Star City is one of those series that I wanted to love almost by default because I love For All Mankind. Admittedly, I haven’t reviewed all five seasons of that show, but I’ve watched them, and even though I don’t think season five was the strongest of the bunch, I still think For All Mankind is one of the best television series Apple has ever produced. I have spent years wondering how on earth it has managed to fly so far under the radar with the Emmys. The work from that cast over multiple seasons has been outstanding, and the lack of recognition has always felt ridiculous to me. Years ago, science fiction and genre television had a tougher time breaking through with awards bodies, but that excuse doesn’t really exist anymore. Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Stranger Things, Squid Game, Fallout, The Mandalorian, Andor, Pluribus. Genre television gets invited to the party now. So how has an alternate history series that imagines the space race never slowing down somehow remained on the outside looking in?
Apple’s answer is the spinoff Star City, but instead of doubling down on the thing that made For All Mankind so compelling, it almost runs in the opposite direction. Rather than spending more time exploring the Soviet side of the space race itself, the series shifts its focus toward Russian intelligence and espionage. It also pulls the same trick Chernobyl did by casting mostly British actors as Russians, which never really bothered me once I settled into the story. The standout for me is Rhys Ifans as Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, and I found myself rooting for him throughout the series because he’s one of the few people who genuinely seems interested in pushing humanity forward instead of constantly looking over his shoulder.
The problem is that Star City often feels far more interested in paranoia than space exploration. There is such overwhelming distrust among these characters that it becomes the defining feature of the series. Every order seems to contradict someone else’s agenda. Every success is immediately treated with suspicion. Every relationship feels like it’s being monitored by somebody waiting for the opportunity to accuse another person of being an American asset. It creates an atmosphere where the Soviet government almost seems to be working against itself, like a snake constantly eating itself instead of moving forward. Right in the middle of all of that sits Lyubimov, the intelligence officer pulling so many of the strings. I absolutely hated her, but to be fair, that’s probably the point. She’s a villain. Somewhere along the way we’ve become so obsessed with redeeming villains and turning everyone into an antihero that it’s refreshing to see somebody who simply embraces being awful. My only concern is where the season leaves her because I’d hate to see the show suddenly decide to soften someone who has willingly sacrificed every part of herself in service to the Soviet state.
The series begins with the Soviet Union’s historic landing on the Moon before branching into one of its biggest storylines, a secret mission to Venus. That’s where Star City started losing me. I never really understood why this mission had to be kept secret in the first place. In the world of For All Mankind, the entire point of this alternate history is that both superpowers are desperately trying to outdo each other. Since the United States never reached Venus in the original series, you would think the Soviet leadership would celebrate the opportunity to beat them there. Instead, the mission becomes wrapped up in yet another web of espionage, interrogations, surveillance, arrests, betrayals, and political maneuvering. There are moments when I honestly forgot I was watching a show that spun off from one of television’s best space dramas because so much time is spent dealing with intelligence agencies instead of the people risking their lives to explore the solar system.
If you’re using the same type of villain and the same intelligence apparatus we’ve seen in countless other spy stories as your central focus, then what actually makes you different? What actually makes you interesting? For me, it’s the space angle because we really haven’t gotten many television series exploring the Soviet space program. We got a glimpse of it when Margo Madison crossed over to Star City in For All Mankind, and honestly, those scenes fascinated me more than most of these eight episodes. From the opening hour, the series tells you exactly what it wants to be. This is a Russian intelligence thriller first and a space drama second. Anyone who isn’t actively hunting spies, exposing moles, or proving their loyalty to the Soviet state is constantly in danger of imprisonment, execution, or simply disappearing from the story altogether. The problem is that the series spends so much time treating many of its characters as pawns in this giant political chess match that it struggles to make them feel like fully realized people.
I kept hoping Rhys Ifans’ Sergei Korolev would emerge as the emotional center of the series, but Lyubimov is such a dominant presence that she almost overwhelms everyone around her. Even another intelligence officer who initially seems positioned to become the audience’s conscience quickly learns that empathy has no place in her profession. That realization comes so early that the character doesn’t really have much room left to grow. I know plenty of people have loved Star City, and I completely respect that. But I came into this wanting to see the other side of For All Mankind. I wanted the yin to its yang. Instead, this often feels closer to something like Jack Ryan than the franchise it spun out of.
That probably sounds harsher than I actually mean because I did watch all eight episodes, and I found myself thinking about why I was getting so frustrated. I have always believed that television doesn’t have to make us comfortable. Sometimes it’s supposed to make us angry, uneasy, or challenge the way we think. Star City absolutely succeeds at that. There are things these intelligence agents do throughout the season that are cruel, unforgivable, and genuinely shocking. Even though I didn’t love the balance between the spy story and the space story, I can’t deny that the series kept provoking an emotional reaction from me. So this isn’t an outright negative review. It’s more of a frustrated one. The show wasn’t what I expected, wanted, or hoped it would be. Instead, it’s a completely different package. Not one without value, but one that, for me, never reaches the heights of its predecessor.
The audio description is once again handled by Darren Polish and Pixelogic, the same team behind For All Mankind, and it’s excellent. They also benefit from one amusing creative decision. Since the cast is overwhelmingly British actors playing Russians, there isn’t much Russian dialogue that needs to be translated through the description. I actually laughed thinking about the current debate surrounding The Odyssey and the people arguing that the film somehow failed because there aren’t enough Greek actors in it. Well, there aren’t many Russians in Star City either. That’s just how productions like this have worked for decades. It may take a little adjustment hearing so many British accents inside the Soviet Union, but after an episode or two, it simply becomes part of the world.
I’m not especially excited for a second season, but I have to admit the ending hooked me. There’s real potential for the story to move forward in a way that puts more emphasis back on the space program and slightly less on the intelligence operations. Then again, maybe I’m in the minority. Maybe what everyone else loves is that this is fundamentally a Soviet spy thriller instead of another space drama. My response to that would simply be that perhaps it should have been its own original series instead of a For All Mankind spinoff. Eventually these two shows are going to have to intersect more directly because Margo’s time in Star City is already part of the established timeline. They can only dance around that connection for so long. There is genuinely good television here, even if it wasn’t what I wanted, needed, or expected. But for me, Star City remains firmly in the shadow of For All Mankind, one of the very best science fiction series Apple has ever made.
Fresh: 6.6/10
