Apple’s Star City has landed on Apple Tv, and the new For All Mankind spinoff turns the alternate-history franchise toward the Soviet side of the space race. Set in the 1970s, the series follows cosmonauts, scientists and intelligence officials in a paranoid Cold War thriller that opens with a moon landing no one in the West gets to celebrate.
The opening hour begins in 1969, when a cosmonaut becomes the first ever man to walk on the moon. His wife is hauled from her bed by the KGB in the dead of night to watch the landing, while the Soviet program’s as-yet-unnamed Chief Designer receives a special commendation only to have the medal immediately returned to the government to protect him from American interests. Rhys Ifans leads the series, and the cast also includes Anna Maxwell Martin, Agnes O'Casey, Alice Englert, Solly McLeod, Adam Nagaitis, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Josef Davies and Priya Kansara.
That setup is the reason viewers are searching for the show now. The first five hours of the eight-episode series have been sent to critics, enough to make Star City feel like more than a concept and less than a finished verdict. It is a companion to For All Mankind, revisiting the same alternate history from the Soviet perspective, and it works both as a string of Easter eggs for people who know the parent series and as a standalone story about ambition, secrecy and the cost of being first.
There is plenty here to sustain the premise. The Soviet world is gray and grainy, the stakes are personal as well as political, and Ifans gives the Chief Designer a wary gravity that anchors the whole thing. Even so, the series has not yet reached the heights of For All Mankind, which is the only reason this launch feels like the start of a conversation rather than the arrival of a new peak. It is compelling, and it is satisfying, but it still has room to climb.
That makes the final three episodes the real test. Star City has already shown that Apple Tv can stretch the franchise without repeating it, and the remaining hours will decide whether this Soviet-side mirror image becomes essential viewing or simply a strong companion to a better-known story.
