New Apple TV sci-fi series Star City will be ‘totally different’ to For All Mankind season 5 despite having the same creative team — ‘we wouldn’t have made it if it was a companion piece’
May 29 should be a day of both sorrow and joy if you’re a fan of sci-fi series with an Apple TV subscription. The same day as For all humanity season 5 ends with emotion, new TV show Star City takes the reins.
But what do the two have in common? They both came from the same creative team. You might see space and rockets in the Star City trailer and I think we’re there For all humanity 2.0, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
With a stacked cast led by Rhys Ifans and Anna Maxwell Martin, Star City follows the space race behind the Iron Curtain, when the Soviet Union became the first nation to put a man on the Moon.
But isn’t that exactly where For all humanity begin ? Yes and no. According to creators Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, the two aren’t even close to being sister shows.
“It’s natural to compare them… we wanted something different”
Look on it
“Of course, it’s natural for you to compare them,” Nevidi told me. “But I think for us, we were so inspired creatively to create something different, that felt like its own show.
“I think we probably wouldn’t have done Star City if he was trying to be a companion to For all humanity. I think we really captured something about the feeling of paranoia and the spy thriller aspect of the story. I hope people like it, because we’re certainly very proud of it.”
Thriller is the defining word here. After watching the first five episodes of Star City (and I loved them), not only does the tone of the series seem much darker than For all humanitybut it doesn’t sound like pure science fiction either. It’s a cat-and-mouse game set during the Soviet Union’s space race, but the space content itself seems secondary.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still many similarities. Both have obvious time jumps, both take place in alternate versions of the past, and both obviously have a connection to space travel. But call Star City a direct spinoff isn’t really fair, even though Wolpert refers to it as such.
“For all humanity was one of the first, if not the first, science fiction show on Apple TV. So I feel like we’re the originals. We started the trend,” adds Wolpert.
“It was a totally original idea, and now we have a spin-off of another original idea with an original idea. So that’s something we’re particularly proud of. I think Star City adds to Apple’s science fiction canon.
Star City begins on May 29 with its first two episodes, followed by weekly releases every Friday until July 10.
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