Apple TV's Best Space Show Needs to Fix 1 Huge Issue Now That It's Renewed For Season 5
We love different cultures, but it can also be pretty challenging.
It's a great time to be a lover of all things sci-fi: not only the genre is thriving in general, but the space stories are peaking as well.
Now, Apple TV+ has renewed one of its best (if not the best) shows about space, For All Mankind, for a fifth season, and even greenlit a spinoff titled Star City to expand the universe of the already iconic series.
Star City will be set within the Russian space program, and fans are already celebrating their favorite Russian characters returning for their own show.
"Our fascination with the Soviet space program has grown with every season of For All Mankind," executive producers Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi said. "The more we learned about this secret city in the forests outside Moscow where the Soviet cosmonauts and engineers worked and lived, the more we wanted to tell this story of the other side of the space race."
As the alternate universe of For All Mankind is celebrating, fans have already pinpointed a certain issue they have with the show — not really a grievance, just a challenge they feel should be addressed.
Subtitles in For All Mankind
Space programs unite people from different countries, and For All Mankind decided to be very authentic with that and include various languages in the show. Now, the way the show handles cultural differences has already earned accolades from viewers.
When it comes to Russian language in particular, many Russian viewers noted that the language sounds genuine and natural, which is already a big achievement for the US industry that sometimes tends to get it wrong when it comes to different cultures.
However, foreign languages need to come with subtitles, and some fans think that it may not work with an entire show dedicated to another country.
"I feel like they’ve got to ditch the “Speaking in Russian with English subtitles” thing for a full show, right?" wondered Redditor AmishAvenger.
Other fans agreed it could be pretty challenging to shoot the entirety of Star City's Russian part in actual Russian. Some suggest that instead of going for the native Russian language, Apple TV can use different accents. Others joked that they can "go full Hollywood and use British English to represent Russian."
Naturally, shows like Chernobyl immediately come to mind. The HBO hit about the 1986 disaster in the Soviet Union preferred not to bother with the language. For some people, British accents in Soviet Ukraine sounded odd; but others believe that was the only efficient way to deliver a show for a global audience.
"I can somewhat understand everything being in the show’s main audience’s language (especially when the audience is rather narrow and not worldwide), but for a spinoff of a globally available show in which every character speaks their own language realistically, they should really stick with it," Redditor mbrevitas said.
When Will For All Mankind Season 5 & Star City Premiere?
Currently, no release dates are scheduled, but to prepare for what is described as "a propulsive paranoid thriller that takes us back to the key moment in the alt-history retelling of the space race", you can stream all four seasons of For All Mankind on Apple TV+.