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 Star City 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 space race from the point of view of the Soviets is the jumping-off point. But, unlike For All Mankind — the alternate timeline from which the show is spun — the premise is slightly more focused.
With that initial “What if?” the story of For All Mankind became a sprawling intergenerational epic about how various dominoes might have fallen to create an outer-space dynasty. 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?
