'Star City' Is A Moody, Riveting Sci-Fi Thriller With A Deceptively Simple Premise

Personal freedom, privacy, and access to music or books are absent under communist rule in an alternate Soviet timeline. A sci-fi thriller centers on how human spirit persists and reaches for the stars while an authoritarian regime threatens basic decency. The story begins in 1969 as the USSR prepares to put a man on the Moon, diverging from real history. A key figure called the Chief Designer pushes Roscosmos toward advanced spaceflight achievements. The narrative includes tense problem-solving moments using ingenuity grounded in period-appropriate technology and realistic constraints based on known science.

"For those who are feeling like living under the communist rule of the USSR might have been preferable in hindsight, the new sci-fi thriller series will disabuse you of that notion very quickly. In both real history and this alternate timeline, personal freedom, privacy, and even the freedom to listen to music or read certain books were all nonexistent. And yet, this kind of scrutiny, in which a comrade spies on a comrade, makes for fantastic TV."

"In Star City, the premise is more basic: How does the human spirit endure and take to the stars, when an authoritarian regime is threatening to destroy basic human decency at every turn? If For All Mankind was Ronald D. Moore's take on a grounded, alternate universe path to an upbeat Star Trek: The Next Generation future, then Star City is the franchise's version of the grittier Deep Space Nine. This is a series in which nearly every character has a secret, and not all of those secrets are about blasting off into space."

"Star City starts in the same place For All Mankind Season 1 did, in 1969. The USSR is about to put a man on the Moon, which, of course, did not happen in real life. In this timeline, a character known only as "the Chief Designer" (Rhys Ifans) is the driving force behind pushing Roscosmos to the bleeding edge of spaceflight achievement. Like For All Mankind, this series reveals tense moments in which last-minute problems are solved by out-of-the-box ingenuity, all grounded in the real science of what technology existed decades ago."

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