Dealing with grief and stress by watching TV shows is a tradition that is not quite a century old, and yet feels much older. In 2021, when WandaVision presented an entire sci-fi/superhero narrative about the titular Wanda processing her grief by manifesting old-school sitcoms, the concept clicked because older sitcoms age both perfectly and horribly. We love faded photographs the way we love a canned laugh track from the 1960s; it feels sad and uplifting at the same time. Obviously, WandaVision wasn’t the first TV show to reference other TV shows to make a larger point, but just a few years before it debuted, back on November 29, 2019, For All Mankind dropped an iconic episode that also weaponized TV sitcom nostalgia and created a modern masterpiece in the process. Somehow, it’s been five years since “Hi Bob” debuted. Here’s why it’s so brilliant, and why it also encapsulates what makes For All Mankind so unique.
Taking place in an alternate timeline in which the USSR landed on the Moon in 1969 just before NASA did, For All Mankind Season 1 time-jumps to 1973 shortly after the events of Episode 5, “Into the Abyss.” Thanks to the discovery of water on the Moon, there’s now a teeny-tiny moonbase called Jamestown, operated by NASA. Episode 6, “Home Again,” found astronauts Gordo Stevens (Michael Dorman), Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman), and Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) stationed at Jamestown, and by Episode 7, “Hi Bob,” they’ve been stuck there for way longer than originally intended.
