Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” may be ending with season 6 (for a good reason), but the show’s universe is just getting started. The original series takes place in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union won the space race by reaching the Earth’s moon before the U.S. This creates a ripple effect wherein the two superpowers never cease competing in matters of science and technology, giving rise to a far better timeline where humanity reaches the cosmos.
This eventually leads to humanity colonizing Mars, with “For All Mankind” season 5 promising to take the show even deeper into anime territory in that respect. But “Star City” promises to take us back to the beginning and reveal a different side of the space race. Indeed, the upcoming spin-off series will retell the story of the Moon landing from the perspective of the Soviet Union. And rather than being a hopeful tale about the indomitable human spirit like its predecessor, it looks like a reverse version of “The Americans.”
That’s right: I mean the FX period spy TV drama starring Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as two KRB officers who pose as a married American couple in the 1980s, juggling their roles as parents to their U.S.-born children and their duties as Soviet agents.
The “Star City” trailer (see above) does, in fact, make the show feel more like a proper spy thriller exploring the dangers and costs of working under the Soviet regime than a story about the incredible achievement of reaching the moon. However, this also makes the spin-off come across as more than an excuse to revisit this particular universe. Most notably, it takes place in the 1960s and early ’70s, which means we’ll get to see how, exactly, reaching the moon first impacted the Soviet Union.
Star City looks more like The Americans than For All Mankind
As co-showrunner Matt Wolpert told io9, “Star City” is not going to follow the same format as “For All Mankind” — meaning, it won’t jump ahead in time from season to season. “It lives in the 1970s. Cold War, spy thriller behind the Iron Curtain. And it’s just that era,” Wolpert explained.
Indeed, as co-showrunner Ben Nedivi noted, “We’re done with the decade time jumps and the makeup and the prosthetics.” Instead, the goal was to make “Star City” feel like its own thing. “For us, this show is not only its own show; it’s its own genre. It’s a totally different look, feel,” Nedivi added.
This is a terrific idea, and it makes perfect sense. In the timeline of “For All Mankind,” tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union decrease significantly over the years, and the two become close allies collaborating on the Martian colony in seasons 4 and 5. This, in turn, means there would be little reason to have the timeline of “Star City” overlap with those seasons. In lieu of that, the goal is to keep the show contained and deliver an “Americans”-like spy series set entirely during the peak of the Cold War. As such, “Star City” should make for a much different viewing experience than “For All Mankind” and expand the franchise in an organic way.
On top of all that, it appears “Star City” will include few (if any) major characters from its parent series. Heck, that alone could make this show worth checking out, even if you’ve yet to watch a second of “For All Mankind.”
“For All Mankind” season 5 premieres March 27, 2026, on Apple TV. “Star City” will follow suit two months later on May 29.
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