Star City

Following in the footsteps of For All Mankind, Apple TV+’s latest alternate reality series, Star City, imagines a universe in which the Soviets landed on the moon first. Set during Brezhnev’s reign, it sees Rhys Ifans’s Chief Designer orchestrating the Soviet space programme.

Central to the Chief’s vision is the feat of sending the first woman to the moon. After the initial cosmonaut is accused of being a spy, Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert) is unwittingly thrust into Star City to fill those lofty shoes. But she has to contend with ice queen Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin), the terrifyingly austere head of surveillance at Star City.

It’s a stunning visual spectacle, with the grandiosity of space exploration conveyed in cinematic scope. Although famed filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky provided inspiration for director Nick Murphy, there’s undoubtedly a more polished quality to the production (albeit one expected from a major US studio). Englert commands the screen as the reluctant young cosmonaut, and Agnes O’Casey excels as Irina Morozova, who questions her role as Lyudmilla’s surveillance lackey. Meanwhile, Ifans imbues a human touch to a man who could have otherwise fallen into caricature.

For all its majesty and gripping drama, the elephant in the room must be addressed: Why are the Russians speaking in British accents? What’s more, why are they speaking in regional British accents? Admittedly, casting Brits and Irish actors as English-speaking Russians and Germans has long been a tradition (think Schindler’s List or, more recently, Chernobyl), but it feels rather old-hat in this day and age. For a series that painstakingly adheres to realism and recreation of the era, it’s difficult to comprehend why things as basic as authentic accents and dialect are overlooked. This makes for a rather distracting viewing experience, which is a shame considering how impressive the visuals and the cast are.

There’s also the issue of deciphering exactly what message the show is trying to convey. However one may feel about the USSR, it’s widely accepted that it was the Americans who exacerbated the space race. And yet, the series appears to insinuate that the Americans landing on the moon first was the correct course of history. That said, it succeeds as a dramatic, counterfactual thought experiment.

Star City is an intriguing, sometimes riveting, watch. For those who haven’t seen its predecessor, fear not: this is fascinating enough as a standalone series.