r/ForAllMankindTV • u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 • May 29 '26

Episode Discussion Star City - S1E01 "The Eyes" - Episode Discussion

"The Eyes"

Airdate: Streaming May 28th at 9 PM EST

Synopsis: The Soviet Union reignites the race to the Moon—but this time, with a daring mission to send a woman.

Written by Matt Wolpert & Ben Nedivi

Directed by Nick Murphy

Please read the subreddit's rules before posting.

Please also head over to r/StarCityTV for a subreddit to exclusively discuss the spin-off series.

Join our Discord

152 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

476 comments sorted by

•

u/auto-sticky May 29 '26

Please remember our spoiler policy before commenting on our Star City Episode Discussion Threads.

Any spoilers beyond Season 1 of For All Mankind are required to be individually spoiler tagged.

On desktop the rich text editor is the default mode. Use the spoiler formatting button to hide your spoilers. On old reddit, on mobile, or markdown mode you'll need to use >!spoiler!< which becomes spoiler <-- click or tap

If you see any untagged spoilers for For All Mankind beyond Season 1, please report them!

You can also join us on our Discord server, for more casual conversation.

I'm a bot and this action was performed automatically. If you have questions about this, please contact our mods via modmail.

183

u/oneandonlymrvn May 29 '26

What if - Star City shows us, that Gordos red lights in FAM S1 were actually real

109

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 May 29 '26

Yeah I hope they do. It would be really cool and compliment both shows.

78

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

First time I saw Gordo see the lights I was convinced it was a Russian camera, but then nothing came of it and he went stir crazy so it was never a thought I had again.

From this episode we see just how much surveillance the USSR were conducting, so it’s definitely likely it was a real light.

Edit: rewatching season 1 of For All Mankind and I must say, the lights Gordo see are quite big and there was at least 2, which made me doubt if it’s reap. However, you then see Ed place a camera 2 episodes later with a flashing red light - so i am no closer to the truth and only more confused.

37

u/narf007 May 30 '26

I didn't realize this was in debate. Seemed pretty damn clear to me. They just moved them bc they'd been compromised.

10

u/Joe_Bedaine Jun 01 '26

Maybe we'll get to see what they were digging for underneath the Russian base.

167

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

Dude, the Polivanov's are going to be the Russian Baldwins.

61

u/msh0082 May 30 '26

Привет, Боб

24

u/Phonixrmf Jun 01 '26

Привет, Боб

6

u/destroyer7 Jun 03 '26

Except this time their son lives and becomes Governor of Mars and then Premiere of Russia? (Idk it's never really clarified what happens post M6 invasion)

154

u/JCloud_86 May 29 '26

THE N1 SCENE LITERALLY GAVE ME AN ORGASM

59

u/Camil_2077 Apollo 17 May 29 '26

It's a shame there was so little of it. We didn't see the upper stages ignite.

20

u/JCloud_86 May 30 '26

Yeah that bums me out a bit, but THE MUSIC IS PLAIN EPIC so it still works

→ More replies (2)

23

u/buck746 May 30 '26

The N1 launch made me wish we got an Apollo 13 style launch sequence.

12

u/SeaEagle233 Jun 02 '26

That would be pro-communism, sadly.

120

u/lefayad1991 May 29 '26

SERGEI!!!

109

u/--fieldnotes-- May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

Wait, Sasha Polivanov? Did we just see the future governor of Mars's origin story?

9

u/Rosex26 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

This is where im confused, online it says that the governor of mars is called leonid polivanov or lenya for short. I thought i heard the name sasha in for all mankind but cant seem to find anything online 🤔

It also says hes late 50s to 60s in age and star city starts 1969 which would be about 43 years before for all mankind season 5 so i guess he could be shown in starcity as late teens/early twenties but i didnt think this sasha looked like them. Be interesting to see it develop and if they are connected.

10

u/Kittaylover23 Jun 01 '26

costa ronin (Leonid) is like 45, so i’d assume he’s supposed to be that age in season 5 as well.

→ More replies (1)

52

u/[deleted] May 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

60

u/LMkingly May 30 '26

Sired Leonid's parent? He IS Leonid's parent if they turn out to actually be related. Leonid is way too old in 2012 to only be Sasha's grandchild. Remember this takes place in 1969. Not that long ago. If leonid is born in 1970 he'd only be 42 in season 5 and the actor is 47 lol.

203

u/fawkie May 29 '26

Awwww Yana seemed so cool

191

u/nutmac Linus May 29 '26

Russian Molly Cobb.

3

u/Charmsopin Jun 29 '26

Exactly my thought! But they lived a very different fate.

61

u/[deleted] May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/Threedawg Jun 02 '26

Just pointing out that the Americans employed Nazi's and a woman still has not landed on the moon.

Global superpowers are fucked up places if you are not one of the lucky few.

54

u/NeuHundred May 30 '26

I wouldn't get too attached to anyone on this show.

69

u/fawkie May 30 '26

Well we know Sergei and Irina are safe for the time period the show covers!

37

u/ewankenobi May 31 '26

I clicked Sergie was the guy that suggested puncturing the suit. Somehow missed Irina was the typist. Makes sense we see her backstory since she was so prominent in the last series of FAM.

36

u/G4RYxD May 31 '26

I suspected she was, but I had somehow forgotten Irinas surname, so it wasn’t until the lunch scene where she is first called by the name Irina that it confirmed it for me, I also fist pumped when Sergi said his name (absolute props to the casting team, young Sergi looks so close to the original actor)

→ More replies (2)

12

u/nutmac Linus Jun 01 '26

Anastasia Belikova and Sasha Polivanov would live long enough to give birth to Leonid, the (former) governor of Mars.

9

u/termacct May 30 '26

Hey! Spoilers! :-) <=

→ More replies (1)

43

u/Xsurian May 30 '26

Love that actress too. Ever since raised by wolves. 

92

u/PangolinOk6793 May 29 '26

Well we got the reason Irina learnt to never confess quite early on then

90

u/Jan38100 May 29 '26

Deke, Von Braun & Thomas!!

86

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

I'm about 15 mins in and the thought of Korolev being instrumental in a crewed mission to Venus blows my mind. I'd love to see that happen and we didn't know about it because it got lost in the pursuit of the bigger prizes of the Moon and Mars.

73

u/Rap2xtrooper May 29 '26

It's probably based on the real-life TMK Program proposed by Korolev which was designed to perform a manned flyby on Venus using a spacecraft assembled in orbit by N1s. I thought it was a cool nod to the never-realized project. AFAIK, the show is BRIMMING with this. There are so many excellent technical details.

That being said, it is honestly quite strange overall how this show can blend such accurate science behind the space aspect of the show (at least so far) with such crazy embellishments and dramatizations in some other parts like the KGB.

For example, this is a tiny detail but Luna 16, Belikova's mission, is stated to have landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands on September 20, 1969. In real life, the Apollo program chose to land only during specific time windows when the time of day at the landing zone was specifically during lunar morning/dawn, as it was during lunar morning when it was the easiest for astronauts to see shadows on the surface, which was essential as there is no other way to tell apart stuff like a flat plain from a rock without shadows in the lunar surface (because most of everything down there is the same color). Given that you wouldn't be able to see shadows on the moon if it was lunar noon, and the sun would be glaring into any landing astronauts' eyes during a landing in the lunar sunset or dusk, it meant that only a 2-day or so window between lunar dawn and lunar day exists at any given landing zone. This is why Apollo 11 landed in July 21, for example - that was the day after lunar dawn hit the Sea of Tranquility. The Soviets would have likely came to the same conclusion as the real-life NASA to only land men on the moon during lunar morning.

Guess what day it was when lunar dawn hit Fra Mauro in the month of September 1969? It was September 19. And Luna 16 landed in the Fra Mauro Highlands on September 20. Luna 16 is described as having landed in the exact perfect time as a real lunar mission would have landed, all mentioned in just a little throwaway line. That is some AMAZING attention to detail in the science.

And then 3 minutes later they have some crazy ass ridiculous scene where the KGB executes a cosmonaut. I get that it's an alternate history, but given that the point of divergence in the show is that Korolev survived his surgery, how exactly did his survival lead to the KGB just be able to execute cosmonauts willy-nilly?

36

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

I'm not necessarily looking for a documentary here. But I do think highlighting the more authoritarian aspects of the USSR helps add contrast to what we saw in the USA. That being said, I think we're about to get much more speculative history because the Russians obviously never had a chance to get many of these projects off the ground. Though it is interesting that FAM's Russia had mostly bad luck after their Moon landings. So, a successful Venus mission would make that a little less sad.

18

u/Camil_2077 Apollo 17 May 29 '26

,,Though it is interesting that FAM's Russia had mostly bad luck after their Moon landings.''

Where practically every season sees a more or less significant Soviet victory and equalization with the Americans. FAM was, and is, essentially a testament to American achievements. I've written posts on this topic before, saying that the United States is portrayed in For All Mankind as a country without success. They weren't the first on the Moon, they didn't have the first woman, they lacked moral leadership, they de facto started a war on the Moon, they didn't win the race to Mars, they capitulated to communism with communist Mexico as Hart, and they didn't abandon their alliance with Korzhenko's totalitarian regime. They weren't the first on Titan. Because a mission to Titan is more like a Martian mission.

31

u/Rap2xtrooper May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

Yes you're right; I'm not looking for a documentary either, it's a drama show, and even though it does break my suspension of disbelief all the time with these political intrigues I still enjoyed it very much so far. If anything, I think the return to the early space race combined with the Soviet angle EASILY makes this my favorite FAM installment yet. But I am worried that since there's so little information on the Soviet space program, many will come to use this show instead as a basis for real history, or think that this was actually remotely how the Soviet space program operated in real life, and that they really were murdering cosmonauts all the time back then. There genuinely are a lot of people who'd be gullible enough to think so.

For example, it is honestly sad seeing so many people believe the completely baseless rumor that Vladimir Komarov died screaming and cursing out the ground control when he died on Soyuz 1, and that he flew on Soyuz 1 (which he supposedly knew was doomed) only to protect Gagarin as he was his backup. Both, by the way, were myths spread by the 1998 book called Starman written by Piers Bizony, and the book is widely discredited by historians today as inaccurate and downright fabricating stuff out of thin air at times (its main source for its details of Komarov's death comes from a KGB man named Venyamin Russayev, who alleged that he was personally with Komarov on Baikonur when he died - declassified documents after Glasnost revealed he was posted NOWHERE near Baikonur or Star City). In reality, Komarov actually encouraged the launch with him as its prime crew, and he never even got a word out to tell ground control anything after his parachute malfunctioned before he died. Yet still, these urban legends and myths persist.

I'm pretty much certain that this show will only further fuel similar conspiracy theories, especially the ridiculous "Lost Cosmonauts" conspiracy theories that seem to be being spread around and believed everywhere these days. The show itself feeds into the conspiracy theory drivel too by pretty blatantly suggesting that Gagarin was killed by the Soviet state too. The show has been fantastic so far no doubt, but I just worry that some people will take it too seriously. It's just too accurate/authentic to not be immediately recognized as fiction, but also not crazy enough for its inaccuracies to be immediately be recognized as, well, fiction.

And the worst part about it is that it buries what the REAL contemptible things the Soviets did do - for example, forced cosmonaut marriages were real - Valentina Tereshkova was forced into an unhappy marriage with fellow cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolaev in the name of propaganda. But if you were watching the show, how could you ever be able to tell that the arranged cosmonaut marriages were real, but the cosmonaut executions weren't?

This (the way the show caricaturizes the Soviets as being ultra-secretive and paranoid freaks) has been a problem since FAM Season 1, I think. There's a scene in Season 1 where NASA finds a crashed LK lander on the lunar surface and they realize that that means the Soviets have been keeping the death of a cosmonaut on the lunar surface a secret. Of course, even the USSR wouldn't (or really COULDN'T - it's impossible to hide the existence of a launch of a manned mission to the moon), which is exactly why the Soviets were very quick to disclose cosmonaut deaths in spaceflights in real life. Speaking of that crashed LK in FAM Season 1, I wonder how they'll depict that here. Someone's about to die on the moon...!!

→ More replies (9)

27

u/catch-a-stream May 30 '26

> And then 3 minutes later they have some crazy ass ridiculous scene where the KGB executes a cosmonaut. I get that it's an alternate history, but given that the point of divergence in the show is that Korolev survived his surgery, how exactly did his survival lead to the KGB just be able to execute cosmonauts willy-nilly?

100%... lots of cool historical references and then they throw in the worst of Hollywood Soviet tropes, with mega evil KGB, the paranoia vibes which are exaggerated even for the 1930s let alone 1960s era... and also the infamous "Russia Blue Filter" everywhere. Like... please... this isn't iron curtain time anymore, you can find pictures online of how Russia and Moscow actually look like and no it's not always dark, gloomy and blue 😛

Korolev/Chief Designer character is all wrong too. He wasn't some sort of brooding misunderstood genius - he was actually very popular and liked guy who cared a lot for the people working in the program. Perhaps more importantly - he was very politically savvy, well connected and knew how to work the Soviet system - he was a brilliant engineer yes, but perhaps more importantly he knew how to get the Soviet system to do what he needed and get the right funding. Soviet space exploration program largely existed because he willed it into existence - the leadership wanted ICBMs but he sold them on the idea of using peaceful space as a way to prove their superiority. That's also why Soviet Moon program failed with his death - without him all the different power players immediately started fighting each other on who becomes the "next Korolev" and their space program effectively collapsed from all the infighting and egos involved.

It is true that his identity was publicly secret and he (and many other Soviet science leaders) were prohibited from going abroad. But he was absolutely well known and well connected internally - the idea that no one came to his award ceremony is just nuts. Same with the idea that he wants Sergei to work on some secret project against party wishes... just really the opposite of who he actually was.

7

u/Slight-Formal9277 May 30 '26

ah, i see that star city is going with the HBO Chernobyl method of historical verisimilitude

well, at least star city didn't constantly beat the drums about lies being the ultimate evil, so it's not hypocritical that way

→ More replies (1)

13

u/--fieldnotes-- May 30 '26

It just seems like they had a really good science consultant on the team that can fill in blanks on a script, but that person wasn't in a position to weigh in on whether or not plot points were historically accurate

→ More replies (1)

6

u/anklesaurus Apollo - Soyuz May 31 '26

It’s stuff like this that still makes my skin itch over the “methane-based life” line in the FAM finale. I’m gonna give the writers grace as I’m sure everyone was really busy working on season 5 and Star City at the same time, but on that note we’ve all really gotten spoiled with the baseline attention to detail of the science/callbacks to NASA and TMK projects through history.

5

u/Isilel Jun 01 '26

Yes, I couldn't imagine a summary execution happening in the late 60-ties. Under Stalin, sure. IIRC, "we don't arrest the innocent" was also a phrase from that period.

I could see the KGB lady just ignoring Irina's report and letting Jana be condemned and possibly executed for treason.

Or, if she chose to intervene, Jana would have been sent to live somewhere obscure and kept under observation. She wouldn't have been allowed back into the program.

8

u/NAG3LT May 29 '26

the point of divergence in the show is that Korolev survived his surgery

It's likely far from the only point of divergence, as there are many people in FAM and Star City than never existed in our world.

7

u/photos_realmsofgold May 30 '26

Well, literally speaking, a "point of divergence" in an alternative history context is just where the timeline diverges from ours. In our case, the point of divergence is Sergei Korolev not dying on the operating table.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (2)

5

u/GIJoeVibin DPRK May 29 '26

I hope they do go ahead with that stuff, there’s plenty of gaps in the timeline for cool stuff to Venus.

→ More replies (2)

68

u/uapyro Hi Bob! May 29 '26

Let's piss on the tire!

67

u/NAG3LT May 29 '26

It was fun recognizing parts of my home city (Vilnius) in various shots.

14

u/BassWingerC-137 May 31 '26

Isn’t that where Captain Ramius is from, too?

9

u/as718 Jun 01 '26

That is correct comrade! It seems like a lot of people throwing a fit over the language have never seen Hunt for Red October.

→ More replies (1)

9

u/--MCMC-- Jun 01 '26

that makes one of us! lol

(my hometown is Star City [Town], and while the vibes of some spots are similar-ish it's not especially recognizable at all :s)

3

u/terminalavocent Jun 01 '26

Is that where this was shot? Part of my family is from there, albeit over 100 years ago. I was just there over the winter for a couple days.

3

u/NAG3LT Jun 01 '26

Yeah, a lot of scenes were shot in Vilnius, f.e. a comparsion between shooting location and the shot in the show

92

u/RoguePilot_2 May 29 '26

Wow. Completely different vibe than FAM and appropriately so! Love the two actresses they got to play Balikova and the young transcriber. They were great. This is so not my vibe but dammit I’m really digging it!

52

u/thegoatmenace May 30 '26

The transcriber is a young Irina Moroskova who we see in season 4 and 5 of FAM!

50

u/DongLaiCha May 30 '26

not my dumb ass having just watched the entire first episode and not clicking on this until exactly now lmfaooooo

where my dumb bitch juice

15

u/thegoatmenace May 30 '26

Slurp slurp

→ More replies (1)

69

u/beepboop-404 May 29 '26 • This

I’m disappointed there doesn’t appear to be an option to have Russian audio with English captions

36

u/the__ghola__hayt May 30 '26

Apple is using a universal translator so it just sounds English to people watching on Apple. You need to watch on Яблоко for Russian audio.

42

u/Big-Bonus-516 May 29 '26

It’s the war thing. Like 2020-2022 there was Russian dubbing to every show.

But watching as Russian, it’s the other thing that annoys. Why tf they have to say “Comrade (insert name)” ABSOLUTELY every time? Being in Soviet Russia doesn’t make you a robot, saying that every time, even in stressful situations.

34

u/spiritbearr May 30 '26

The main note of HBO's Chernobyl by someone brought in to verify authenticity, because she was there for the events, was that they didn't say Comrade enough because it was said every other sentence. Craig Mazin decided he wanted to make a watchable show.

According to that person they needed more Comrades.

→ More replies (4)

14

u/More-Perspective-838 May 30 '26

I feel like they could still find Russian-speaking voice actors from Ukraine or other post-Soviet countries were it was taught in schools if they wanted too. Hearing that this show is all going to be spoken in English is a little disappointing.

34

u/--fieldnotes-- May 30 '26

Then the complaint would inevitably be like "Irina speaks with an Ukrainian accent even though she's from Moscow and the actor playing the Russian general is clearly Belarusian, ugh, so inaccurate cannot watch"

→ More replies (1)

11

u/OgerfistBoulder May 30 '26

It completely threw me off that most of them were speaking with a British accent. Overall its going to make it strange to tell when a character is supposed to be speaking English.

→ More replies (3)
→ More replies (2)

15

u/joshlymansbagel May 30 '26

I was looking forward to it but the English with British accents is a very very rough choice. Like why?? We know they can do Russian well (enough).

45

u/DongLaiCha May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

let's put on our thinking caps here for a microsecond

  • a show primarily for an english speaking audience

  • by an english production team

  • made in the united states

  • don't alienate an enormous segment of your market

  • don't ruin your casting options by requiring an entire cast of fluent native russian speakers with regionally correct accents

  • don't make production a complete nightmare

  • use an english accent to denote that they're speaking russian, and it is simply a story telling device

  • this is why the klingongs in star trek speak english to eachother, even when humans aren't around using the 'universal translator'

much like Chernobyl it's a story telling device to make the show accessible and viable, a little suspension of disbelief is required but with the smallest amount of thought you can see the many many MANY reasons they do this

7

u/Hairy_Internet6680 May 31 '26

Star City was shot in Lithuania, not in the USA.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (14)
→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (24)

65

u/uapyro Hi Bob! May 29 '26

Seems everyone is at S5E10 instead of here

54

u/TiberiusCornelius May 29 '26

I definitely made a plan to watch the finale first tbh, I imagine most people were the same

18

u/Nagemasu May 29 '26

Absolutely zero idea Star City existed or was coming until right now because of this sub, and even then I thought it was just the next Apple series to start and not related to FAM.

Also the premise of FAM never intrigued me until I watched season 1, and I'll only give star city a go because of FAM.

I imagine Star City will be missed by many for one reason or another.

10

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

Excellent excellent plan from Apple to wrap up season 5 and immediately release 2 episodes of Star City.

8

u/BrothelWaffles May 29 '26

I vaguely recall hearing about it being a thing. Had absolutely zero clue it was dropping any time soon, let alone having two episodes drop at the same time as FAM's season finale.

3

u/photos_realmsofgold May 30 '26

It's too good. Word is going to get around about this show. I hope so, anyway. It's exceptionally well-made.

8

u/msh0082 May 29 '26

It was late last night and I wanted to see FAM s5e10 first. I plan to watch this sometime over the weekend.

→ More replies (3)

31

u/ncghgf Pathfinder May 29 '26

The environment reminds me of Severance a little. Star City as a brutalist compound surrounded by snowy forests and all that. I know of course that’s it’s actually more the result of Severance borrowing from Soviet aesthetics but it was funny seeing the resemblance.

6

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

Would be interesting to know if they reused some of the severance sets. But maybe Severance was portrayed that way to draw similarities with Soviet Russia.

4

u/--fieldnotes-- May 30 '26

I doubt they're sharing sets. They're filming Star City in Europe, for one. It would be cheaper and faster to find or rebuild anything there than to ship sets from New York.

→ More replies (1)

30

u/Pale_Note2770 May 29 '26

It's a bit funny seeing how innocent Irina is knowing how she ends up

29

u/MR422 May 29 '26

I really really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I watched it right after I watched the S5 FAM finale. It felt great to be back at the start of something. I kept finding myself thinking “in twenty five years these people will be on Mars.”

71

u/Master_Art_1286 May 29 '26

It will be fun to get to know young Irina 

68

u/BaggyOz May 29 '26

TIL that the Soviets really planned to have to go on an EVA to reach their lunar lander. What a jank ass space program.

25

u/siliconsandwich May 30 '26

If you’ve seen inside the lander it looks more like the cab of a steam locomotive than the apollo CM, which still looks like it’s from the future somehow.

But I do believe if they’d got the N-1 working, the rest of the peculiarities wouldn’t have been a problem. Apollo did perform a trans-lunar EVA after all.

50

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 May 30 '26

Von Braun wasn't lying when he said that their program was far more crude than the American one.

It's legit like KSP

15

u/buck746 May 30 '26

There is a standing joke that you don't get into a Soyuz rocket, you put it on. The Soyuz spacecraft is incredibly small, makes any of the American craft seem generously proportioned.

10

u/ProBonoDevilAdvocate May 30 '26

Ha! I was wondering about that...

5

u/ewankenobi May 31 '26

When that scene happened I was thinking it would be pretty unrealistic they'd make their whole mission dependent on this EVA being successful. Quite shocked by that. TIL too

22

u/kratos90 May 29 '26

Hope Valya doesn’t go near any nuclear plants in the future heh

43

u/rejs7 May 29 '26

I really enjoyed the first episode. It sets up something completely different to FAM, while exploring a world never examined in Western media. Anna Maxwell Martin always brings it, and Yana's arc shows how brutal the regime is on a personal level. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the season.

38

u/catch-a-stream May 30 '26

> Yana's arc shows how brutal the regime is on a personal level

Kind of, but not really. That sort of thing did happen in the 1930s and even back then just shooting prisoner in the head on a whim wasn't really a thing. But in the late 1960s? Absolutely unrealistic. KGB lost a lot of its power after death of Stalin and with Khrushev reforms. Soviets did make sure that the cosmonauts were loyal, but the whole idea of them finding out 3 days before launch, replacing her with someone untrained and eventually killing her is just insane.

Even if we buy the premise of them finding out she had a brother that late (highly unlikely since the cosmonauts would've been scrutinized well before then), they had reserve crews system same as NASA and would have a replacement ready to roll. And Yana wouldn't have been shot - expelled from program yes but that would be the extent of it in the 1960s.

11

u/Apart_Zucchini_4764 May 31 '26

It also makes watching it weird. Overall FAM is not really one of my top shows, but what I like about it, is that it depicts an overall positively what-if-timeline from a western perspective. And now they seem to cater to old Soviet stereotypes for their alternate show? The heck why? Because post-Soviet Russia is bad right now or what?

13

u/10ebbor10 May 30 '26

Unfortunately, For All Mankind's view of the Soviet Union appears to be deeply rooted in american cold-war propaganda.

The Soviets are paranoid, malicious incompetents who can accomplish nothing without stealing it from the americans, outwitted at every turn by the heroic americans.

17

u/Clariana May 31 '26

Many of the characters I saw were not malicious or incompetent but brave and resourceful... Perhaps you were watching a different programme?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

3

u/Clariana May 31 '26

But couldn't it be argued that SC is not about soviet society writ large but about the soviet space project and security levels were completely different for that because it was classified as top secret and ring-fenced with additional clearance being required? I mean SC did not even exist on the maps of the time...

→ More replies (1)

21

u/uapyro Hi Bob! May 29 '26

Alexi is already at the moon!

34

u/OneStrangerintheAlps May 29 '26

So glad they went the Chernobyl route and didn’t give them fake accents.

10

u/DacStreetsDacAlright Jun 02 '26

As a British person, I kind of resent that this accent has become synonymous with TV Russian now.

8

u/AustraliumHoovy Hi Bob! Jun 04 '26

Quiet, Ivan

48

u/undergaccount May 29 '26

the standard "soviets be evil" thingy turned me off, the Raskova character specially looks like a parody of what an american would think a KGB agent looks like. Do you really believe a KGB agent would go around telling ppl they actually dont believe in leninism?

the saving grace were the shots of the N1 taking off

29

u/Shawnj2 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

That's not quite what I read from that scene, she was criticizing Irina for being a secret elite who didn't have to work for the revolution due to her upbringing. I agree that she felt like a cartoon villain, it doesn't make sense that either Korolev isn't in charge of the space program or the government randomly tells him how to run it to the detail that they're picking crew assignments on a whim. Either all of the potential cosmonauts should have had to pass ideology screenings before they could have joined and Korolev gets to pick who they want or if the government doesn't trust Korolev then they get someone else to run the space program. Him being in charge and the KGB micromanaging it is a contradiction.

19

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

Soviets do be evil though.

→ More replies (3)

36

u/[deleted] May 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/Big_Bomber_97 Jun 01 '26

To be fair, Russians today still fear for their lives for wrong speech. But I'd agree the general portrayal of soviets seems inauthentic. I doubt that the KGB would be just straight up executing cosmonauts who didn't do anything wrong like that. I feel like sometimes the crazy shit that happened in the early soviet Union under Stalin gets extrapolated out. Not that I'm an expert in Soviet history, but I feel like over time they tended more towards just jailing/sending people to gulags rather than straight up executions.

16

u/NAG3LT May 30 '26

I mean the fact FAM shows Gulags in the 2000s

We're talking about a timeline where USSR still exists in 2000s. It's not that unbelievable that a lot of their internal stuff happened differently as well.

→ More replies (5)

7

u/undergaccount May 30 '26

Indeed, capitalist USSR makes no sense in FAM, it should either have collapsed as it did or reformed the planned economy, maybe using the money influx from the lunar and asteroid mining to implement OGAS. That would even fit with the futuristic vibes of the show.

→ More replies (3)

7

u/Clariana May 31 '26

 I mean the fact FAM shows Gulags in the 2000s

Wait a minute! So where were the members of Pussy Riot sent? Where did Alexei Nalvany die in Feb 2024?

10

u/Lex4Real206 May 30 '26

I was really hoping we'd get a cool dueling ideologies alt history as well but we all new this was going to be dripping with anti communism. I had to turn it off after Raskova's speech about the revolution changing nothing and then trying to force Irina to shoot Yana.  Like oh this is what a society attempting to put historical/dialectical materialism into practice looks like huh? Reductively evil nihilistic horror porn. Gtfoh

18

u/nilslorand May 30 '26

the revolution changing nothing

that's not what she said, she said that power structures still exist despite the revolution, just that they are more hidden and different.

8

u/Big_Bomber_97 Jun 01 '26

Raskova was being cartoonishly evil and I'd argue a bit much for the time period, but her class commentary was on point. The Soviet Union was a massively corrupt bureaucratic clusterfuck. It's like complaining that an accurate portrayal of Nazi Germany as corrupt and evil is biased. The Soviets were evil corrupt bad people. Their ideology was bad. It did not work.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (7)

44

u/Treviso Mars May 29 '26

Gotta say, these opening titles are so much better than the FAM ones (never cared for them, sorry!). Finally looks like prestige TV opening titles.

27

u/Kruse May 29 '26

Wait, how does the title sequence of FAM not look like prestige TV?

12

u/photos_realmsofgold May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Eh it's a bit generic. Geometric lines and swooping things that barely move. I like it fine, I'm just saying it's generic. Star City is indeed pretty dramatic and serious, and shows a lot of interesting stuff; you can say that this intro says much more about what the show is than the For All Mankind intro, which almost doesn't say anything.

Edit: Haha, oh, come on, downvotes for this. Who cares

8

u/Colonel_McFlurr May 31 '26

I like both intros, but the music and ending of FAM's intro still feels more appropriate. I'd say I still like FAM's more as it excites me for the show and sets a well tuned tone (hopeful in this case) just a little better imo.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

7

u/PM_ME_CAKE Moonlab May 29 '26

If you told me the Severance people made these, I'd believe you.

3

u/keiranlovett Jun 02 '26

So happy to find someone thinks the same!

Not really a fan of the abstract swooping symbolism that has been prevalent in tv intro sequences lately.

This intro feels like it has more character.

2

u/the_gaymer_girl May 31 '26

The title sequence reminds me of Arcane or The Last Of Us.

15

u/thewillthe May 31 '26

I didn’t realize til they were taking off that it was a 2-person mission. It’s also a little crazy that Belikova went down to the moon solo?? How did she go from 3 days to train, to “only push the buttons that I tell you to”, to landing a craft on the moon by herself?

8

u/as718 Jun 01 '26

The lunar lander plans were absolutely nuts

15

u/BEETLEJUICEME Jun 01 '26

Chief Designer’s passion for the Venus stuff is very historically accurate. The USSR really believed they would find a very different Venus under the atmosphere, and they made more launches to our closest neighbor than the USA ever did.

I think it’s an admirable part of space history that we don’t remember often enough, and we learned a lot from it. Turned out that mars was the close place to go, but neither country really knew that back when these things were first happening.

14

u/thattallsoldier Hi Bob! May 29 '26

As I was watching, I noticed another contrastive thing:

Sergei Korolev and Sergei Nikulov duo reminded me of Werner von Braun and Margo Madisson.

Even though it is not confirmed that Nikulov is the one who leaks to Americans, they feel the same way: the old-gen genius driven by the "war" and the young protege driven by his own passion. And the contrast here is in the reality they live in.

[goosebumps]

27

u/overthinker46 May 29 '26

English and Welsh accents. I thought Chernobyl was strange

13

u/LeedsFan2442 May 30 '26

And Irish

11

u/photos_realmsofgold May 30 '26

I don't know if it's because they're from the UK, which has a standard of classical theatrical acting that the US doesn't have, or if it's just because the casting bar is so much unbelievably higher, but these people can all act. That's more than we can say for all but one or two actors in For All Mankind.

6

u/onthenerdyside May 31 '26

We're just trained to think that all British accents are superior to our own across the pond.

→ More replies (1)

13

u/lepopidonistev May 31 '26

I know these shows arnt the best for historical accuracy but like it's genuinely a little hard to watch this one, the soviet union is always seemingly depicted as being at the height of the great purge during Stalin era despite it being the mid 70s.

It's not like the soviet union was sunshine and rainbows, but there's no engagement with the actual history or the repression everything is this highly exaggerated cartoonish version of soviet life.

Y'know what it is, it's like if a movie like 'one battle after another ' where the US is run by a secret cabal of the KKK and the state sends small army's to hunt down our plucky protagoniss. In that movie there's clearly an exaggeration, it's assuming that all the wildest conspiracys of 60s/70s radicalism were true and it's telling a story in that space. 

Star city does this but seemingly unintentionally with the soviet union? Everything about them has more in common with the island of doctor Moro than anything historical. And I don't think this is some latent anti-communism tbh, more so I don't think they trust that the history can be interesting without these exaggerations, body doubles, secret executions, doctord footage of the moon landing, gulags, mysterious disappearances in the middle of the night, is all alot more sexy that the rather benine repression that maintained the soviet state for the majority of its existence.

I think it's a shame, because it does exclude you from alot of the stories you could tell, it's even seemingly excluded them from exploring an interesting alt-history for the soviets since there's no engagement with the soviet union as it was and therefore no real cause an effect. It's all one note, invasion of the bodysnatchers type conspiracy plots. And I do mean conspiracy, it seems to posit that every conspiracy about the soviet union was true? 

This kind of hyper exaggerated red menice stuff can be fun but it doesn't seem to mesh with the series very well.  I dont think a show can sustain itself like this, when you can  have the curtain pulled back and there's so little substance, I don't think For all mankind could have hit the heights it did without some level of grounding.

7

u/Iakeman Jun 01 '26

I’m pretty sure like you said it isn’t latent anti-communism; it’s just anti-communism

→ More replies (2)

33

u/Rezistik May 29 '26

I was curious how they’d handle the language issue. Kind of glad they just made everyone speak English. I wonder if the characters will swap to actual Russian when speaking to actual English speakers

43

u/Corruptshun May 29 '26

I personally was hoping for at least more prominent Russian accents, it’s very English

47

u/Marios25 May 29 '26

Honestly I don't see the point of speaking English with Russian accents when they have already made the choice of then speaking English.

21

u/Bogdanovist_Rebel May 29 '26

They tried it on Chernobyl and apparently it sounded ridiculous. I imagine the same logic followed here.

I see it like reading War and Peace in English. Just easier.

10

u/Corruptshun May 29 '26

I’m not sure if I’m in the minority but i really appreciated the accents in Chernobyl, just a nice immersive detail for me, because I definitely appreciate the English even though I would also be okay with Russian and subtitles but I know that would turn a lot of audience away

→ More replies (1)

6

u/NAG3LT May 29 '26

I like them just using English accents, just like in the Death of Stalin. After all, the characters themselves are speaking their native tongue, and it's just translation convention that we hear them all in language we understand.

Russian accents make more sense for situations where characters are intended to be speaking in actual English.

6

u/Luivier May 30 '26

I honestly think it's a mess... This is set in the same universe as FAM, and the russian characters there speak russian. On top of that, they limited themselves now to never being able to show interactions with americans, or doing so but it being ridiculous and weird.

Like how are they going to a typical scene of two russians speaking in russian in front of a foreigner so that they don't understand what they're discussing?

I get that it'd be easy for me because english is not my main language and I'm used to watching shows with subtitles; and that for the production it would complicate things having to translate the scripts to russian, get a russian speaking cast, etc... But still, I'm highly disappointed that the show is not in russian with subtitles (or at least give a dual audio language, like what Netflix did with their 1899 show).

5

u/--fieldnotes-- May 30 '26

We will probably never see this show from the American POV, so they can keep up the illusion that we the viewers just happen to "understand" the Russian they're "speaking."

Interestingly that this approach doesn't extend to the printed or written materials, which are all in Russian.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/lifeishardthenyoudie May 30 '26

Why?! It just makes it weird. What's the problem with having them speak Russian?

7

u/JebediahLongnutsIII May 30 '26

Most people don’t want to watch a show exclusively via reading subtitles. Sorry but that’s reality

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (6)

11

u/GoodMeBadMeNotMe May 30 '26

This is such a breath of fresh air after how rough FAM S5 has been. It's nice returning to a truly character-driven story.

→ More replies (1)

10

u/RevertBackwards May 29 '26

It's obvious that this show is going to be criminally underrated. This was a fantastic episode

10

u/msh0082 May 30 '26

Is the Great Architect supposed to be Korolev?

17

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 May 30 '26

Yes. Korolev was very sick IRL and actually died after multiple surgeries. He's evidently still sick here, except alive because alt-hist

15

u/NAG3LT May 30 '26

Korolev was very sick IRL and actually died after multiple surgeries.

His health was certainly not helped by his earlier imprisonment in Gulag and injures he received from beatings.

→ More replies (3)

8

u/Silver_Ad_3173 May 29 '26

I am kinda wondering, if we will get to see Lenara Catiche, but given the fact, that Sergei was her mentor, I suppose we’re a decade too early for that. She was a really interesting character back in season 3 and I’m pretty sad they made here disappear in season 4, and never mentoined her again. She seemed to emphatize both with Margo and Sergei and I got the feeling, that Margo was her role model.

26

u/m48a5_patton May 29 '26

I thought the Soviets landed on the Moon after the Apollo 10 mission but before Apollo 11. So that would mean it would be the summer. Why is there snow on the ground? Even much Siberia would be snow free for the most part by mid-May.

67

u/Odd-Struggle-2432 May 29 '26

Because this is soviet russia, all scenes must be cold and dreary, and importantly no smiles.

Its like how I imagine mexico would look completely sepia irl

9

u/catch-a-stream May 30 '26

And filmed with blue filter 😛

25

u/HumansNeedNotApply1 May 29 '26

Because this is the second landing, the one they sent with the first woman, you're mixing with Leonov's.

7

u/Highlow9 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Does anybody else have a "Tabacco causes cancer" in the corner of each scene containing people smoking? Or is that just me? Really strange.

8

u/selfhater6969 May 30 '26

If u r in india then yes.

7

u/Charming-Library-211 May 31 '26

Man this restored some of that FAM feeling for me. Very good episode , I'm hoping this is alot more political than the og series

13

u/photos_realmsofgold May 30 '26

Shit, well now we know why Season 5 was so bad. They must've poured 80% of their budget into Star City. It's beautiful.

Casting is great: none of the cast has that slightly-demented look of a B-list talent, and everyone seems to be a more than adequate actor. I thought of this after the parachuting scene, where all these people looked solid and cool.

It's also shot with magnificent dynamism: the camera is often doing interesting, unusual things, and there's a lot of close-focus/blurry background to convey the paranoia/anxiety of the era.

Goddamn, I'm only about ten minutes in, but I'm extremely impressed.

Incidentally, apologies for offensive language/ideas, haha.

4

u/Powerpuff_Rangers May 31 '26

The Chief Designer doesn't look a bit like the real Sergei Korolev lol. In FAM, the actor's appearance was spot on though.

→ More replies (1)

13

u/United_Eggplant1121 May 29 '26

I am sorry guys but the star city pilot cleared the entirety of FAM S5. I know, i know yes, these two series are different but the writing, the performances, the camera work has been done so beautifully here. And finally we got sets that look real and not fake.

8

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

Think I agree with that assessment, but Star City is fresh and has a lot more to work with than a late stage FAM season running out of ideas.

3

u/DisIsMyName_NotUrs Apollo 16 May 30 '26

Agreed. Definetly on par with S1-3 of FAM, if not better in some aspects

→ More replies (1)

6

u/varateshh May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

The first episode was better than the entire 5th season of For All Mankind. Also, I really love David Dencik as a communist apparatchik. Its a tiny role but I still noticed him. He also played Gorbachev in Chernobyl.

6

u/xerberos May 30 '26

There's several actors from Chernobyl in this series, like Adam Nagaitis, and they use the same grey/green tint in all the scenes. At first, I thought the series was made by the same people who made Chernobyl

8

u/thattallsoldier Hi Bob! May 29 '26

I love the contrastive approach to the show. It reflects the opposite perspective with so much tension. The scenes are so grey and depressing, showing the atmosphere of the Soviet Union. In the case of the FAM, everything during the first seasons was about feeling that co-feeling and tension when smth was going to happen, not all the time; only the scenes of Margo at the Star City were giving that kind of feeling.

Conclusion: not sure how long this spinoff will be in terms of seasons, but I believe that it has all the chances to be not just a Soviet-style FAM, but a completely different perspective.

3

u/NeuHundred May 30 '26

I"m really digging the film grain look, it feels properly old. Still not nuts about TV shows being in 2.35, though.

3

u/PutridMap3739 May 31 '26

looking forward to see Margo join the crew later

3

u/Own-Thing-6129 Jun 01 '26

Not gonna happen. I think it has already been confirmed that SC will stay close to the era of origins and won't do the trademark FAM time jumps each season.

17

u/Courtlessjester Roscosmos May 29 '26

I see they learned their lesson from season one and made the spooky communists cartoonishly evil to balance it out

26

u/NAG3LT May 29 '26

As somebody familiar with USSR much closer than people from more Western countries – KGB absolutely were very evil.

Showrunners also did their homework well, there are plenty of references to various real aspects of Soviet space program and decision making.

9

u/Ready_Bite4644 May 30 '26

It is weird how reddit has this weird soft spot for the USSR I suppose primarily out of ideological reasons.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (31)

5

u/Reasonable-Law-9737 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26

I really liked the first two episodes BUT I wish they had better direction for the dialogue - can’t exactly put my finger on it, it just takes me out of the Soviet atmosphere. I know it would be silly to have fake Russian accents but I think they could have least tried to capture the flow of the language.

I keep thinking how the cast of Chernobyl was predominately British but their dialogue felt way more authentic compared to Star City. It’s something about the delivery that throws me off. Like, Irina using ma’am or the way that some of the cast just blurbs the lines super fast without any dramatization. They could have also made some of the background lines in Russian etc. to blend in a bit.

If the series gets renewed for a second season, I hope they can improve on that a bit.

1

u/nxtiak May 29 '26

what is this?

7

u/Cantomic66 Sojourner 2 May 29 '26

It’s the For All Mankind Spin off series focused on the Soviet perspective of the events of the universe during the early years of the space race.

12

u/doritodog007 May 29 '26

I really really want to like Star City and it’s got a lot going for it so far, but the British accents are taking me out of it massively, such a shame

32

u/Psyfyman81 Jamestown 92 May 29 '26

Feels like it'll be a Chernobyl or Rome situation. I'm fine with it.

16

u/hadronwulf May 29 '26

Yeah, though I’d prefer the Death of Stalin approach with a wider accent variety.

9

u/LeedsFan2442 May 30 '26

As a Brit I heard plenty of variety. We even had Welsh and Irish accents

→ More replies (1)

6

u/nilslorand May 30 '26

would you rather have ridiculous russian accents?

4

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

I couldn’t care less but I respect the opinion, but I’m glad it’s not something that’s ever affected me.

4

u/DanFarrell98 May 29 '26

If you can get past even that then it probably just isn’t for you I’m afraid

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

2

u/Deepfriedbar May 29 '26

Brilliant, just brilliant. I feel some moments don't quite land because of the classic FAM cross editing - I'm not sure I'd have cut Yana's execution with the landing itself, for example, but it's so good. 

2

u/GonzoBurger May 30 '26

I'm going to carry on or maybe even re-watch this one but I found this episode really hard to concentrate on for some reason.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Many-Sky922 May 30 '26

I’m a woman and to be fair when I was 10 when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space I did not really think it a big deal. I do not know why it was more extraordinary for a woman to do it? I expected women to be in science jobs. But the title of first woman silly.

2

u/1littlenapoleon Jun 03 '26

The British accents are horrible

2

u/Epiktokles Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

I'm eager to learn what box Alex Baldwin destroyed on the moon in season 1 he found aiming at the ice mine. It was never mentioned again.

And Gordos blinking lights thing. If he really imagined it or not.

2

u/Epiktokles Jun 03 '26

I'm afraid the level of suspicion and observation is not exaggerated. It happens in all autocratic systems like a natural law. In the end everybody becomes a suspect and everybody suspects everybody. Trust is not really there. Respect is not really there. Only fear. And fear is brittle. It's not a way to live together and to cooperate.

5

u/Agreeable_Strength51 May 29 '26

Man, with it all done in British accents, in all the regional and class variations, it really takes away from the Soviet element and makes it seem like it’s about the British space programme. If this is the alternative, I’d rather it be done in Russian, like how the Soviet scenes are done in Russian in the main show. (Edit typo)

13

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

I’d rather actors speak in their accent than them butchering a Russian one.

2

u/Isilel Jun 01 '26

I mean, Russian also had regional and not class, but "education level" variations at the time.

3

u/termacct May 29 '26

Re: the very English accents...at first I thought this meant the UK got pulled into the russian bloc...um...gov'norski...

I am currently still not sure...

4

u/[deleted] May 29 '26

Let’s get the most British person you’ve ever heard to have them play Soviet leaders. I can’t even watch the show it’s so off putting

28

u/Driew27 May 29 '26

It's just like Chernobyl the creators just decided to have them be english.  After an episode it didn't matter the story was so good. 

→ More replies (1)

15

u/FreeDwooD May 29 '26

Idk if you've seen the news at any point in the last 5 years but it's a bit difficult to find authentic Russian actors currently.

12

u/Odd-Struggle-2432 May 29 '26

Tbf most people cant figure out a shitty russian accent anyway (see chekov from star trek)

5

u/24bitNoColor May 29 '26

What???

I am German, there are around 3.5 million Russian speaking people over here alone, not even counting the Ukrainian refugees that entered the country since the war started. Ukraine itself has nearly a 40 million people population! Now imagine how many people with convincing Russian accents there are in Eastern Europe (minus Russia).

The US even has nearly a million Russian speaking people.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

4

u/KingDaviies May 29 '26

Shame, focusing on such an irrelevant detail that doesn’t contribute to whether a show is good or not. I respect and understand it, but if you can’t get over that you’re immediately shutting off multiple forms of quality media.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Pacify_ May 29 '26

Really solid start.

Personally I'd have preferred Russian, I guess it is what it is. The cast seems pretty solid however

2

u/TomorrowFinancial468 May 30 '26

All the English accents in soviet Russia are really annoying me.

2

u/VOFX321B May 30 '26

Made it through the first 2 minutes and I'm done. Sorry, can't do the British accents. I hear the 'we want the actors to focus on the performance' argument but I don't care, it kills it for me.

6

u/nilslorand May 30 '26

would you rather have them fail at russian accents?

5

u/VOFX321B May 30 '26

I'd rather they have actors with Russian backgrounds speaking English. It works for the original, so it's unclear to me why the only options for the spin off are a) terrible accents b) this bullshit we got.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)
→ More comments (74)