Anna Maxwell Martin powers Star City to Apple TV premiere on Friday 29 May
Star City lands on Apple TV on Friday 29 May, and Anna Maxwell Martin leads the eight-part prequel as Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova. The series moves the For All Mankind universe into the Soviet side of the space race, with a darker political-thriller frame set in the 1970s.
Lyudmilla Raskova leads
Anna Maxwell Martin plays Colonel Lyudmilla Raskova, the ruthless head of KGB intelligence, while Rhys Ifans appears as the shadowy Chief Designer behind the space programme. That pairing gives the series a clear power structure from the start: security on one side, engineering ambition on the other.
Agnes O'Casey appears as a younger version of KGB handler Irina Morozova, and Josef Davies takes over from Piotr Adamczyk as a younger Sergei Nikulov. Those cast moves matter because the show is not just extending a franchise; it is rebuilding its internal history with different generations in the same machinery of state and science.
1970s Soviet space programme
Set in a military town at the center of the space race programme, Star City explores what would have happened had the Soviet Union won the Space Race and never stopped venturing into the stars. The writers blend fact and fiction, using details such as the state arranging marriages for cosmonauts and missions landing off-course in Siberia’s wilderness.
The series also includes storyline material about Anastasia Belikova’s experience as the first woman on the moon. That gives the prequel a wider scope than a simple alternate-history rewrite: it places a personal milestone inside a system that treats spaceflight as state power, not just exploration.
For All Mankind on May 29
Star City arrives as For All Mankind season 5 reaches its finale on Friday 29 May, so the franchise is effectively handing viewers one ending and one new beginning on the same day. The series is described as worlds away from its parent show, and no prior knowledge of For All Mankind is needed to watch it.
Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert and Ronald D Moore return as creators, which should keep the prequel aligned with the franchise’s established approach even as it shifts tone and geography. For viewers, the practical takeaway is simple: Apple TV is using one date to introduce a new eight-part series and close out the current season of its core space-race story.
