Star City is an American alternate history science fiction drama television series created by Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, and Ronald D. Moore for Apple TV. It is a spin-off of For All Mankind with a focus on the Soviet Union. The name comes from the home of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, Star City. The series premiered on May 29, 2026.
The scenes in space or I would say related to the ship is what really kept the episode alife and they push this story into some very dark, unpredictable territory. I am giving this episode a solid 7.5/10 because it takes massive risks and delivers real tension, and it proves this series is not playing it safe, right now if we think about it half of the core characters are dead and they would have to build a second story, as important around it.
@skiptvads·89d80
The cat is out of the bag, its dumb survival mode from now on, despite a few convenient plot moments, the character work and the overall atmosphere are just absolute top tier mix of sadness and satisfaction, its always like the characters are drowning and every satisfactory moment the States pull them by their feet back under water.
@skiptvads·90d80
Despite my complaints about the Venus project, there is preasure at every level including Raskova so its not only those below her anymore. I am giving this episode a solid 8 out of 10, watching all these secrets unfold is a damn good content and the performances across the board are so so good.
@skiptvads·91d80
Even with all the triangle love drama between Sasha, Tanya and Valya, the spy stuff was really good plus the screw up because the conspiracy, they always think someone is listening or watching
Star City Full Review: Passion, Politics, and the Soviet Space Race75@danielcarrerag5d8 views
It’s been a few days since I started watching Star City and reviewed its pilot episode, and right off the bat, I can say I’m thoroughly impressed. I mentioned before how intriguing I find narratives that aren't told from the winner's perspective; that "what if...?" approach offers genuine creative freedom, giving plenty of room to explore how things might have turned out.
Ya han pasado varios días desde que comencé Star City y reseñe su primer episodio y puedo decir de entrada que he quedado bastante complacido. Mencionaba que me resulta interesante una historia que no fuera contada desde la perspectiva del ganador, ese estilo ¿Y si...? brinda una libertad creativa, da espacio para las conjeturas sobre las posibles de como hubieran sido las cosas.
Star City chronicles the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the latter successfully putting men on the Moon multiple times. But while that forms part of the narrative backdrop, it isn't strictly the core plot. Instead, the show centers above all on the passion that scientists and mission crews have for space exploration—for them, national patriotism or beating the competition takes a backseat.
Star City cuenta la historia sobre la carrera espacial entre los Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética, siendo está última quien puso en múltiples oportunidades hombres en la luna. Aunque párate de la narrativa acá es esta, no es exactamente la trama principal, ya que se enfoca en la pasión de los científicos y tripulantes de las misiones por los viajes especiales por encima de todo; hacerlo por patriotismo o ganarle a otros para ellos no es lo relevante.
However, there is another layer: the looming weight of an oppressive regime that demands results and expects everyone involved to elevate the nation’s global stature. As a result, the characters maintain a facade of Soviet patriotism, but deep down, leaving the planet offers them the genuine sense of freedom they so desperately crave.
Sin embargo, está la capa se la represecion se un régimen que exige resultado y que quiere que todos los involucrados lo hagan por el estatus de su nación. Es así como todos los personajes de esta serie mantienen su fachada de patriotismo soviético, pero muy adentro escondido en su ser, el salir del planeta les brinda la sensación de libertad que tanto desean.
In my previous post, I mentioned I wasn't entirely sure who the main leads were. Now that I’ve finished the series, I see that the spotlight is largely shared, anchored primarily by the Chief Designer, played by Rhys Ifans. As the head of the entire space program, he lacks the freedom needed to take things to the next level, leading him to secretly plot and launch a mission to Venus—even while the regime demands an orbital space station to spy on the U.S.
Decía en mi anterior publicación que no tenía claro quienes eran los protagonistas de la historia. Ya terminada, comprendo que se reparte principalmente entre el Jefe de Diseño interpretado por Rhys Ifans. Quien dirige todo el programa espacial, no cuenta con las libertades que desea para llevar el programa espacial al siguiente nivel, así que en secreto prepara y lanza una misión a Venus cuando el régimen deseaba poner una estación espacial en órbita para espiar a los Estados Unidos.
On the flip side, we have Lyudmilla Raskova, portrayed by Anna Maxwell Martin. She represents the opposite side of the coin: the embodiment of the Soviet regime itself. In charge of security at Star City, her job is to ensure space programs strictly align with government interests and to oversee counter-espionage. Running things with an iron fist, she is a cold, calculating war hero who won't hesitate to eliminate anyone who strays from the state's agenda.
Por otro lados tenemos a Lyudmilla Raskova interpretada por Anna Maxwell Martin. Ella es la otra cara de la moneda, representa al régimen soviético, está a cargo de la seguridad de La Ciudad de las Estrellas, que los programas especiales responda a los intereses del gobierno y de hacer el contra espionaje. Todo lo hace con mano de hierro, es una heroína de la guerra, una mujer fría y calculadora que no duda en matar a quien no responda a los intereses de la nación.
There are several other compelling characters as well, such as pilot Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert), the first woman to set foot on the Moon. She initially believed she was selected for her exceptional skills, only to realize she was just another pawn in a political power play. Upon her return, she becomes a puppet for the regime—a public figurehead used to project inclusivity and demonstrate Soviet female capability to the world. It’s a sharp critique of authoritarian regimes, where citizens are treated as nothing more than puppets serving the interests of the powerful.
Tambien hay otros personajes interesantes como el de la piloto Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert) la primera mujer en pisar la luna. Ella pensó que había sido escogida por sus capacidades, cuando fue una pieza más del juego de poder. Tras su regreso de la misión, fue un títere del régimen usada como figura pública, para mostrarle a el mundo y su nación la inclusión y que las mujeres rusan son capaces. Claramente es una crítica abierta a los gobiernos y regímenes, sus ciudadanos son marioneta y piezas que responden a los intereses de los poderosos.
Then there’s Irina Morozova (Agnes O'Casey), who is forced into becoming Raskova’s assistant. While she strongly disapproves of Raskova’s actions, she knows that standing up to her means guaranteed death for both herself and her daughter. Meanwhile, Valya Mironov (Adam Nagaitis), the star pilot who initially seemed the most trustworthy, turns out to be a coerced spy for the U.S. Even though the series approaches history from a fresh angle, it never shies away from depicting the grim realities of the Soviet Union, standing as a direct commentary on the lack of freedom under such oppressive regimes.
Irina Morozova (Agnes O'Casey) la que forzadamente se convierte en la ayudante de Raskova, que no aprueba lo que hace pero sabe que si se opone ella y su hija parecerán la muerte. Valya Mironov (Adam Nagaitis) el piloto estrella, el que parecía más confiable pero que resultó ser un espía forzado de los Estados Unidos. La serie aunque cuenta la historia de otro ángulo, igualmente no deja de mostrar lo horrible de la Unión Soviética, siendo una crítica abierta a las libertades de quienes viven bajo este tipo de regimes opresivos.
›Star City Pilot Review: What If the Soviets Won the Space Race?70@danielcarrerag20d7 views
The premise of this show immediately caught my attention. We're so used to historical narratives being told strictly through the eyes of the victors. The Space Race is a prime example—we all know the US beat the Soviet Union by landing the first man on the Moon, but what would the world look like if history had played out in reverse?
Star City is a sci-fi series built on that exact "what if?" scenario: the Soviets are the first to put a man on the Moon, and they keep pushing their lunar missions forward. The pilot episode was intriguing, though it's still a bit unclear who will ultimately be the central protagonist driving the narrative. First, we're introduced to the Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) of the entire space program, who is already starting to clash over how he's treated and how the government responds to his demands to take space exploration to the next level.
Then there's analyst Irina Morozova (Agnes O'Casey), whose job is to eavesdrop on everyone in the program—pilots, engineers, and bureaucrats alike—all wiretapped by the KGB to catch anyone leaking state secrets. She’s new to the job and clearly comes from a well-off family. While she's genuinely committed to the Marxist cause, she also shows a grounded sense of empathy and concern for the well-being of others.
The pilot also introduces who I assume will be the main antagonist: Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin), the embodiment of the Soviet regime's iron fist. She oversees security for the space program, making sure no intel leaks to the US government. Cold and ruthless, she makes it crystal clear in this first episode that she won't tolerate a single mistake, and that her absolute loyalty belongs to the Marxist cause.
It's definitely a compelling setup. While alternate history stories where the Soviets come out on top aren't entirely new, focusing specifically on them winning the Moon landing gives it a fresh angle. So far, the show shapes up to be a story about fighting for your dreams under the weight of an oppressive regime—a high-stakes spy thriller set inside a fascinating fictional timeline.
Last night episode is one I was really looking forward and oh boy did it surpase my expectations, it had a few minor details and the ending felt a bit wtf, even on real life people dont understand is better to be free and alive than dead or locked up, even if that means you got to get separated from love ones because at least alife and free you can somehow get back to them, if you locked up or dead there is nothing you can do about it, this is exactly what happen to Sasha. The episode opens on the Venera 7 spacecraft interior wrecked from the depressurization fire, despair radiating off Sasha and Lakshmi as they float through the wreckage. There is this sceen where Sasha snaps and starts choking Valya in the zero gravity module, so it was not all peaceful trip, he was looking crazy since neither of them has anything to basically life for, both were better off death because they were basically sentence to die as traitors of the state, and Lakshmi has to pull them apart before he kills the guy. Valya gave them an apology after all, recognizing how screw up things are because of his actions, some of them very childish. The crew realizes their course is knocked off target, the atmosphere fouled and the equipment fried from the fire, very little to do and this is where only desperate solutions work, just like a few episodes ago when Anastasia was told to open a hole on her suit to release build up gasses.
The best part of this finale is the quiet spy game playing out back on Earth, starting with Sergei visiting the Chief Designer, who is stuck under house arrest. His wife plays it cool, talking loudly about cooking recipes while Sergei leans over the table and traces the word ALIVE in the spilled flour, I have to mention that I appreciate how even though the series is in English, everything written remains in Russian, so there are always things you got to look up to get the small details. The Chief Designer looks overjoyed, but they realize going back to the Soviet Union could mean prison or worse since the government already declared them dead, so they come up with a desperate plan to change the landing coordinates to Finland, using Sergei to manipulate the part of the crew at the communication center so all this invermation can get to Salyut 1 where Anastasia would transmit to Venera 7. Anastasia sneaks the new Finnish coordinates to Sasha and Lakshmi during a radio blackout window, right under the noses of the distracted comrades and it shows she is a lot sharper than just a famous face for state propaganda. Lakshmi figures out the hidden message is new landing instructions, and that sets up a rough radio call where Sasha asks if they will ever see each other again. Anastasia tells him to stick to the plan and he promises he will be waiting on the other side, his voice cracking with how desperate he sounds. Having these two stuck thousands of miles apart gives the whole political mess actual weight, something to risk your life for and even with the KGB breathing down on everybody, forcing whispers and coded messages, the show never lets that swallow the human side of the story.
Even with all that tension, the episode find a way to put the drama in orbit, specailly with how the KGB interrogation played out. Irina pieces together a changed routine from Stepanov and his contact with Sergei and takes it straight to Colonel Raskova, and Sergei gets dragged out to the house in the middle of the night and thrown into a room where guards are viciously beating a man covered in blood, like what a blood hound she is that smell all that and put the pieces together to caught everyone with their pants down. Sergei breaks down crying and screams that the crew is heading to Finland once the beating turns into a threat to shoot the man in front of him, which feels like a cheap way around fighting a ruthless government. Once they throw him back in the truck he sees the real Chief Designer sitting there completely fine, so that bloody scene back at the house was staged just to trick him, it was probably some other guy getting all beat up and the episode just never bothers telling us who that other guy actually was, but there is nothing wrong with that, it becomes irrelevant. That whole scene does felt off to me, because after a full season of these brilliant scientists outsmarting the military state, having Sergei crack that fast makes him look naive, like the writers just needed a fast way to get the Finland plan out in the open, but at the same time this is an extreme situation, you already know when three guards get to you and then you enter a room with a man all bloody and beat up, his brain automatically without double checking tells you thats the Chief Designer. The Chief Designer still hugs him in the truck and says they sent human beings to Venus and back and nobody can take that away from them, a strong line. The blood and screaming make it clear just how far the Soviets will go to protect their image, and the terror on the face of Sergei as the officers drag him away keeps that whole raid feeling like a nightmare and actually scary.
This final chase felt like a mix of a classic Cold War thriller and a disaster movie, I couldnt believe this Russian guards were that bad when trying to shoot down Sasha and Lakshmi, there is also the Mig missing the shot when it shoot a missile to the space pod, also how the guards at the border didnt start shooting back? Russians where shooting with AK47 that could easily reach them. The jet fires a missile that explodes just outside the capsule and knocks it off course, forcing Sasha and Lakshmi to crash land two kilometers short of the Finnish border, their bodies weak from nine months in zero gravity, every step pure agony while Soviet guards slowly close in. Then the episode leaps into pure television fantasy when Anastasia uses the tiny emergency escape module on Salyut 1, it happens that without much calculation and all the drama that Chief Designer and Sergie went through to get Sasha to Finland, Anastasia did it without much thinking. Her fellow cosmonauts covering for her was probably the biggest underrated surprises, I was betting my right hand that they where going to tell on her and she would have to take the emergency pod by force, then she just touch the ground and very convinient a heavy truck was close from local farmers who at first were scary of what the pod was and who was inside. In the meantime Sahs and Lakshmi were running for ther border and Lakshmi takes a shot to the leg but still scramble into Finland and secures her freedom, while Sasha stops dead the moment he sees Anastasia driving toward him. Instead of running for the border and leaving her behind, he raises his hands and surrenders to the military, which I took as him refusing to be taken away from her again, turning what could have been a standard action escape into a deeply romantic and tragic surrender, I couldnt believe he did all that for nothing, and not only what he did but what Anastasia did for him, she did all that not for him to come back to the Soviet Union, now they both going to jail or getting executed.
How they close out this season leaves you wanting more, the ending is very quiet with Sasha and Anastasia getting arrested making you wonder where they will end up now, in a sense Anastasia is valid because she is a political figure for woman in the Soviet Union and Sasha the pilot that went to Venus, not necesarly the Soviet Union would put him back on a ship but he is the one with the expirience. We see Irina outside a home with her daughter, her standing within the KGB is very clear because after this she might go up in the ranks, she is listening to her daughter play the same piano song Tanya used to love. The camera then takes us to Paris, where Tanya has escaped and dyed her hair blonde, walking the streets soaking in her freedom, but that gets cut short when someone trails her through the crowd, it was that same woman who approach Anastasia in France pretending to be an American but in fact was with the KGB, Tanya is still being watched no matter how far she runs. It is a real open ending, the kind that does not try to wrap everything up neatly and it leaves the fates of Sasha, Anastasia, Sergei and the detained Chief Designer completely up in the air, right now I bet the mission to Venus is going to happen on next season and we might start getting that cross over characters within spin off. The people behind this show balance the scientific triumph of the space race against the crushing weight of the Soviet Union political machine and the whole thing hooks you hard, in my case mostly because of the political aspect and I would love the space missions to be as risky as on For All Mankind. The production stays top tier after all its an AppleTV production. That episode left me with nothing to complain about other than how convinient Anastasia using that exit pod and get to Sasha, like how Moscou didnt see that on their radar?, there were a couple of the narrative choices needed a leap of faith, because the performances is just top of the top. I am giving this first season a massive 9/10, yes because when I saw Chief Comander sitting there in the dark it was a HUGE WTF moment, completely blown away by how they managed to merge this love story with a full blown action series.
Took me a while to catch up both on episodes and posts, its not easy trying to keep up with a 9 - 5, trying to stay active on HIVE daily, plus projects on the side and work out, you might go insane, but I finally did it, after a long day at work sat down to watch Star City episode 7, and I feel like they just giving us hope too early, I think they should have let this run the mystery a bit longer. The Colonel opens with a status report loaded with exposition, explaining how the tragic deaths of the Venus crew last summer got covered up as a simple training accident by the state, and now the program has traded deep space for spying on American targets from the Salyut 1 station. The whole situation is a mess, dropping canisters of surveillance photos back to Earth, one of them landing on American soil and leading to George Bush calling them out on the news. The new guy in charge is Radimir Petrovsky, a former high ranking KGB officer who now runs the facility through fear and intimidation instead of inspiring his engineers, basically not a Chief Designer. Raskova pays a visit to the OG Chief Designer and he is the one that tells her that that ideas require inspiration and do not just form out of thin air, right afeter getting escorted out and replaced as lead engineer by a guy named Stepanov but most importantly he doesnt want his sit back as he understood its all in vain as the state will do as they pleace when ever they want. It is sad watching this facility stripped of its dreamers, replaced by men who doesnt share the vision and passion, that is one of the skills of the one as Chief Designer. I do not usually mind a slow episode, but watching this show trade the stars for dirty government spying feels like a lot of the wegith for the series and I hope they do not stretch this depressing mood for too long because some of it I bet hits a little too close to most people in real life burochracy.
The part of this episode that got me the most excited was the whole cat and mouse game between Irina and the Colonel Raskova, watching two smart characters try to outthink each other without a single punch thrown, at the same time its like they pay tribute to each other. Petrovsky tries to pull Irina onto his side to take down the Colonel, so he sends her to the apartment late at night pretending she is just dropping off surveillance files. The real plan is for Irina to plant a bug while the Colonel is busy checking on something, when you are a spy you are good at creating distractions and pull in our out people of your space, but as soon as she gets a minute alone she notices a photograph sitting on the shelf. She soon asumes the boy in the picture is the Colonel's son, who turn out lost during the war, and that tiny detail completely shifts the power balance, tipping Irinia into Raskova side. Seeing that hidden vulnerability makes Irina rethink her entire loyalty to Petrovsky, and she confesses the whole bugging plot to the Colonel right there on the spot. I loved this twist, because the Colonel does not even panic, she just calmly instructs Irina to go ahead and plant the bug anyway, turning her into a double agent who keeps reporting back to Petrovsky while secretly working for the Colonel instead, thats such a baller move by the writers because to be a double agent is insane considering now you got to cover up from both sides. The actresses sell it with subtle looks and I am betting this alliance ends up being the key to taking down Petrovsky by the end of the season, and even get Raskova a bit away from the state guidelines and more into the space program, its a big swing but I think there is a chance it happens.
As always with any of my recaps, I do have some complaints about how they moved Sergei and Anastasia into position, because their scenes felt like checking boxes to inject logic into the script rather than natural storyline, I have mention this before how some things are just a bit too convinient for my taste. Sergei is demoted to a desk job in a basement doing tedious paper math, so miserable he tries to pass a letter to a coworker to get a teaching job at a university in Kazan because he cant stand been there anyremo. The next morning his coworker does not show so he smelss something is up, and Sergei comes home to find his apartment sacked, they were looking for something, there it was his letter sitting on the couch as a silent threat to stay in his lane. It works and it is a fast way to remind us he is trapped, it works so well, I really enjoy when they say things with action rather than a lot of dialogue and drama. After that sad moment where Sasha leaves for "training" and both look at each other knowing its not training, Anastasia is back living on a farm, waking up her drunk father and fixing tractors while drowning in grief over her dead husband Sasha, well who everyone assume is dead because thats the entire purpose for this episode. Deputy Chairman Tarasov shows up late at night after an event they had to promote Star City, has a drink and pressures her to command the new Salyut 1 mission because her return to space would help counter the public relations disaster with the Americans. She knows she is being used as a political pawn to cover up the spying, but smiles and agrees anyway, and the next day she is already on a bus to the launch pad at Baikonur, skipping real preparation or training, it was insane they did that, not even For All Mankind pull such missions. We do get a beautiful shot of the Soyuz rocket launching above the clouds, and seeing Anastasia smile as she looks out at space is a great moment, but it needed a few more scenes showing her actually wrestling with the decision to go back to the agency that got her husband killed, the same agency that ended her carrer and turn her into a prisoner.
Even when they start picking up the space stuff, it still feels more like a Cold War espionage thriller because we know that no matter if they are in Venus, A Space Ship or on Earth, they state can cut their oxygen down anytime they want, like those old tense spy movies where enemies are forced to cooperate without a second option. The Colonel realizes she is losing control of the facility and leaves the base in street clothes to visit the former chief designer, who is living under house arrest, pulling turnips while KGB guards watch him. He hates her for letting the Venus crew die and taking his life away, and refuses to help her fix the image compression problem at first. But the Colonel knows exactly which buttons to push, warning him that Petrovsky is going to tear Star City apart piece by piece and destroy everything they built together. The old man finally gives her a lead, pointing to an algorithm on the Venera computer that could downgrade high resolution images for transmission, offering it as a possible starting point for the spy satellite feeds, because two bitter rivals sharing secrets beats complete annihilation by a worse villain. The drab clothing and the constant feeling that someone is listening behind every door really sell the atmosphere, and it makes you appreciate how these brilliant minds were just tools for a government that would toss them aside the second they stopped being useful.
The episode had some pacing issues, also the ilumination and lighting on this episode got me fucked up, I know they trying to bring up that Soviet Union grim enviroment but thats too much darkness. Things do speed up during some of the scenes speciall when Sergei talks his way into the communications room with help from Stepanov and gets on a private channel with Anastasia up on the Salyut station, while he is checking his numbers the episodes tells you he have found something, but they cover it up so well that you got no idea what is about to go down. He asks her to tune a frequency receiver to a specific frequency and she detects a signal that comes back as compressed data. Sergei starts doing the math in his head looking at a calendar and he realizes this data is structured using his exact Venera 7 image compression algorithm, and I guess the date confirm it because he probably calculated the date they left and probably how much time it takes for that same data to travel through space. Only one other ship could ever transmit that exact code, so the Venera 7 spacecraft must have survived the explosion after all and is heading back to Earth right now, Im very curious what kind of explanation they going to give use because an internal explosion not only might destroy a bunch of things but also take them off corse. That twist is crazy, it completely flips the tragedy from episode six, because someone from that crew could still be alive up there keeping the ship running. The episode ends on a great shot of the spacecraft coming in from the distance, but here is the biggest twist, will this be a rescue missiong? the big escape for the survivors? or an annihilation mission? because now we got to consider Raskova position towards the current Chief Designer, turns this entire situation into a huge political headache for the leaders who already told everyone they were dead. I am giving this episode an 7.5/10, because despite the rushed desicions, announcement around Anastasia it pulls off a reveal that changes the direction of the season. I cannot wait to see how they handle this next week episode, because if Sasha or Valya are still breathing, the Soviet government has a lot of explaining to do and I just pray they are, even better if they both alive because there is also their own internal conflict after Valya confesses been a spy to his best first Sasha, that might lead to Sasha confessing he was fucking Tanya, its hilarious where all this is going.
›Star City (2026): Awl in a Sack - S01E06 - RECAP75@skiptvads86d3 views
Source Episode 6 was one of the most intense episodes of the series so far, got so many threads getting to a conclusion and some to an almost no return point, especially with how careful the tension builds right from the opening, where Irina walks up to her Moscow apartment and notices the security tape on the door is broken. She steps inside looking for Tanya, finds broken glass on the floor next to a dropped photo…
›Star City (2026): Bite Your Elbow - S01E05 - RECAP80@skiptvads89d1 view
Source I guess the cat was out of the bag after episode 4, after finally the american spy has been identify but who is / was working with her was not clear and thats what this episodes does, with Irina putting two and two together about the sabotage coil hidden inside the perfume bottle from last episode and the realization washing over her face is just damn good writing and acting. Now that we know how far the Sovi…
›Star City (2026): Dark Fores - S01E04 - RECAP80@skiptvads90d1 view
Source I have been griding some series that I had in backlog, today I just realize that thursday nights now are packed because Silo just dropped plus Star City, Cape Fear and Sugar, so much content dont have enough time to post about all of it so Im been picky. Star City confirm as a For All Man Kind spin off has been on another level, its almost like they learn from the first series and episode four opens on a new…
›Star City (2026): Bad Dancer - S01E03 - RECAP80@skiptvads91d3 views
Source Star City is a very very under the radar tv series, such a banger episode after episode. Episode 3 opens with Tanya sneaking around government checkpoints just to grab a smuggled X ray vinyl record, the series has all this interesting tricks and I had no clue an X ray could be a record, they call it a bone record and its the kind of things that get you hooked. She has to lock herself inside her own apartment…