Star City, a spin-off of Apple TV’s hit For All Mankind, gives viewers the chance to further dive into the alternate history created for the original show as it answers the question: What if the Soviet Union landed on the Moon first?
When For All Mankind first dropped in 2019, it offered an interesting perspective shift on our history. There hadn’t been many successful alternate history shows over the years, and yet Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi boldly came out and produced a show that predicted what would have happened if the global space race had never ended. Since then, the show has gone on to critical acclaim, winning several awards and four further seasons (with seven overall planned).
Most interestingly, though, it seems to have slipped under a lot of people’s radar, at least in the UK anyway. Upon writing this, I don’t actually know anyone else who’s watched the original show, even though it’s the only show from Apple TV that has currently reached Season 5 (with two or three others on its way). Not only did For All Mankind offer a different take on history, but it did so over a multiple-year span, with each season skipping a decade.
Throughout, it focuses on the United States side of the story, predominantly following the story of Edward “Ed” Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) as he rises through the ranks. With Star City, due to debut with two episodes before weekly releases, it shows the other perspective with Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans), Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert) at the forefront.
There’s an argument that to watch a spin-off, you have to really know the original show. I’m of the point of view that they should complement each other, but also be able to stand up individually. However, having watched five out of the eight episodes in the series (so far), I think it’s clear that this show is definitely for the hardcore For All Mankind fans rather than any new audiences. There’s an assumption in the story investment of the bat that means it takes a while to really get going. Characters are introduced, and I often found myself struggling to recall if they were characters I should have recognised from the original.
It doesn’t help that the characters that do appear in For All Mankind are often recast for the spin-off. This slower pace can feel incredibly frustrating at times, and whilst I understand that slow-paced stories often work for espionage shows, I didn’t feel that it worked particularly strongly here. It does pick up pace and intrigue as the second half of the show starts, but I think if I were watching one episode a week, my interest may have already wavered.
There are some incredibly strong cast performances. I really liked Anna Maxwell Martin as Lyudmilla Raskova, the head of the KGB surveillance department at Star City, and I also thought that both Agnes O’Casey and Alice Englert were really beginning to find their feet with their characters (Irina Morozova and Anastasia Belikova) as the show progressed. Outside of those, whilst all the characters were all strong in their performance, I found it a little confusing trying to recognise who’s who.
There are several male characters that all have very similar feeling storylines, and although they do develop as the season goes on, in the initial episodes, I found myself regularly having to re-check my notes on who was who and their relationships with others. It’s also worth mentioning that the show, understandably for a show of its scale, has a very well-done production design. The costumes are fantastic, and the setting does feel quite big in scale despite audiences only really seeing the inside of Star City and the Journeys to the Moon themselves.
If you’re a big fan of For All Mankind, then there’s a really good chance you’re going to love this. It builds on the already successful universe established in the original show, and with more time and seasons, I think it will be really interesting to see how the two would link. Unfortunately, with that show already in 2012, it doesn’t really find a balance yet, as well as you might hope, and as a result, the show, although well-made, doesn’t quite feel as impactful and mysterious as it wants to be. That being said, the story is heavily picking up momentum, and it should be fun to see where the last few episodes go when they’re finally released later this summer.
★★★
Streaming on Apple TV May 29th (Episodes 1-5 watched) / Rhys Ifans, Anna Maxwell Martin, Alice Englert / Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi / Apple TV, Sony Pictures Television
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