Apple renews For All Mankind for season 5, orders Soviet spinoff show!

Variety reports that Apple TV+ has renewed For All Mankind, the speculative sci-fi show about how history would be different had the United States and the Soviet Union never stopped trying to explore outer space, for a fifth season. This means that For All Mankind is officially the longest-running show on the streaming service, beating out M. Night Shyamalan's Servant, which ran for four seasons.

The first season of For All Mankind took place in the late 1960s, when the space race was really heating up. Every seasons thereafter has jumped forward in time, with season 4 taking place in 2003. Because the space race never stopped in this reality, we'd developed technology to the point where we already had video phones, not to mention a functional base on Mars. And also Al Gore was president. Season 4 will take place in 2012, when we've built a city on an asteroid orbiting Mars. Cue more political posturing, scientific discoveries, and actor Joel Kinnaman being covered in increasingly unbelievable old man prosthetics. His character, Ed Baldwin, has been around since the first season and will be his 80s in season 5! How much longer can he keep up this space cowboy thing?

We'll find out when For All Mankind season 5 premieres on Apple TV+. We don't have a release date yet, but it's unlikely it will be out this year, which will break a roll For All Mankind had going when a new season came out pretty much every year. Apple seemed a little more hesitant to renew the show this time around, but I'm glad they did because I want to see what happens next. Previously, showrunners Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi have said they could see the show going for six or seven seasons. That would be cool, although if they were setting up season 5 as the end, I wouldn't be shocked. Although I guess it would be fun to see Ed Baldwin at 100.

Apple TV+ orders For All Mankind spinoff Star City

In addition to ordering For All Mankind season 5, Apple has also ordered a spinoff called Star City, which will go back to the start of the show's timeline and explore how the Soviets managed the space race from behind the Iron Curtain. If Apple believes this hard in the series, maybe we will get seven full seasons of For All Mankind after all!

“Our fascination with the Soviet space program has grown with every season of For All Mankind,” said Wolpert and Nedivi in a statement. “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. We could not be more excited to continue building out the alternate history universe of For All Mankind with our partners at Apple and Sony.”

We got an up-close look at Star City in the fourth season of For All Mankind, when former NASA director Margo Madison worked there before she revealed to the rest of the world that she was still alive and ended the season by going to American prison. (Did I mention that For All Mankind is a soap opera sometimes? But a soap opera...in space.) That storyline must have jogged the imaginations of the producers.

We don't have a release date for Star City either, but I like that things are moving. Joel Kinnaman, get ready to spend dozens of hours in the makeup chair. 44-year-olds don't just turn into 83-year-olds with a snap of your fingers.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.