May 29 is set to be both a day of grief and joy if you’re a sci-fi series fan with an Apple TV subscription. On the same day that For All Mankind season 5 emotionally comes to an end, new TV show Star City picks up the reins.
But what do the two have in common? They’re both the brainchildren of the same creative team. You might see space and rockets in the Star City trailer and think we’re in for For All Mankind 2.0, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
With a stacked cast led by Rhys Ifans and Anna Maxwell Martin, Star City follows the space race from behind the Iron Curtain, when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the moon.
But isn’t that exactly where For All Mankind begins? Yes and no. According to creators Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, the two aren’t even close to being sister shows.
‘It’s natural to compare them… we wanted something different’
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“Of course, it’s natural that you compare them,” Nevidi tells me. “But I think for us, we were just so creatively inspired to make something that felt different, that felt like its own show.
“I think we probably wouldn’t have made Star City if it was trying to be a companion piece to For All Mankind. I think we really have captured something about the sense of paranoia and the spy thriller aspect of the story. I hope people love it, because we’re certainly very proud of it.”
Thriller is the defining word here. Having watched the first five episodes of Star City (and loved them), not only does the show’s tone feel much darker than For All Mankind, but it also doesn’t feel like outright sci-fi. It’s a cat-and-mouse set during the Soviet Union space race, but the actual space stuff itself feels secondary.
Don’t get me wrong, though, there are still a lot of similarities. Both have clear time jumps, both are set in alternative versions of the past, and both obviously have a link to space travel. But calling Star City a direct spinoff isn’t actually fair, even if Wolpert references it as one.
“For All Mankind was one of the first, if not the first, sci-fi show on Apple TV. So I feel like we’re the originals. We started the trend,” Wolpert adds.
“It was a wholly original idea, and now we have a spinoff of another original idea with an original idea. So it’s something I think we’re particularly proud of. I think Star City adds to Apple’s sci-fi canon.”
Star City begins on May 29 with its first two episodes, followed by weekly releases every Friday until July 10.
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