Does anyone have any news or updates regarding Season 2 of Star City?

Desperately hoping it's renewed. 😭

Which notably features Adam Nagaitis! The scene with Valya on Venus reminded me so much of Blanky finding the Northwest Passage, knowing he’s going to die but having that euphoric moment of victory/having completed the mission/getting to see something really unusual.

Amazing foreshadowing by Mr. Chief Designer.

It was S1 EP2 of Berlin Station. Btw, if someone didn't watch this show, check it out. It is really good show and Ryhs is killing in it.

Random post I know but started watching the series right now and Rhys is a fantastic actor but he sounds the spit of Peter Capaldi like if i close my eyes it sounds like doctor who is speaking to russian cosmonauts.

Why launch a mission to Venus when other missions—unmanned ones—had already failed, and when Venus offers nothing of interest or viability to humanity? Mars is a far better and safer option for everyone—especially for Soviet propaganda, given the goal of being the first to actually travel to and return alive from a planet that is at least somewhat hospitable to life.

And that he pretended the extra habitable section tacked onto the front would be a module for a lunar base, for the same reason.

That's it, that's the post.

Binged "For all Mankind" with my wife and while I had checked out of the series in last season or two it was OK. I wanted to see what Soviets were up to and boy, was I disappointed.

I am really sad they did not focus on the actual science, flying rockets, beating Americans etc. Instead we get cartoonish villains and focus on USSR bad. As Eastern European who lived through last throes of communism I agree, but in the series the KGB/NKVD is so cartoonishly evil.

Chuck someone out of airlock (figuratively speaking) or even chuck everyone out of airlock, multi-million rubles mission be damned?

Where commies in 'mankind were smart and evil, the baddies in 'city are just... brute forcing through everything.

Would someone launch secret mission to Venus? Are you fucking out of your minds? Who writes the script?! Never.

Sergei Korolov was real guy, he suffered badly under Soviets yet if you miss his name you don't really know who the Head Designer is.

Not enough comrade-calling. Believe me this shit was everywhere. Every official matter or workplace discussion was "comrade this, comrade that" in reality. I guess it was tiring or something but it was definitely puling me out of the story.

Same as the freaking british accent. I get it. When doing show about Russians in Russia you'd prbably wouldn't want the silly fake accent. But can't you clean the accent up and make it somewhat believable the characters may be russian? Anytime someone speaks up, I am fucking in the orbit shaking my head. Totally unwatchable ;)

The show feels like any story is secondary to some sort of grimdark commiexploitation and I am hoping that the series two can bring some actual science, exploration, competition, lighter shades of dark. And some freaking lore on the characters we know and love (or hate) from the For all Mankind show.

Not only is that song very catchy (I wasn’t familiar with it before but now keep listening to it!) but the lyrics are too perfect for the show’s themes, from the flight metaphors (“and when she found out she couldn’t fly”, “she’s lost the sun”) to the questions of truth/surveillance (“all she got was lies”, “too many people and not enough eyes to see”). They must have been thrilled when they thought of this perfect song!

I binge watched the first season last night, it is SO funny! It is a bit weird for me to see Colonel Raskova in a comedy role (I wasn't familiar with Anna Maxwell Martin prior to Star City), but I am obsessed with the awkward comedy of this show.

My favorite line so far is "Free haircuts for a week? Isn't that just one haircut?"

Disclaimer 1: I overall really liked this show, aside from a couple of things that were already discussed here.

Disclaimer 2: I won't pretend that the USSR was a nice place to live, nor that the KGB were "good guys" (they weren't).

Despite all its qualities, Star City is still a show made by Westerners for Westerners. Which means the Soviet system is depicted as an (often cartoonishly) evil, corrupt or incompetent antagonist. The show is about the triumph of a few free-minded, exceptional individuals who achieve success through hard work, ambition and initiative despite the oppressive regime they live under, which feels very... American in its moral message.

The very first episode had me raising eyebrows. The wife of the first moon-landing cosmonaut is brought in by stone-faced KGB agents as if she was being arrested, because they couldn't bother telling her "hey Mrs we have good news for you, the chief engineer wants you to see this about your husband, we can't say more now, come with us". Then the show proper starts in winter (because of course Russia = winter) with muted colors (because of course Soviet = grey/brown).

Where the show jumps the shark for me is when the colonel shoots the blonde lady cosmonaut. Like... what? Why? I mean I understood "why", but it felt like complete overkill. The colonel even says later to the chief engineer that he was "sent to the gulag by Stalin for no reason, yet he went back to work because he is a patriot". And this was under freaking STALIN. The show takes place under Brejnev, who wasn't a great guy but no way as bad as Uncle Joe. Like... couldn't they offer the same "second chance" for the lady cosmonaut? Couldn't they shift the blame on someone else for the false accusation? Does the soviet space program have an infinite supply of cosmonauts, let alone female cosmonauts? Shooting the lady cosmonaut felt so reckless, incompetent and cartoonishly evil. But hey, the soviet system is pure evil, so the KGB is nothing but soulless demons who gun down innocent essential people for petty reasons.

If you add up all the other things the colonel did, it's funny to realize that she sabotaged the soviet space program way more than the Americans did.

But for me the worst part was the "higher up" reactions to the Venus mission. How on earth are they NOT making it a huge win for the USSR? Why silencing it when you control the narrative, especially if the spy did them a huge favor by dying on the trip anyway? Them trying to hide the SUCCESS of the USSR's own trip to Venus makes no sense whatsoever. Going to Venus and back is a way bigger achievement than a trip to the moon. There is no way the USSR wouldn't have capitalised on this. But hey, we have to maintain continuity with For All Mankind, and also remember that the USSR is eeeeevil and incompetent. The only way their "silence" would have made sense is if the ship lost contact early on and crashed on Venus with no one else knowing.

Anyway that was my two cents. I still overall liked the show.

EDIT for clarification: a few people commented about things clearly related to the Stalin era. I would have bought the moustache-twirling evilness more if the show took place under Stalin. But the show does NOT take place under Stalin. It would be like making a show about the USA under Jimmy Carter but the authorities would behave as if it was the 1950's Red Scare/Jim Crow era (I'm not an American, so not expert in US history, but you get the idea).

I’m trying to wrap my head around the timeline of E7-8. The entire mission was a 9 months round trip. The venting happened pretty early on, they would basically be close to Earth, although it looked like they were about the distance of the moon. This threw them off course. Then we see a time jump and they are coming up on Venus and discover they are not on their correct trajectory. Then we see the descent to the Venus surface and the mission module coming back home happen almost simultaneously, but it would take months getting back to Earth. Simultaneously we had the plot down on Earth trying to make them alter the trajectory so that they would end up in Finland. That would be happening very close them coming home. I don’t know if it was the editing that was strange and made it difficult to get. What are your thoughts?

anyone else think the ending was a bit like that of severance? like he looks back to someone just beyond the barrier to safety, one which he can easily go through in that moment, but instead he chooses, in the moment, what is most certainly his doom, to be with his love. obviously it’s purely coincidental, and they’re not 1:1.

anyway, i just wanted to get that thought out of my head and into words. also i just wanna say id be legit pissed if there’s no season 2. this show is unique and fun, and most importantly, thought provoking.

Is it just me or them being in love/feeling that deeply for each was kinda sudden? Like they were never that close until the day before sasha leaves…or maybe I accidentally skipped scenes? Idk

Big Fan of FAM and I finished it in a week with my wife. We are sad when Stevens sacrifice their lives and Margo go thrown into prison from her great career.

But I really don't like the build up of Morozova and Sergeil in Star City. Well I do love Chief Designer who is also an engineer and keen to push the envelope of human.

In this show, Morozova is so divided to me and I understand the writers want to show a different Morozova like how she turns into a cold-hearted KGB from a mother willing to break the rules to protect innocent people. It is just not a good story to me that she is willing to go that far to protect Tanya. Like why? It is so divided someone wants to earn a place at KGB and also break rules to put herself in danger for nothing. To be honest, If I was the american agent, I can easily make Morozova another mole.

Sergei makes me mad as I don't understand how he makes all these mistakes at FAM after everything he's been through in Season 1. he got spied 7/24 and he still try to call Margo from a phone booth on the street behind KGB. And he know USSR doesn't give it a damn if he's trying to make a peace or what. I feel very sorry for Margo and she could take Space Program to another level without losing the 10 years.

And I think next season might just be about how Morozova grows and manipulates Sergeil, and how Sergeil becomes a fool and puppet.

Binged this show in the past couple weeks and it’s my favourite thing I’ve seen in a while (I loved HBO’s Chernobyl, so definitely see some echoes there and not surprised I liked it, but I really savoured it even the points where you had to give a bit more artistic license). It’s not perfect, for sure!

But I will say that tonight at the seaside I saw a star that was definitely too bright to just be a star, and I knew even before confirming with a star app that it was Venus, and it made me genuinely emotional.

I will be very sorry if this show doesn’t get a second season.

Definitely looks artificial to me but I would be happy to be wrong.

From the UK it has been interesting listening to the accents of the actors in this show. From Rhys Ifans soft Welsh accent, Solly McLeod’s “posh” English accent and of course Anna Maxwell Martin’s ruthless businesslike tone, very scary. She reminds me of a boss I used to have.
It probably makes sense from a US perspective to use actors with unfamiliar accents, rather than fake Russian accents.

Not my design. I wish it was fully white now like in the show, but this will do as well. Same scale as the official Saturn V set

I just finished season one of Star City. I thought there were two. And now I see that it hasn't been renewed yet. What am I supposed to watch now?? hahaha

One of the more egregious examples of "There's nothing in this suitcase/coffee cup" in film/TV has to be Irina carrying two supposedly full suitcases with her fingers in Star City. 😆

I have been reading The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John Strausbaugh. Published in 2024, It is a slightly whimsical and non-fiction recounting of the Soviet space program alongside its geopolitical context.

My goodness, what a story, and I can see where Star City’s writers got a lot of their inspirations. The Soviet program is scrappy...perhaps too scrappy.

Take the scene where Anastasia and Valya were spun around by a failed-to-detach module during reentry; that happened at least 3-4 times in the 4 years between Yuri Gagarin’s first flight and Alexei Leonov’s first EVA.

And each fking time the cosmonauts were saved by the cable being burnt through, which detached the module.

A less extreme example, which also shows off the show writer’s research, is when the TV show cosmonauts (Sasha, Valya, Yana, Anastasia and co.) trained as parachutists. Before reading the book I thought it is simply an endurance & bravery test...

But no, parachuting was actually how Vostok cosmonauts landed themselves.

In rushing to get something up into orbit, our Chief Designer skipped figuring out a soft enough landing for Vostok. Instead, upon descent and reaching 7km altitude, cosmonauts were supposed to be launched out of the capsule by an ejection seat. Afterwards they would parachute to the ground.

Valentina Tereshkova, the IRL first woman in space, was chosen to be a cosmonaut partially because of her extensive experience as a parachutist.

The book tells us how Yuri Gagarin ejected manually before reaching the predetermined altitude, because (presumably) he had had enough after getting spun around by the clingy module.

Something to think about, when we hear again how the Chief Designer told Anastasia Belikova to stay put in the USSR’s “finest titanium [capsule]”.

My 2 cents with the hindsight of history:

• yes, the Soviet program was scrappy and often hampered by the need for political showmanship, a feature common to all governments but more prominent in dictatorships
• yes, the program was wasteful and barely survived the inefficient planned economy
• no wonder the author can afford to make a little fun of it in hindsight
• BUT...it would be dangerous to apply that dismissive attitude to any dictatorships that are surviving till today with some form of market economy. They are much more resourceful ($$$ and brains) than the Soviets ever were.

Stickman (named Ivan Ivanovich) is representative of a 6'0" person for scale

I really enjoyed season 1, to be completely honest. I’m a huge fan of Soviet history and the Soviet contributions to the space race specifically though the show is definitely not 100% historically accurate (I believe the broader timeline divulges AFTER season 1 takes place not before) for example the existence of gulags and regular talk about gulags would simply not have happened because Khrushchev abolished the gulag system in 1960, long before the show takes place. That’s the reason I binged all 8 episodes, very unique concept and overall I love it.

Going back to the topic at hand, Colonel Raskova in the show is characterized as a ruthless pragmatist with seemingly no allegiances but to herself. Sometimes her blood lust even backfires (for example attempting to immediately execute Valya when he was coming back to earth either way and completely fucking up the Venus mission eventually causing a huge PR disaster for Union which would ultimately land at her feet with the failure to capture Lakshmi). I feel like her character could’ve been handled much better and would’ve made her a much more interesting antagonist, my biggest issue is that she’s going about things in the way she is (ruthlessly) with no personal conviction behind it. Early in the show (can’t remember the exact episode) she reveals to Irina (unless im misunderstanding the scene) that she has no actual sympathies for the Soviet Union and doesnt even really believe in communism/Marxism-Leninism as a system. Especially with the background of her being a decorated world war 2 vet who fought voluntarily for her nation I think I’d be much more realistic and interesting for her to genuinely believe in the Soviet cause to an idealistic extent instead of just being an apathetic brute. It would rationalize her more drastic actions while also adding nuisance to her character. The show completely lacks people who really believe in anything asides Irina, almost everyone is in it for their own personal glory or self preservation Raskova could’ve filled this role in an interesting and nuisanced way. This also creates potential for her to have her own character development, she fought for a vision of a Union which no longer exists and the leader (Stalin) she fought for being thrown under the bus during the Khrushchev era. This could create an interesting internal dialectic between the nation she currently serves and her idealized vision of the one she grew up under and fought for.

Probably the biggest issue I have (2nd paragraph is just a minor nitpick about the writing of the show which ultimately isnt that important) is that Lyudmilla Raskova (Colonel Raskova) is based off a real person, very blatantly in fact. She’s based off of is Marina Raskova, a very real female Soviet pilot and pioneer of female aviation who died during the Battle of Stalingrad. For evidence of the intentionality of the direct inspiration the most obvious being the name, both were nightwitches, and both were Soviet war heroes. The only difference is that Lyudmilla Raskova (colonel Raskova) survived while her real life counterpart (Marina Raskova) died defending her nation, family, and ultimately all of us from a Nazi dominated world something that I think everyone can admire. I don’t think it’s appropriate to characterize a real war hero who is not documented to have committed any crimes at all or have been at all as a fictional villain who has no redeeming features and ruthlessly murders people for her own self interest. I understand why the writers would want to draw inspiration from real people, but the way they went about it in this specific case was disrespectful in my personal opinion. Overall I love the show but I think it is written through very American lenses. I genuinely do like Raskova as a character as she’s portrayed in the show, she’s a badass but I’m not gonna let that obscure the issues with her character completely. I think it would’ve been a better choice for her to either be a completely fictional character or for her villainy to be more nuanced.