For convoluted reasons[1], this week I have been mostly watching For All Mankind, an alternate history of USAnian space exploration based on the premise of the Soviets beating them to the moon and Nixon[2] (and later Ted Kennedy) responding by lobbing massive amounts of cash in NASA's general direction.
It comes across as a sort of medium-budget distascopic version of Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series, by which I mean highly recommended. The Jerrie Cob character is just brilliant, and they've taken strong inspiration from Poppy Nortcutt and Mary Jackson. They've also got a really good Deke Slayton and a couple of guys called Neil and Buzz who you wouldn't trust to park your spaceship. At risk of committing soilers, the series takes a more direct approach to the issue of Von Braun than The Calculating Stars did.
Occasional technical goofs are intermingled with handwaves at rapidly accelerated technological development, which works just fine. Politically, it's a mixed bag. We don't get to see the Soviet side of things, which is a shame. The story levels up around episode 4.
Eminently watchable. With any luck Series 2 will eventually get made.
[1] I randomly stumbled across a Youtube comment from someone who worked on the series talking about crappy power supplies.
[2] Who is primarily represented in the series by a close-up of the now legendary compact reel-to-reel tape recorder. Lols.
