Star City Series Premiere Makes an Interesting But Unfocused Case

Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0

4

I wasn’t sure Star City was a good idea.

We saw the crushing defeat the Americans suffered in For All Mankind. It was loud and traumatizing.

Revisiting the space race from behind the Iron Curtain initially felt like a cynical, franchise-stretching cash grab from Apple TV. 

And while the two-episode premiere successfully establishes a distinct, sterile political-thriller identity, it frequently commits the opposite sin of its predecessor: it treats the actual space expeditions like a side mission to the bureaucratic paranoia of the Kremlin.

The change in tone is immediate.

For All Mankind carries a hopeful vibe as evidenced by the opening sequence, but Star City feels charged.

Its opening sequence does feature some of that hope, but one can also detect the danger and thrill.

The show uses every technical advantage it can muster to really become as different as possible.

Apple TV shows are not known for being the best-lit or color-graded, but the coldness in this one feels earned.

Everything looks sterile and controlled as the series sets up the characters and conflicts, but the sheer number of people being focused on feels like too much.

Each episode clocks in at over one hour, so most of the characters feel like we know and understand them to some extent. The tension is immediate as we’re thrown into the chaos of the Soviet Space program, where trust is a scarce commodity.

Politics and the Marxist-Leninist way of life are embedded in every fabric of society you can spit without someone knowing.

It seems funny that information is of importance here, but it’s also scarce because there is no reason for a wife not to know their husband landed on the moon.

And the way she finds out is through a tough-looking woman who looks like she’s taking you to the mines instead of a mission control room.

With characters like Lyudmilla, Star City makes it clear that this is mostly a political thriller, and it makes no apologies about it.

That can be a double-edged sword because if you’ve followed my coverage of For All Mankind Season 5, you know what politics have done to a good portion of the season.

However, since Star City can’t separate itself from the politics from the first episode, this might end up working in its favor.

But the beating heart of For All Mankind is not the physics, or the space missions, or the engineering feats; it’s the characters.

These are the people who make sacrifices, mistakes, and discoveries that propel humankind to greater heights.

And Star City has a lot of them; maybe too many of them.

It isn’t helped by the production’s linguistic compromise — forcing a massive cast to deliver classic Russian names through English accents, creating a cognitive dissonance that makes character retention a chore.

Consequently, there doesn’t seem to be any standout characters except for Lyudmillla, who strikes fear just by existing.

Everyone seems like a cog in the soviet machine, even those like Irina or Sergei, whom we were familiar with.

That may be the point, but it can be hard to root for characters who you feel are disposable.

But since we know Irina and Sergei do survive, then it’s worth sticking around to see their evolution.

The Irina we meet this hour is very different from the one we know. Here, she’s a bit more innocent, while in For All Mankind, her mind has been attuned to always be conniving.

Meanwhile, Sergei’s genius is buried beneath the space team’s above-average brilliance, but Chief Designer notices it.

Star City is also quite feminist, but the story’s nature makes it feel forced. 

Like her teammates, when she is forced onto them, Anastasia Belikova does not seem like someone you want to champion.

She is courageous, I’ll give her that, but she hasn’t earned it. One can sympathize with the problems she is going through because of the state’s over-involvement in her life, but that doesn’t make her feel like part of the team.

The show needs to round her out well because she mostly seems like a fish out of water.

For all its focus on Soviet authoritarianism, Star City does deliver on the space part.

The decision to pick after the moon landing as the starting point is quite interesting, as it was one of the most heated races between the Soviets and the Americans.

At this point in the story, it seems like we missed the good parts, even though I want to believe the best is yet to come.

We do get some space drama when they decide to launch the first woman to the moon, but, coupled with the Kremlin’s desire to control everything, it feels like a side mission rather than the main storyline.

And a space drama does not work when there are no space expeditions.

Gut Check

This series premiere is a lot. Between the heavy politics and numerous characters, nothing lands well enough.

It requires constant reorienting to keep track of the numerous threads that seem scattered. But it all seems to be working toward a common goal, so I will stick around.

Now’s when you chime in. Are you a Star City fanatic yet or a cautious viewer?

Let’s keep the conversation going — it’s the only way the good stuff survives.

Say something in the comments, share if you’re moved to, and keep reading. Independent voices need readers like you.