June 1, 2026

— Is a show based on an alternate timeline really an alt history if the audience at large does not know the actual events of the past?

"Star City," now streaming on Apple TV, puts that question to test. A spinoff of the critically-acclaimed "For All Mankind," the new show premiered on Friday (May 29), the same day that its parent concluded its fifth and penultimate season.

The two series also share the primary departure point from our reality. (Warning: Spoilers for the first episodes of "Star City" ahead.)

Both series began with the Soviet Union landing the first man on the moon. "Star City" reuses the same scene of cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (Sam Wilkinson) stepping onto the lunar surface that was filmed for the first episode of "For All Mankind" in 2019. This time, instead of being watched on TV in U.S. homes, at a bar and in NASA's Mission Control, the broadcast is being projected onto the main screen at front of the TsUP, Moscow Mission Control, within a different context.

"I take this step for my country, for my people and for the Marxist-Leninist way of life, knowing that today is but one small step on a journey that someday will take us all to the stars," says Leonov as his first words on the moon.

Star City: Moon Landing. Click to enlarge video in new pop-up window. (Apple TV)

Ironically, in the U.S.-based scene from "For All Mankind," Leonov delivers his quote in Russian and then it is heard translated by a TV anchor. In "Star City," set behind the Iron Curtain, the audio is in English, as is all of the dialog. The show substitutes Russian with British English.

As in "For All Mankind," the scene involves a sense of dread, but for different reasons. In the original series, the feeling is driven by the same thoughts that elicited the regret, anger and fear experienced in the West after the Soviet Union (in real life) became the first country to place an artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth orbit in 1957.

In "Star City," it is the extreme worry by a woman being woken from sleep, being led from her home leaving behind her two young daughters with no explanation until she is standing at the back of the TsUP and is met by the Chief Designer. In tears, she asks, "Is Alexei alright? They won't tell me what's happened. He left for a training mission last week and now..."

It is not until that moment, when it is revealed to her that her husband is already on the moon, does she slightly relax and display a small smile.

'Sprinkle' of Soviet space history

Leonov was a real cosmonaut and a leading candidate to be the first Russian to land on the moon. He performed the world's first spacewalk in 1965, and 10 years later, led the Soviet-side of the first joint mission with the United States, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). Leonov died in 2019, a month before the premiere of "For All Mankind."

Setting that aside, what about the portrayal of his wife? Was Svetlana Leonova (Jenny Walser) really kept in the dark about her husband's flight? Well, since there was no real-life Soviet moon landing, it is solely a part of the alternate history. But is it based on any part of reality? What about when Leonov made his spacewalk on Voskhod 2?

As the cosmonaut wrote in "Two Sides of the Moon," his 2004 joint-autobiography with NASA astronaut David Scott, it is true that he was not allowed to share the details of his mission, even with his family, before he launched. Unlike in the U.S., where NASA operated its missions in the open, the USSR only made public its early spaceflight missions after they were declared a success.

To that end, Leonov's daughter, Vika, cried as a result of misinterpreting what she and her mother saw on state television from their home in Star City.

"'What is he doing? What is he doing?' she wailed. 'Please tell Daddy to get back inside,'" Leonov wrote of Vika's reaction, thinking that his spacewalk was a sign of trouble and not the point of his mission.

The "Star City" scene, as such, is not entirely fabricated (given it is an alternate history construct) but borrows from real life events. It is an approach that series' creators Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi return to often.

"It was similar to what we did at times in 'For All Mankind,' but one of the differences is that so much about the American program was known, and so little is known about the Soviet program," Wolpert, who with Nedivi are the series' showrunners, said in an interview with collectSPACE. "So we really wanted to sprinkle in based-on-true-story events."

Wolpert pointed to another example from the second episode of "Star City," when a mission invented for the show lands off course and the crew has to survive harsh winter conditions and wild animal encounters while waiting to be recovered. That too was borrowed from the real life Leonov's Voskhod 2 mission, which took three days to be rescued.

"Things like that are so distinctive and unique in the story of the Soviet space program and bring a sense of authenticity," said Wolpert, "but also a sense of the daring and seat of your pants space program that the Soviet program was."

Keeping to canon

In addition to navigating the real Soviet space history that the public may or may not know, there is also the matter of "Star City" existing within the expanded "For All Mankind" universe. For example, a main character in the new series is the Chief Designer, a real-life figure whose identify was kept secret for fear that he might be assassinated.

In "Star City," the Chief Designer is portrayed by Rhys Ifans. In "For All Mankind," it was Endre Hules, or so fans of the show thought.

"That character in 'For All Mankind' wasn't actually playing the Chief Designer role," said Nedivi. "We alluded to it, but I won't go into the details, because I let fans interpret what they will, but I think for us, it is important. The fans of 'For All Mankind' really pay attention to details, and I think one of the things they appreciate about the show is our attempts to make things feel as authentic and real as possible, and that was exactly how we approached 'Star City' as well."

"So we wanted to keep the connective tissue there, but it's a different show with different actors done in s different language, so obviously there are going to be some changes," he said.

That includes Sergei Nikulov and Irina Morozova, two characters that audiences first met as their older selves in "For All Mankind." In "Star City," the engineer and surveillance officer are far removed from the Roscosmos space agency director they both will become.

"She is in such a different psychological space than where we we meet Irina," actress Agnes O'Casey, who plays Morozova in "Star City" told collectSPACE. "She is so low ranking, she is so junior. She is learning about how power is enforced in the KGB afresh. She is shuffling about [and] terrified all the time."

One other crossover "character" between the two series is the namesake of "Star City" itself. In both "For All Mankind" and the new show, the town and surrounding areas of Vilnius, Lithuania, as well as select locations in Sofia, Bulgaria, stand in for the real Soviet (and now Russian) home to the Cosmonaut Training Center.

"We honestly got as close as we legally could to being in the [former] Soviet Union," said Nedivi. "We're fascinated by Star City. We did as much research as possible to make sure we could capture the look of it. If you see the buildings and the layout and those incredible shots overlooking Star City in the woods."

"But I think being in Lithuania, did give the show a bit of that feeling. A lot of the crew had parents, grandparents or even they had memories of living during this time. So it wasn't just about the space program for us, it was about capturing the people and the time and the period," he said." I think that's really what sinks you into this world more than anything else."