For All Mankind S5 Opens with a Slow, Mars-Rooted Reboot

The AV Club’s review of For All Mankind season 5’s premiere ‘First Light’ describes a deliberate, slow setup that jumps to the 2010s: Ed Baldwin is an aging, cancer-stricken admiral on Mars, mentoring a new generation while a rising Mars movement and a couple of Earth–Mars political frictions loom. Aleida Rosales has become Helios’ CEO, pursuing Meru while space progress and governance collide with personal and planetary stakes. The episode leans into world-building over space action, setting up a nine-episode arc that promises political intrigue, a murder mystery on Mars, and continued questions about humanity’s expansion beyond Earth. The piece also includes concurrent reviews of The Pitt, Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen, and Invincible as context for the week in TV.