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.
Interestingly, two of the astronauts could head back to Earth at any time, thanks to the orbiting Apollo capsule, but that’s not the protocol. And because the Soviets have a nearby base on the Moon too, Ed and other NASA folks are paranoid that Jamestown would be overrun by enemy astronauts if unoccupied. So, Ed, Gordo, and Danielle have to figure out how to not go nuts while stuck inside what is basically a studio apartment in space.
Luckily, they’ve been sent a Betamax tape containing six episodes of The Bob Newhart Show, and they’ve been watching the first episode, “Fly the Unfriendly Skies,” on repeat. While For All Mankind sometimes plays fast and loose with pop culture history (it is an alternate timeline after all), the real release of this Bob Newhart episode does work okay with the timeline. We’re supposed to think it's late 1974 at this point, and “Fly the Unfriendly Skies” debuted in 1972. The astronauts aren’t getting TV shows early, but there is a joke made in which Ed asks NASA for more tapes but is told the TV studios don’t want the public thinking that anybody can just watch shows on demand. In our timeline, the Betamax wouldn't be released publicly until 1975, so in addition to the somewhat obvious advanced tech of a moonbase in 1973, For All Mankind also gives the astronauts TV shows on tape a year early. If you’ve seen the rest of the show, or have an inkling of what it’s like, this mild technological anachronism is the tip of a much larger, and mind-blowing, iceberg.
But “Hi Bob” isn’t notable for any of the tech stuff or fun historical anachronisms. It’s incredible because of the way the episode shows the three astronauts using this episode of Bob Newhart to work through their problems. At the beginning of the episode, it’s clear these three have watched “Fly the Unfriendly Skies” so much that they can recite the dialogue from memory with no problem. There’s a moment where several characters say “Hi Bob” to Bob Newhart, which Ed, Dani, and Gordo all gleefully repeat. While other season-long arcs are intercut here — writer Ronald D. Moore was juggling a lot — the “Hi Bob” motif returns repeatedly, and acts as a kind of pressure gauge on just how close these people are to losing their minds.
After the tape breaks and Dani barely manages to fix it for a brief second, suddenly the crew has to face the fact that there’s no way they can watch Bob Newhart anymore. And so, they reenact the episode, complete with the laugh track. This detail is truly essential. The crew has to be able to laugh together to not lose their minds, but they’re also kind of mocking the existence of the canned laughter by emulating it. In real life, laugh tracks were created and employed to make the audience at home laugh, or at the very least, simulate what it was like to see a comedy performance live. When Dani, Ed, and Gordo all simulate the laugh track as they speed-run through their own version of the show, they’re highlighting how strangely artificial laugh tracks are, and how it’s equally strange that TV viewers just accepted this conceit for so long.
But that’s just a set-up to the full meltdown. Although all three of them are close to a boiling point, Gordo cracks first, and eventually, wakes up everyone in the middle of the night for his own solo performance for their Bob Newhart episode. Gordo doesn’t simulate the laughs but simply says “small laugh” and “medium laugh” before reciting all the dialogue and playing all the characters. At this point actually being made happy by the sitcom episode (whether remembered or watched) is beside the point. Gordo has lost touch with what makes the comedy warm and relatable because he’s only focused on the mechanics of remembering it.
There are a few more twists that come after this (which aren’t worth spoiling here), but Gordo’s crack-up, as seen through the memorization of the sitcom is — with all respect to Elizabeth Olsen — ten times more impactful than everything about WandaVision. And that’s because the bitterness and joy of watching old sitcoms until they break becomes a compact metaphor in one episode of TV series, rather than say, an entire season about that metaphor. In the hands of perhaps a less imaginative writer or creative team, “Hi Bob” could have become a running concept for the entire first season. But instead, For All Mankind throws this one over its shoulder. It's a good concept, but like the rest of the series, For All Mankind isn’t trying to get points for being clever.
“Hi Bob” has become a calling card for the entirety of For All Mankind. The characters still say “Hi Bob” in all the subsequent seasons, which now include four decades' worth of alternate history. If you want to know why TV critics and sci-fi fans all collectively lose their minds over the emotional complexity and creativity of this show, “Hi Bob” is certainly the best place to start. You’re laughing at the beginning of the episode, and sobbing by the end.
