Star City is a new Apple TV series, which is a spin-off from For All Mankind, which was great – albeit I lost track of it along the way, and really need to catch up – and takes its name from the home of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre.
It’s a place that’s so hush-hush, that you might only find out your partner is up on the moon, when you’re shown live footage of them being there!
Amongst the harsh cold of an ’70s Russian winter, the race is on to be the first woman on the moon, via the Luna 16 mission, including Anastasia Belikova (Alice Englert), but the Russians have a whole room of women running surveillance, each on individual cosmonauts within the Space program.
Meanwhile, the Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans) wants to expand to Venus and Mars, thinking of the moon as just a stepping stone, but how to make that move if the powers that be – Leonid Brezhnev, in this era – is wholly set on our nearest satellite?
Along the way, anyone suspected of being a mole for the other side is put through the most intense interrogation process, and the woman taking out the trash is Anna Maxwell Martin as the Head of KGB surveillance. In fact, she’s such a a mean bastard and with policies that make her seem like a one-woman Minority Report enforcer – demanding she knows every last thing before it even happens, that when Line of Duty returns, if she’s not outed as ‘H’, no-one can be!!
As with For All Mankind, regular, original voices are used, instead of actors putting on bad Russian accents, and for whoever does become the first woman in space, she’ll prove to be determined, trying to achieve her tasks by any means necessary, making Star City consistently gripping stuff!
Apple TV have knocked this one out of the galaxy!
Star City is on Apple TV from tomorrow, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. If it is in future, it will be listed on the New DVD, Blu-ray, 3D and 4K releases UK page.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 60-65 mins per episode
Release date: Friday May 29th
Studio: Apple TV
Format: 2.39:1
Series Directors: Kasia Adamik, Nick Murphy, Jamie Payne, Stefan Schwartz
Producers: Dia Dufault, Huey M Park
Creators: Ronald D Moore, Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert
Writers: Ronald D Moore, Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, Liba Vaynberg, Andrew Chambliss, George Mastras, Megan McDonnell, Gursimran Sandhu, KC Scott
Music: Federico Jusid
Cast:
Chief Designer: Rhys Ifans
Lyudmilla Raskova: Anna Maxwell Martin
Irina Morozova: Agnes O’Casey
Valya Markelov: Adam Nagaitis
Anastasia Belikova: Alice Englert
character was portrayed by Rita Khrabrovitsky in For All Mankind.
Sergei Nikulov: Josef Davies
Tanya Markelova: Ruby Ashbourne Serkis
Sasha Polivanov: Solly McLeod
Lakshmi: Priya Kansara
Zoya: Eadie Johnson
Controller: Christopher Sherwood
Mikhail: Ian Midlane
Vika Yegorova: Eliot Salt
Maxim Tarasov: David Dencik
Vladimir Belikov: Sean Gilder
Galina: Ellie Piercy
Director of Operations: Gyuri Sarossy
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.