How For All Mankind Season 4’s New Character Adds Storyline Between Civilians & Astronauts

WARNING: Contains SPOILERS for For All Mankind season 4, episode 2, “Have a Nice Sol.”

For All Mankind‘s season 4 new character, who complicates the dynamics between astronauts and civilians, gets explained by the show’s co-creator. The alternate history Apple TV+ series, which has become known for its significant time jumps, takes another big leap with its fourth installment. The story moves from 1997 to 2003, with Miles Dale (Servant alum Toby Kebbell) starting a new career at Happy Valley. But, in time, Miles comes to grips with the fact that his job is not what he hoped it would be.

In an interview with Collider, series co-creator Ronald D. Moore gives his perspective on Kebbell’s character in For All Mankind season 4. Moore, who created For All Mankind with Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, talks about how Miles came to be on Mars. In the quote below, Moore also addresses the divisions and differences between the civilians and the astronauts:

Toby plays a character called Miles, and Miles is a civilian who was an oil rig worker on Earth. As the fossil fuel industry started to decline because of the development of nuclear fusion and green energy on Earth, fossil fuel jobs started to go away. So, he’s one of the losers in that situation. Even though the planet’s getting better, there are certain people that are gonna be out of jobs and are going to suffer for it. So he comes from that, and he’s looking for just a way to keep his family afloat, a way to make money, and by hook and by crook, he manages to get a job with Helios on Mars.

That opens up the world of Mars and labor on Mars and sort of the upstairs-downstairs quality of, “Well, there’s the astronauts, and then there’s the civilians,” and they’re not there for the same reasons – their working conditions are very different, the way they look at each other culturally is very different, how they get paid is very different. The conflict between those two groups was something we were really interested in exploring this year, and Miles’ character was the great way to sort of get a window into that world.

What Miles Dale Reveals About For All Mankind Season 4

For All Mankind’s season 4 characters include several new additions. But in episode 2 “Have a Nice Sol”, which is directed by Lukas Ettin and written by David Weddle & Bradley Thompson, Miles is introduced very purposefully. He’s in the opening scene, acting like a tourist on Mars and snapping photos. He can’t stop smiling about this exciting opportunity he’s been given, even as he’s hearing a lecture about how the water tastes awful and being warned of foot fungus. There are early signs that Miles is not in for a dream job.

He gets a wake-up call when he learns that he’s going to be working a different job than what he expected. Another comes when he barely sees the message from his family back home because the connection is so shoddy. The inequities of this are soon made even clearer. In a split-screen montage that’s set to the 2001 song “Clint Eastwood” by Gorillaz, Miles’ lousy day is directly contrasted with that of Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall), who accepted a job to command Happy Valley. Danielle couldn’t have a better experience, it seems.

An alternate history can accomplish a lot. It can play around with ideas, showing different potential timelines in a way that evokes time travel and wish fulfillment. But in the case of For All Mankind season 4 and Miles Dale, it’s starkly realistic. The newbie went all the way to Mars just to find a slightly different shade of the inequities that exist for workers on Earth.