Anna Maxwell Martin as Lyudmilla Raskova
Star City, on Apple TV, is one of those shows with lopsided ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics rate it at 94 percent, and mere popcorn-eaters at 80 percent. I’d side with the popcorn-eaters. It’s a little dry and a little slow, but it’s fascinating at what life might have been like for elites in the old Soviet Union.
Though Rhys Ifans, for some reason, gets top billing, Anna Maxwell Martin steals every scene she’s in. Star City is worth watching only for her performance as a cold-blooded villain.
It’s an eight-part series and an alternate history of the Soviet space program, in which, as Rotten Tomatoes says, it’s safer to be in space than on the ground. It was filmed in Lithuania.