Apple TV’s Best Sci-fi Show Secretly Roasted Netflix in Its New Episode (And It’s Perfect)

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For the last fifteen years, the competition between streaming services has dramatically reshaped Hollywood. Netflix pioneered the idea when most studios weren’t even considering it, and many others have since tried to replicate its success, often without achieving the same results. Today, nearly every major studio has its own streaming platform – Disney even has multiple! – and despite recent mergers and changes in the industry, these services remain central to their overall business strategy.

Apple TV+ has quickly become a notable streaming service, even while operating at a loss. Unlike many competitors that produce a high volume of shows and quickly cancel them, Apple TV+ lets its programs find an audience. This weekend marked the debut of Season 5 of their critically acclaimed and longest-running series, For All Mankind. In a bold opening, the show presented an alternate reality where Blockbuster Video thrived and Netflix struggled, seemingly taking a jab at other streaming platforms.

For All Mankind’s Alternate Timeline Erases Netflix From History

A highlight of each new season of For All Mankind is the opening sequence that quickly shows viewers what happened between the last finale and the beginning of the current story. The show, which imagines a world where Russia won the space race to the moon, is a playful alternate history. Because the series covers many years, there’s a lot of story to tell, and now it’s approaching events very similar to our own time.

The fifth season of For All Mankind begins by quickly filling viewers in on what happened between seasons. We learn about the consequences of the Goldilocks heist, the outcome of the 2004 presidential election (it wasn’t Al Gore who won), and the arrival of refugees on Mars. Interwoven with these major plot points are details about how this alternate timeline’s culture differs from our own. For example, John Lennon, who is still alive, won Grammys with Jay-Z thanks to a collaborative album, and the Montreal Expos have moved to Portland instead of Washington D.C. Interestingly, Blockbuster, the once-struggling video rental company, is doing surprisingly well – even better than its competitors in our world.

A quick scene in For All Mankind shows that Blockbuster is planning to open a store on the moon! But that’s not all – the show also reveals Blockbuster has actually been doing well for the last four quarters, a surprising twist from real-life history. It turns out Blockbuster was bought five years ago by FrameSkip, a company offering a new kind of entertainment – possibly a replacement for streaming – that doesn’t exist in our world.

Blockbuster is surprisingly jumping into original content creation. They plan to release a movie and a high-quality scripted TV series before the year is out, with rumors suggesting the series will be about American politics. Beyond that, Blockbuster is even aiming to expand to Mars, following in the footsteps of brands like Domino’s, which already has a location in the Mars-based Happy Valley.

As many remember, Blockbuster struggled badly in the late 2000s while Netflix thrived, with the video rental chain losing popularity and Netflix quickly becoming a leading brand. However, in the world of the show For All Mankind, Blockbuster has remained incredibly successful, seemingly unaffected by Netflix’s rise. In fact, Netflix doesn’t even seem to exist in this alternate reality. What’s even more surprising is that Blockbuster is expanding into areas Netflix would normally occupy – the show hints that Blockbuster is even producing the political drama House of Cards.

However, one line hints at something interesting: a commentator notes that Blockbuster achieved something no streaming service ever did. It’s hard to make out exactly what this refers to in the show, but it does suggest the existence of other streaming companies. The implication is that even Netflix could be taken over by Blockbuster. Interestingly, this also leaves the door open for Apple TV to exist within the world of For All Mankind, given that Apple is still a thriving company and is developing technology at a faster pace due to the show’s altered timeline. Perhaps we’ll eventually see a news story asking, “What if America had won the space race?”

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2026-03-30 20:41