TV spin-off 'Star City' delves into space race from behind the Iron Curtain

LONDON — New television drama “Star City” takes viewers behind the Iron Curtain to explore the Soviet perspective of the Cold War space race.

The eight-part series, which premieres Friday on Apple TV, is a spin-off of the U.S. science fiction drama “For All Mankind.” The original series, now in its fifth season, presents an alternate history in which the Soviet Union was the first to land a man on the moon.

Set within the same universe, “Star City” shifts the focus to the Soviet space program and the secretive military and political systems surrounding it.

The series stars “House of the Dragon” actor Rhys Ifans as the chief designer overseeing engineers and cosmonauts at Star City, the once-classified training facility for Soviet astronauts located outside Moscow. “Motherland” actress Anna Maxwell Martin plays the head of KGB surveillance, monitoring every move within the program.

“What I wanted to portray was a man who sees very clearly that space changes people, that when people come back, they more often than not come back better people,” Ifans told Reuters.

Beginning in 1969, the series also features Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Agnes O’Casey, Josef Davies, and Priya Kansara. It follows astronauts, engineers, intelligence officers, and their families as they navigate the risks and pressures of working on the Soviet space program, where much of the danger unfolds on the ground as much as in space.

“In this world behind the Iron Curtain, I think for a lot of people, they’re unaware of a lot of these details,” co-creator Matt Wolpert said. “In the spy thriller part of it as well, the more authentic it feels, the more dangerous it feels.”

“That’s why the way we shot it, the way we use sound, the performances of the actors—almost nobody wore any makeup—on every level, we tried to keep it as authentic as possible,” he added.

“Star City” arrives at a time of renewed global interest in space exploration, following NASA’s Artemis II lunar mission, which has helped reignite public enthusiasm for space travel.

“It’s really a hot topic at the minute,” said Josef Davies, who plays a young engineer in the series.

-Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Alison Williams, Reuters