'For All Mankind' Spin-Off 'Star City' Puts a Lot of Brits In Space
Though most people are probably familiar with Apple TV+ because of singular hits like Ted Lasso or Severance, the streamer has a relatively significant catalog of excellent original dramas that get much less attention (and which far fewer people have heard of). One of its absolute best is For All Mankind, an alternate history of the space race that reimagines what the world would have been like had the Russians reached the moon first. The drama has spanned four seasons (and four decades) of what-ifs and imagined changes, and has not only been renewed for a fifth, but spawned its first spin-off, Star City.
The new series is a companion to the parent show, doing a reverse perspective on the original's already vastly changed history. Star City takes the story behind the Iron Curtain and follows the events of For All Mankind Season 1 from the Russian point of view. However, if the series' original rush of casting announcements is anything to go by, the various Russian cosmonauts, engineers, and intelligent officers will predominantly be played by actors who will be very familiar to Anglophiles. Much like HBO's critically acclaimed Chernobyl, the bulk of the so-called "Russians" are all going to be secretly from the United Kingdom.
Rhys Ifans (House of the Dragon) and Anna Maxwell Martin (Until I Kill You) are set to lead the new spin-off. Ifans will play an as-yet-unnamed character known only as the "Chief Designer," the driving force behind the Soviet Space program. Martin will play Lyudmilla, the head of the KGB surveillance department at Star City.
