For All Mankind Finale Will Be Season 6, Next Year, Set In The Present
Countdown to the conclusion of For All Mankind.
Nothing can last forever. As it gears up to launch its fifth season, the alternate history spaceflight epic, For All Mankind, has revealed that this journey is actually the penultimate season of the entire TV series. In a press release, Apple revealed today that For All Mankind has been renewed for a sixth season, and that season will be the show’s last. This report comes just days before Season 5 launches on March 27.
“Getting to explore the For All Mankind universe over six seasons has been an amazing privilege, and we’re thrilled to have the opportunity to finish the story the way we’ve always hoped,” said showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi in an official statement. Speaking to Inverse before the announcement and ahead of the Season 5 launch, Wolpert said: “Our intention was always to catch up to the present...starting in that moment of divergence in 1969 and then seeing how that would impact the world you're living in at the time you're watching that last season of the show. That’s the impact we hoped for.”
Publicly, the overall plan for For All Mankind has always been slightly unclear. At some point back in 2021, series creator Ronald D. Moore told Inverse that he hoped for seven seasons overall, saying this: “There was generally a seven-year arc of structure that we pitched originally.” Each season would go roughly 10 years into the future. So, you catch up to the modern-day and go a little bit into the future. That said, these things are changeable and organic.”
Coral Peña as Aleida Rosales in For All Mankind Season 5.
In theory, this could still happen. Season 6 could take place in the 2020s, and have a coda or time jump that moves into the future, slightly, maybe in the 2030s or even the 2040s, depending on how ambitious the show gets with its finale. And, there are other indications that some early plans for the show would have teased the future, though just not exactly when in the future. Actress Coral Peña also told Inverse in 2022 that before she joined the show in Season 2 — set in the 1980s — there was a future-tense scene all about Aledia: “Before they knew they were picked up for Season 2, they had filmed an alternate ending [for Season 1] that would have shown Aleida in a distant future,” Peña explained. “I can’t say what that story was, or if it will remain that way. Things change.”
In Season 5, Aleida is now in her 50s, which suggests she will be in her 60s in Season 6 when the show ends. Could this mysterious future-tense scene still occur? Or as Peña said, have things changed?
In any case, for now, it appears that For All Mankind’s 2027 finale probably won’t jump beyond the events of the present day, even though the technology and status quo of the show in the 2000s and in 2012 are far different than what we’ve experienced in our real timeline. The overall focus of Season 5 is game-changing for the show insofar as very few cast members from Season 1 remain at this point, and the vibe of Season 5 is very much about the current and next generation of the series. But now, Season 5 will feel a little different than fans may have anticipated: Everything that happens here is setting up for the endgame next year.
