Jodi Balfour Not Returning as a Series Regular for ‘For All Mankind’ Season 4
Prepare to see a lot less of President Ellen Waverly when For All Mankind with Season 4. Jodi Balfour is not returning as a series regular in the Apple TV+ drama.
Balfour has been a series regular on the alternate reality space show since its debut in 2019. Created by Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi, and Matt Wolpert, For All Mankind “explores what would have happened if the global space race never ended.”
TV Line exclusively reported the news, sharing that Balfour would return “in some capacity” to presumably “bring closure to her storyline.” The outlet added that an Apple TV+ rep declined to comment.
Per TV Fanatic, For All Mankind‘s ensemble in the upcoming fourth season will already look different as Season 3 wrote out Shantel VanSanten’s Karen Baldwin and Sonya Walger’s Molly Cobb. Both characters died during a domestic terrorist attack.
Balfour’s last episode as a series regular, For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 10, “Stranger in a Strange Land,” aired in August 2022.
On it, the former astronaut and current president Ellen Waverly came out as a lesbian to the American public. With impeachment proceedings looming, Waverly’s presidential role remained uncertain when the season closed.
Assumedly, Balfour’s limited presence on For All Mankind‘s upcoming season will answer those questions.
With that many exits, For All Mankind Season 4 will welcome at least four new cast members.
In August 2022, Deadline exclusively reported that Daniel Stern would join as a series regular, playing “Eli Hobson, the new administrator at NASA.” Deadline shared a month later that Tyner Rushing, another new series regular, would portray Samantha, a space worker on the Mars colony.
Also in September, Variety joined in on the casting news, reporting that Toby Kebbell would play “Miles, described as a former offshore oil platform worker who pursues a new job opportunity on Mars.”
By November 2022, Deadline shared that Svetlana Efremova would be a series regular and appear as Irina Morozova, a high-ranking Soviet official.
Apple TV+ renewed the series for its fourth season in July 2022 at San Diego Comic-Con, just days before For All Mankind Season 3 Episode 7, “Bring It Down,” debuted on the streaming service.
The panel featured cast members Joel Kinnaman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, Sonya Walger, Krys Marshall, Cynthy Wu, Casey Johnson, Coral Peña, Wrenn Schmidt, and Edi Gathegi and executive producers Moore, Nedivi, Wolpert, and Maril Davis.
Per its logline, For All Mankind “presents an aspirational world where NASA astronauts, engineers, and their families find themselves in the center of extraordinary events seen through the prism of an alternate history timeline — a world in which the USSR beats the US to the moon.”
Nedivi and Wolpert serve as showrunners and executive produce alongside Moore and Davis of Tall Ship Productions, as well as David Weddle, Bradley Thompson, and Nichole Beattie. Sony Pictures Television produces For All Mankind.
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For All Mankind is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
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Shelby Elpers
Shelby is a TV enthusiast and pop culture writer. She's an avid podcast listener, green tea drinker, and soccer fan. Her brand can be summarized in rom-coms, superheroes, teen dramas, and workplace comedies.