Wolpert, Matt (Screenwriter)

In an interview, the showrunners discuss the space drama’s just-concluded fourth season, in which exploration gave way to exploitation.This interview includes spoilers for Season 4 of “For All Mankind.”After beginning its story in 1969 and working its way through the following decades, “For All Mankind” reached the year 2003 in its fourth season. At one point, President Al Gore is …Wait, what?Set in an alternate universe, this Apple TV+ series is predicated on the idea that a Soviet cosmonaut became the first man on the moon. The event had a butterfly effect with consequences that included an accelerated conquest of space, the continued existence of the Soviet Union and, yes, a President Gore.Season 4, which concluded last week, toggled between Happy Valley, a Mars base dedicated largely to mining, and Earth, where Americans and Soviets enjoy a distrustful relationship despite being partners in space ventures. The oldest survivors of the previous seasons are Ed (Joel Kinnaman), now an astronaut elder working on Mars for the private company Helios; his former colleague Danielle (Krys Marshall), who leads Happy Valley; and Margo (Wrenn Schmidt), a high-ranking NASA administrator who ended up in the Soviet Union and is roped into that country’s space program.The major question of Season 4 is: What happens when exploitation, in every sense of the word, replaces exploration as a motivation? “To me there’s a little bit of greed that came in this season,” the showrunner and executive producer Ben Nedivi said. “Mars is no longer just about astronauts and engineers anymore — we need labor, people who build things.”His fellow showrunner and executive producer Matt Wolpert emphasized that a different type of character was being thrust into space. “We wanted someone who hadn’t dreamed from early childhood of being an astronaut, someone who was looking to make a living,” he said of the newcomer Miles (Toby Kebbell), a wily mechanic always trying to make an extra buck. “There would be conflict,” Wolpert added, “between the way different people define their jobs in this very cramped environment.”In a joint video call, Nedivi and Wolpert talked about the season’s main story lines, Danielle’s fate and the importance of realistic science-fiction aesthetics. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More