*****SOYUZ-SIZED SPOILERS!******
Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” presents a more cosmically expansive, inclusive alternate-present for America than the one we’re currently enduring in our own timeline, and it’s all based on a simple premise; what if the Soviet Union beat the United States to the first manned lunar landing in 1969? In this series’ reality, we see real-life cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (the first man to walk in space in 1965) taking Neil Armstrong’s place in history, as he plants a Soviet flag into the virgin lunar regolith. However, unlike America’s current limited ambitions with manned spaceflight, “For All Mankind” posits that coming in second might’ve spurred the US into far grander space ventures–including lunar bases, Mars colonies, asteroid mining, and a manned flight to Saturn’s moon of Titan, all before 2026. You know, that future we were promised 50 years ago.
The recent “For All Mankind” spinoff “Star City” is more of a sidequel than a sequel, showing what ‘winning’ the 1960s Space Race to the moon did for the Soviet Union. For one thing, this Soviet Union lasted well into the 21st century (as seen in the parent show). It also doubled down on its worst traits, such as the stifling paranoia which destroyed the lives of its own space heroes who failed to obey oppressive Soviet protocols. If “For All Mankind” presents a space history a step closer to the brighter future of Star Trek, then “Star City” is Deep Space Nine; a darker, moodier side to this same alternate reality.
“Star City” recently concluded its eight-episode first season, and though I’ve already reviewed the first two episodes of “Star City,” I’m briefly recapping them for this season overview.
S1.E1: “The Eyes”
Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) is the head of the KGB’s surveillance program at Star City, and the sadistic officer is grimly determined to locate the traitor in her midst. Raskova treads lightly with the Soviet Space Program’s brilliant, personable Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans), a man whose position is too critical to be called by his actual name.
Single mother Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey) is new to Lyudmilla’s surveillance program, and she learns of a tryst between a cosmonaut and another cosmonaut’s wife from their bugged apartments, which she’s reticent to share with her ice-cold boss, Lyudmilla. One of Irina’s coworkers is commended for sharing information that leads to the imprisonment of Yana, whose brother is suspected of writing for a dissident newsletter.
Less confident cosmonaut Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert) is promptly assigned to replace the disappeared Yana to become the first woman cosmonaut on the moon. Anastasia realizes her dream of becoming the first woman on the moon. Despite being forced to memorize a prewritten KGB-approved speech as her ‘first words on the moon,’ Anastasia goes off-script and begins paying tribute to her fallen comrades before she’s muted by Ground Control.
Note: Filmed primarily in Bulgaria with footage shot in Vilnius, Lithuania, its oppressive, desaturated look is very similar to HBO’s “Chernobyl,” with which it shares a 20th century Soviet-era vibe. The primary characters, Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans), Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin), Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey), Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert), Sasha Polivanov (Solly McLeod), Valya Mironov (Adam Nagaitis) and a younger version of “For All Mankind” legacy character Sergei Nikulov (Josef Davies), are cryptically introduced in this slow-burning first episode, but this is in keeping with this series’ Jon Le Carré spy novel feel. You’d think that the Soviets beating the US to the moon would’ve heralded greater optimism within their country, but it doesn’t. If anything, it only adds to their paranoia and determination to stay on top.
S1.E2: “Bear on a Chain”
An accident during reentry sends cosmonauts Anastasia and Valya over a hundred kilometers off course to land in Siberia, where Anastasia is promptly intercepted by Lyudmilla, who warns her to stick to the program from now on, or she’ll be replaced with a doppelgänger (left). Anastasia reaffirms her loyalty, which includes a goodwill tour in Paris, as well as getting married to playboy bachelor cosmonaut Sasha, to keep him in line as well.
Things get murky during a cosmonaut goodwill tour in Paris, as Anastasia has a mild panic attack, while cosmonauts Sasha (Solly McLeod), Valya (Adam Nagaitis) and Valya’s wife Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) keep up appearances for the international press. Anastasia is later ‘tested’ when Sasha whisks her off to a private Paris nightclub, where an American agent makes an offer to aid in her defection, but the steadfast cosmonaut refuses. It’s later revealed the bogus agent was sent by Lyudmilla to test Anastasia’s loyalty.
Determined to track down the traitor in Star City, Lyudmilla and her unwitting multilingual protégé Irina find and brutally interrogate a German suspected of smuggling information out of Star City to the West. Playing good-cop/bad-cop, Irina proves herself to her cruel boss by dousing the man with boiling water and getting him to confess. Lyudmilla is impressed.
Chief Designer finds ambitious, bright engineer Sergei Nikulov (Josef Davies) alone in his apartment one night and quietly takes him down to a warehouse of used space hardware, where he asks for Sergei’s clandestine (and illegal) help in reallocating state resources to work on a manned Venus flight.
Note: This second episode explores the personal lives of the cosmonauts and their problematic romantic partners (real and arranged) while taking Irina’s internship with Lyudmilla to the next level, highlighting the young woman’s ambition as well as her internal conflict. “For All Mankind” legacy character Sergei also comes out of his shell under the Chief Designer’s intelligent and paternal mentorship. As I said in my extended review of the first two episodes back in May, these first two episodes are a slow burn, but they go a long way towards laying foundations for these characters. Also of note; Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is the daughter of famed motion-capture performance genius Andy Serkis (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” “King Kong” “Lord of the Rings” trilogy).
S1.E3: “Bad Dancer”
Tensions rise between Sasha and Valya, as they prepare to fly the Luna 17 mission to the moon. Unknown to Valya, Sasha has been having an affair with his wife, Tanya. Meanwhile, Valya has his own secret–he’s a mole for a western intelligence operative, and is spying for the Americans, who’ve accelerated their plans for a lunar base after the Russians beat them to the moon. Sasha is also being eyed by the Chief Designer and Sergei to head up an off-the-books manned mission to Venus…
Realizing he’s been too distant with his lonely, long-suffering wife, Tanya, Valya proposes a trip to Moscow together for a piano recital, given her love of music. However, Valya also plans to meet his western intelligence contact there, too. His wife’s past history of dissension is the reason we later learn that the west recruited Valya as a mole back in 1965.
During the Luna 17 flight, Sasha is contacted discretely by ground controllers, who tell him western technology is operating on their ship. In an attempt to stop it, Lyudmilla overrides Chief Designer, and tells Sasha to cycle the lunar lander’s power system, which accidentally triggers and explosion that kills cosmonaut Arseni Vetrov (who was in the lunar lander) and aborts the mission.
Note: The espionage intrigue is significantly amped up now, giving this series its distinct, Jon Le Carré-vibe, as opposed to its parent series’ more ‘Star Trek prequel’ ambience. Many favorites from the old Soviet Union are in play; secret transmitters, spacecraft sabotage, secret meetings, etc. Despite these arguable spy cliches, “Star City” makes them fresh by allowing us to feel every moment of the characters’ conflicts, self-doubts and inhibitions, such as the horrific death of a cosmonaut aboard Luna 17.
S1.E4: “Dark Forest”
Uncomfortable with crowds, Anastasia despises being a public ‘hero of the Soviet Union,’ realizing it also means she’ll never fly again, as she’s become too valuable. This was a lesson learned from real-life first man in space Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), who was killed in a routine training flight seven years after his historic 1961 spaceflight on Vostok 1.
Irina learns her new friend and daughter’s music instructor, Tanya (whom she’s actively monitoring) has a past history with a dissident movement. Using the bathroom as a excuse to search Tanya’s apartment, Irina finds a micro-transmitter inside a perfume bottle given to her by her cosmonaut husband in Paris. Meanwhile, Irina’s mentor Lyudmilla is targeted by a new KGB overseer.
Life-support system expert Lakshmi Chadha (Priya Kansara) arrives at Star City from India with her husband Manu (Shubham Saraf). As Chief Designer advances his clandestine Venus manned spaceflight, he recruits Lakshmi to fly on the mission, since life-support for a months-long mission to Venus will be critical. The Chief Designer and Sergei also discover evidence of modified parts in the Luna 17 wreckage.
Note: The introduction of Lakshmi (Priya Kansara) into the ensemble adds an outsider into this cast of Soviet characters, who are all-too cynically aware of how their dismal system works. The ambiguity of Irina is put to the test as well, as she finds a way to thread the needle between loyalty to her KGB masters while helping Tanya, whom she genuinely likes as a friend. The discovery of the transmitter in Tanya’s bathroom is something of a turning point for her character; will she become Lyudmilla, or can she walk an invisible line between?
S1.E5: “Bite Your Elbow”
Irina warns Tanya that Valya is a traitor and urges her to escape the country, giving her falsified papers and directions to a Moscow safe house. Irina then delivers a detailed report to Lyudmilla on her investigation of Valya and Tanya, concluding that Valya is the traitor. Feeling betrayed, Tanya slips into Star City to warn Valya of his imminent arrest, despite her anger. She then flees to the safehouse, where she finds a photo of Irina with real-life 1970s Soviet Premier Brezhnev.
The Chief Designer uses what’s left of his influence to get his much-needed protégé Sergei released from prison on a charge of reading banned books, while managing to keep his secret manned Venus on track. This mission will also act as Valya’s means of escape from the Soviet Union.
Unable to leave Star City, Valya punches Venera‘s pilot out, and ‘volunteers’ to replace the curiously absent man for the mission, which has a critical launch window. Sasha, Lakshmi, and Valya then launch on the top-secret Venera 7 mission, just as the KGB closes in on Valya.
Note: Like “Bad Dancer,” this episode also ends with a genuine nail-biter of a finale, as Valya escapes arrest by flying into space. Lots of tension between ‘friends’ Irina and Tanya as well, with Tanya ultimately proving her sincerity by offering Tanya a way out, while reporting on Valya’s activities to her KGB superiors. Irina’s gray morality defines this series, as much as its cold look and gray architecture. Despite the strong ensemble of this series, this episode really belongs to Valya (Adam Nigaitis) and Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), whose marriage disintegrates in real time, as they’re forced to go their separate ways in order to survive.
S1.E6: “Awl in a Sack”
Tanya contacts Valya’s Moscow handler, while Irina investigates as well. Irina finds the handler and locates Tanya in a safe house, before she escapes after a final confrontation. Once again, Irina walks a gray moral line of aiding a dissident while remaining outwardly loyal to her KGB puppet masters.
With Valya and Tanya both missing, Lyudmilla learns of Star City’s unauthorized launch. Confident Lyudmilla and the KGB can’t stop the flight, Chief Designer confirms that Valya is en route to Venus, but is disturbed when he learns of his cosmonaut’s treason. With the last of his credibility spent, the Chief Designer is then arrested for his collaboration with Valya.
Lyudmilla and the Chief Designer, with assistance from Lakshmi’s husband, isolate Valya in the utility module of the Venera 7 spacecraft. Lyudmilla then orders ground controllers to depressurize the utility module, which the crew bypasses to free Valya. Lyudmilla then orders ground controllers to depressurize the entire craft. Sasha attempts to disable ground’s remote access, but a spark ignites–causing an explosion. The crew’s survival is in doubt.
Note: I literally gasped aloud when the explosion occurred at the end of this episode (an explosion not too unlike America’s real-life Apollo 1 fire). I remember telling my wife, who, sadly, doesn’t watch the show, that they just killed off three characters at once. Fortunately, I was wrong, but that’s part of this show’s strength–there are no sacred cow characters, and everyone’s fate is up for grabs, not too unlike producer Ronald D. Moore‘s “Battlestar Galactica” (2003-2009).
S1.E7: “Plow Deep”
Six months later, the Venera crew are presumed lost to a mysterious “training accident.” Chief Designer is living in a country dacha under house arrest. His protégé Sergei’s apartment has also been ransacked in the aftermath. Orbital military reconnaissance aboard the Salyut space station is the priority now, with presumed-widow Anastasia back in space, commanding the mission.
With a KGB new overseer and Chief Designer, Irina’s loyalty is once again tested when she is asked to plant a bug in Lyudmilla’s apartment. She does so, but when confronted by her former KGB supervisor, she tells her exactly what’s she’s been ordered to do, and Lyudmilla allows it–effectively making Irina a double agent.
After a long time out of the loop, former mission controller and engineer Sergei gets access to speak with Anastasia aboard Salyut, and asks her to check a mysterious radio frequency. They find a signal that can only be from the “lost” Venera flight.
Note: One can only imagine the misery of the Venera 7 survivors aboard their charred spacecraft’s interior in the final seconds of this episode, as we see the damaged spacecraft hurtling towards Venus…
S1.E8: “The Wolves”
We learn that Sasha was able to extinguish the fire aboard Venera, and he, Valya and Lakshmi are still headed to Venus six months after losing contact. Despite the damage, the spacecraft is functional, but its maneuvering thrusters lack the fuel to enter a free-return trajectory around Venus, meaning it’ll miss the planet entirely.
Irina realizes Sergei is plotting something, so she and Lyudmilla manage to coerce a confession out of him by beating and threatening a bloody-faced doppelgänger whom Sergei believes to be the Chief Designer. Sergei is arrested again.
Realizing they’ll overshoot Venus, Valya volunteers to go into their bathyscaphe-like descent module, and use its thrusters to make the course correction. The maneuver is successful, but Valya’s detached capsule is forced to land on the surface of Venus. In the planet’s blast furnace temperatures and hull-crushing atmospheric pressure, a near-delirious Valya survives the landing until his bathysphere implodes like an aluminum can–killing him instantly.
The Chief Designer manages to sneak a reentry correction up to Venera‘s surviving crew members so that they will land in Finland instead of the Soviet Union. An enraged Lyudmilla races to the border to intercept the survivors, and a missile fired from a MiG fighter damages the reentry capsule and brings it down in a forest just short of the Finnish border. With no choice, the gravitationally–atrophied Sasha and Lakshmi flee on foot…
Realizing what her husband Sasha (whom she’s genuinely fallen in love with during their sham marriage) is planning, Anastasia uses her Salyut’s descent module to help him escape into Finland. Selflessly allowing Lakshmi to escape, Sasha surrenders–with Anastasia at his side. In the season finale’s final scenes, we see Tanya in Paris with her daughter. Meanwhile, Irina visits family–while her young daughter–who was one of Tanya’s students–plays one of Tanya’s banned tunes.
Note: Aside from the surprising fates of Valya (forgotten first man on Venus), Lakshmi (forced to abandon her husband), Anastasia (Soviet hero to Soviet prisoner) and Tanya (living free in Paris), none of the characters have undergone the tremendous evolution in their arcs that we see in Sasha Polivanov, played by Solly McLeod. All of the characters are supremely well-acted but Sasha fundamentally changes as a person from a selfish, arrogant, playboy pilot to selflessly helping Lakshmi flee and sacrificing his own freedom to reunite with his beloved Anastasia, whom he was forced to marry for good press. Beyond Sasha’s fascinating arc, “The Wolves” is a nail-biter of a season finale.
Summing It Up
Created by Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert as a sidequel series to “For All Mankind,” “Star City” eschews the Americanized optimism and clean cinematography of its parent series to show us a grainy, cold, desaturated look into life behind an Iron Curtain where the Soviet Union won the race to the moon–that fulcrum event upon which both series are based. Like “For All Mankind,” there are many commonalities with our own reality (Soviet Premier Brezhnev, the Salyut, Soyuz, Voshkhod and Venera spacecrafts, etc) but this is a different history unfolding before our eyes, save for occasional overlapping events and the legacy character Sergei Nikulov, whom we see in “Star City” as a bright, promising, young engineer (Josef Davies).
The British-for-Soviet cast is one of the few concessions made for an English-speaking audience, though the actors look as though they might break into fluent Russian at any moment. Each of the characters in this deeply-talented, top-tier ensemble undergo extraordinary arcs throughout eight one-hour episodes (give or take a few minutes each). Rhys Ifans, whose vibe is very similar to the late David Warner, plays the (deliberately) unnamed “Chief Designer.” His dignity, intelligence, and recognition of potential within the people working for him makes him a parental figure of this series–even when he’s under house arrest. The character’s adaptable intelligence under a suffocating regime (which has a disturbing number of things in common with the current administration of the United States) makes his designation of Chief Designer feel curiously appropriate.
Contrasting with the Chief Designer’s humanity is the cold, calculating KGB Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin), who recognizes talent in her own field, when she recruits mousy wiretap transcriber Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey) as a surprisingly shrewd apprentice. The cosmonauts are a fascinating mix as well, including this timeline’s first woman on the moon, Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert), who’s forced into an arranged marriage with playboy pilot Sasha Polivanov (Solly McLeod), whose buddy Valya Mironov (Adam Nigaitis) is a secret western mole. Valya’s unhappy wife Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) is a dissident music instructor who plays banned music in private. Reluctant Indian cosmonaut Lakshmi Chadha (Priya Kansara) joins the group as a life-support expert who becomes part of a secretive, dramatic manned mission to Venus.
When I saw the early teaser trailers for this series, I wondered if “Star City” might just be a “Roshomon”-style reiteration of events already covered in “For All Mankind.” I’m pleased to say I was wrong. Dark, moody, compelling and so much more than a typical TV spinoff, “Star City” is an intriguing mix of Space Race alt-history and Jon Le Carré spy novels that stands on its own space legs.
Where to Watch
“Star City” and its parent series “For All Mankind” are streaming exclusively on AppleTV, but are available for digital purchase on iTunes and other platforms.
Such an incredible and suspenseful series! Thank you for the in-depth analysis.
My pleasure, David! And yes, this is a great show. It has the potential to eclipse its parent series.
When a spinoff series does much more than the parent series could in any sense, it sure says a lot. Torchwood was among the first to make me fully appreciate that. Thanks for your review.
My pleasure, Mike.
And yes, Torchwood was excellent. “Children of Earth” was an emotional powerhouse.