It's renewal season for Apple TV Plus, because just one week after it announced that Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will come back for a second season, it's confirmed that one of its original science fiction series has been renewed too.
This series is For All Mankind, which will be coming back for a fifth season in the near future. This news makes it Apple's longest-running TV show, as none others have reached five seasons so far (Servant ties with FAM at four seasons, however it's been cancelled so no more is coming).
For All Mankind presents an alternate history version of the space race which never ended, with subsequent seasons taking place over the intervening decades. If season 5 follows the precedent set by the first four seasons, it'll be set in the 2010s.
New seasons of For All Mankind have come out at roughly 12-18 month intervals, with the most recent one debuting in November 2023. Given that release schedule, we'll likely see For All Mankind season 5 come out in early 2025.
Fans of the show who don't like waiting so long have a great bit of additional news, though, because Apple has also announced a spin-off series for the show. This will be called Star City, and it'll depict this fictionalized version of the space race from the perspective of Soviet costmonauts and engineers, leading up to their success in putting a man on the moon ahead of the US.
It'll be more of a thriller than For All Mankind, taking the story back to the era of season 1 with all its 60s grunge.
Apple TV Plus hasn't dabbled its toes in the TV show spin-off pool before, only announcing its first (multiple unnamed Monarch Monsterverse tie-ins) a week prior to the announcement of Star City.
Other streaming service have been much quicker to make the most of their popular properties. Netflix has made the most of The Witcher with extra miniseries and movies, and also Bridgerton, Money Heist and The Sandman have extras, with more like Wednesday spin-offs on the way. Prime Video announced multiple spin-offs of its blockbuster Citadel series before the first season even premiered, with the first expected in 2024, and Paramount Plus has multiple exclusive series based on the Yellowstone property.
It makes sense that Apple TV Plus would do the same, to capitalize on its hit shows, and hopefully this is just the start of more: its biggest sci-fi hit Foundation has plenty of scope for extra stories in the universe while the likes of Silo, Slow Horses and Masters of the Air are just begging for tie-in series.
Given the beginning Apple's apparent renewal season, maybe we'll hear more about some of these popular shows soon.
