Apple TVFor 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? If For All Mankind was Ronald D. Moore’s take on a grounded, alternate universe path to an upbeat Star Trek: The Next Generation future, then Star City is the franchise’s version of the grittier Deep Space Nine. This is a series in which nearly every character has a secret, and not all of those secrets are about blasting off into space.Star City starts in the same place For All Mankind Season 1 did, in 1969. The USSR is about to put a man on the Moon, which, of course, did not happen in real life. In this timeline, a character known only as “the Chief Designer” (Rhys Ifans) is the driving force behind pushing Roscosmos to the bleeding edge of spaceflight achievement. Like For All Mankind, this series reveals tense moments in which last-minute problems are solved by out-of-the-box ingenuity, all grounded in the real science of what technology existed decades ago, and also of what is realistic within the bounds of what we know about space travel now. For those who have been missing some of the analog, nail-biting space race action of early seasons of For All Mankind, Star City delivers, complete with smoky rooms and a kind of grainy production style that lends the series a kind of cinematic quality its parent series sometimes lacks. The depressing greys of the USSR in 1969 and 1970 never looked so beautiful. One of the central characters of this series, perhaps the closest thing to an audience surrogate, is Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey). She’s part of the surveillance department at Star City, tasked with listening in on the cosmonauts, trying to find any sign of sedition or spying. A leak is present somewhere in Star City, with plans for moonbases and other technology somehow making its way to the West. O’Casey is playing a much younger version of Svetlana Efremova’s conniving spymaster Irina from For All Mankind Seasons 4 and 5. Ditto Josef Davies as the younger Sergei Nikulov, a character who becomes integral to Margo Madison’s life, and who Irina will eventually order to be murdered in For All Mankind Season 4. But in Star City, both of these characters are innocent, naive, and utterly likable. O’Casey deserves a specific shout-out, since under the tutelage of the cruel Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin), you can see the seeds of how she will become the tough-as-nails person she is in the future, though here, that journey is surprisingly humanized.But, and this is crucial, you do not need to have watched any of For All Mankind to get into Star City. And that’s because, although Sergei and Irina connect to the timeline of that series, the rest of the characters — even ones loosely based on historical figures or mentioned in the other show — are basically brand new. Solly McLeod as Sasha and Adam Nagaitis as Valya in Star City. | Apple TVAlice Englert’s cosmonaut, Anastasia Belikova, has a particularly harrowing story; the first woman on the Moon in this timeline, who is then tightly controlled by the state, and the space program in general. Star City also delivers some explosive male testosterone in the form of cosmonauts Sasha (Solly McLeod) and Valya (Adam Nagaitis), both of whom have unexpected paths and shifting allegiances. Ruby Ashbourne Serkis is particularly good as Tanya, the wife of Valya, whose life as a cosmonaut’s spouse is very different from her American counterparts. What Star City does best is to balance the character’s individual hopes and dreams against the outside scrutiny and pressure from the state. Sometimes, and this is a compliment, you forget that this is a show about space travel, or that this is an alternate timeline. When Star City is at its best, it's a slow-burning spy show with the subject of optimism under extreme pressure. We expect people to be at their worst in situations like these, but when some manage to rise above the cruelty and lack of freedom, the show delivers moments better than any mystery box plot twist.Star City debuts with two episodes on May 29 on Apple TV.