watch out for that tree … !

Isn’t is amazing how the silliest phrases hit you, when you’re making intros for blog posts?

As silly as that may be?

My intro makes a basic point.

I’ve been watching a TV show.

Oh, at least, another episode of the first season of For All Mankind.

I think the word, here, is tense!

~≈Â≈~

Episode 5 — Into the Abyss — focuses on Apollo 15¹: showing us how the Apollo 15 team — Ed Baldwin, Molly Cobb and Thomas Paine (Joel Kinnaman, Sonya Walgren and Dan Donahue) — face challenges in the first part of their flight.

A last minute decision to change landing site: to one more likely to contain water.

Watching this on Earth?

Back on Earth … ?

Molly’s husband, Wayne (Lenny Jacobson) joins the astronauts wives: worryingly watching the landing as it’s broadcast live from NASA’s Houston base².

It’s only when — after the first part of the broadcast is over — that Ed’s wife, Karen (Shantel VanSanten) decides she needs to talk things through with the maverick artist.

Back at the Outpost?

Gordo (Michael Dorman) has a meeting with Danielle (Krys Marshall) and her husband, Clayton (Edwin Hodge): a Vietnam vet who — one day back from the front — is still on edge.

The next day … ?

Is the last of the mission.

And, in order to confirm that there IS water ice on the Moon?

Molly, the lighter of the two astronauts?

Has to abseil down into Shackleton Crater, itself.

Into a crater … that’s not seen sunlight in two billion years … 

Tense?

Yep!

~≈Â≈~

Now … 

I have to admit, it’s been a few days since I caught Prime Crew: the last episode of For All Mankind.

Teaser, laundry, job hunting and a weight management class have managed to get themselves in the way.

So I’ve come from an episode of the show that was spoilt by — believe it or not — earwax.

Long story, there.

Tonight?

I’ve watched another fantastic episode.

Not only have I been able to hear it, I’ve seen an episode that’s had me glued to the screen.

The landing?   Was tense enough.

Wayne and Karen’s talk of their fear for their partners³?   Ratcheted things up: at least for me.

The real tension … ?

Was watching Molly slowly descending into the Shackleton Crater⁴.

Would the rope be too short?   Break?   The oxygen, would that run out?

No, of course not: we talking about heroes, after all.

But lord … 

Into the Abyss kept me gripped!

¹        You can read the Wikipedia entry about the real Apollo 15, here.

²        You can read about the Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center at its Wikipedia entry: here.

³        Karen, initially, gives Wayne a lecture about his marijuana use.   Forgetting, in the process, that her husband likes bombing around the streets of Houston, in a Corvette … after having a bourbon or two.   I’ll let you contemplate the irony, shall I … ?

⁴        You can read about that, here … !