Apple unveils a For All Mankind replacement that rethinks its entire sci-fi idea

The prequel sets up a tense hunt for an American spy Apple TV’s alt-history series For All Mankind begins in 1969 with the Americans being beaten in the space race as the USSR put a man and then a woman on the Moon. Over the course of five seasons, series creators Ronald D. Moore, Matt Wolpert, and Ben Nedivi have moved forward through the decades, imagining a world transformed by more ambitious and equitable space exploration. Now they’re going back to the beginning of the rivalry with the prequel Star City, which got a big trailer ahead of its summer launch. Set in Star City, the home of the Soviet space program that For All Mankind first visited in season 2, the spinoff fuses sci-fi drama and paranoid spy thriller. While the Soviets may have scored two big victories, they know their Cold War rivals will do anything to catch up. The Americans have a mole within Star City who has given them the plans the Soviet Chief Designer (Rhys Ifans of House of the Dragon) created for a lunar base. Ifans’ character is only referred to as Chief Designer, but he is meant to be Sergei Korolev, the father of the Soviet space program. Korolev died in 1966, and Moore said extending his life is one