Space Force: A comic slow burn, but a nicely grounded Steve Carell series based on a real life ridiculous idea
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B
Successful series - at least ones like The Office and Parks and Recreation (both co-created by Greg Daniels) - seldom start off with a bang.
The bangs do come eventually in Space Force, the 10-episode Netflix series starring Steve Carell (co-created by Carell and Daniels), which debuts Friday, May 29. These bangs are mostly in the form of incompetently executed rocket launches.
Steve Carell is Gen. Naird, the unlikely commander of the sixth branch of the military in Space Force.
But there’s a somewhat awkward getting-to-know-you first episode to get past first. Stick through it to episode 2, and a mordantly hilarious scene with space animals, and pieces start to fall in place as the series finds its satirical tone.
There is no question this is a series driven by the current U.S. President, though he’s never mentioned by name, only as POTUS (with the odd mention of FLOTUS, who is off-camera filling her time designing ugly Space Force uniforms). Trump’s empty announcement of a “Space Force” as a sixth branch of the military (in a country that hitches rides to the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz capsules) was the joke that launched this extended gag.
And a gag is as it’s treated when we meet various generals awaiting the announcement of who’ll be in charge of the nebulous service.
Four-star Air Force general Mark Naird is one of the yuksters, whose face falls when it’s announced that he’ll oversee the joke project that nobody wants. Flash ahead to the Force’s Space Centre, where all they have to show for billions of dollars spent are a series of rockets that can’t seem to achieve lift-off.
Carell’s character evolves noticeably as he tackles this impossible task. At first, Naird seems a combination of his The Office character Michael Scott and Trump himself – overruling the thought-through plans of scientists, coming up with unlikely, hair-brained ideas to solve problems, and insisting they find ways to make them work.
Later, however, he pulls leadership skills out of a hat, dealing with the media and Congress with articulation and passion. It’s a complete 180 in the character from his introduction, and gives him something to be other than a Trump avatar.
Space Force is weakest when it tries to be satirical in the realm of politics. The characters that are obtusely obvious depictions of real people (including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi) are ham-handed caricatures. Even the POTUS and FLOTUS gags get trimmed a little as the series goes on.
Space Force’s strength is actually in its on-the-ground relationships. The primary bond is between Naird and his cynical, trenchantly witty lead scientist Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich, showing off dry comedy chops that might surprise you). Despite Mallory’s disgust at the military and the general idiocy around him, their friendship mellows and it becomes the best part of Space Force. Carell and Malkovich should have worked together years ago.
Other characters get fleshed out as Space Force moves forward. Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang is the effective voice of the scientists’ bunker mentality in the face of stupidity as Dr. Chan Kaifang. Naird’s humanity is on display in his dealings with his frustrated and self-doubting teen daughter Erin (Diana Silvers), who in turn finds a friend in Naird’s personal helicopter assistant Angela (Tawny Newsome).
For all the high-tech and hardware, these human connections are what Space Force will rise or fall upon. So far, it’s growing on me.
Space Force. Created by Steve Carell and Greg Daniels. Starring Steve Carell, John Malkovich and Diana Silvers. Series debuts on Netflix, Friday, May 29.