TV Show of the Week: Space Force

Written by the same person who wrote the American version of the Office, and the recent release of the Amazon’s Original, Upload, Netflix’s Original, Space Force is a satirical take on the inner workings of a Government Branch. Penned by Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, the series, as a whole, doesn’t have the same flair as the aforementioned two, in that it’s inconsistent.

The first episode established what it wanted to be, character wise and plot wise. Steve Carell’s character, Mark Naird (played brilliantly by Steve Carell), pushes the scientists to launch what they’ll believe is a failure waiting to happen. Instead of listening and understanding what the scientists are saying, he overrules them all and orders the launch of their new rocket anyway, which does happen at the end. When the chief scientist, Dr Adrian Mallory (played equally as brilliantly by John Malkovich) questioned Mark on why he believed the mission to be a success, Mark responded with a decent speech about taking risks, to which the Dr Mallory seconded with a clink of their glasses, toasting a successful mission.

Whilst it was only the first episode, I believed I had figured out where the series is going, but not in a stereotypically predictable way where it doesn’t become fun as I was looking forward to watching the friendship between Mark Naird and Dr Adrien Mallory develop as both learn a valid lesson from each other throughout the series.

I was wrong as each episode consistently had this rivalry between the two characters, even going so far as to indirectly state that Dr Mallory does not have respect for Mark, an inconsistent direction to what the first episode set up. The second episode went even further with Mark’s imaginative ideas by getting a monkey to repair a damaged satellite, which nearly succeeded. I could see the idea behind Mark’s idea not working as he would’ve learnt a valid lesson in trusting the Dr Mallory, but that didn’t happen. Neither character proves they’ve learnt anything throughout the series. They set up a good idea, only for it not to be paid off. They’re rivalry does get a little tedious over the course of the series, creating the bad side of predictability as you just know that the other character is going to instantly dismiss any idea given to them.

There are a couple of good points which stand out. The first being episode be one, and episode 8, where Mark and his wife, Maggie Naird (played just as brilliantly by Lisa Kudrow), who’s in prison from committing a crime, talk about having an open marriage. The way the episode handles that topic is superb. It hits all the right points so we, the audience, understand both sides of the argument, and can establish our own points also.

It’s easy to understand the intention behind the show, both character wise and story wise, but the loose connectivity between each episode which contains only a few moments of those intentions makes it hard to follow and get into as much as I had hoped I would from watching episode 1. 

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)