TV REVIEW: Fittingly, 'Space Force' has a lot of dead air
Steve Carell stars in Space Force, newly available on Netflix.
The worst part about Space Force is that it actually exists. No, I’m not talking about America’s sixth and newest branch of its military, but that the producer and star of The Office could make a show so bland and dull. The brainchild of Greg Daniels and Steve Carell, Space Force is Netflix’s newest sitcom, a cross between satire and workplace mishaps, yet, like the real thing, the mission statement isn’t very clear. The result is a clunky, 10-episode mess with laughs that come few and far between, with the only silver lining being that Daniels has never managed to make a show good in its first season.
Carell, who is in dire need of a hit, stars as General Mark Naird, the Space Force’s Chief of Space Operations. Grey-haired and puppy-eyed with a clenched jaw, he is a more restrained version of Michael Scott, a man who seems to always fail upwards without an iota of self-awareness, but possesses a heart of gold. (If all else fails, go back to what you know, I guess). John Malkovich plays Dr. Adrian Mallory, his chief scientist, who is both brilliant and foul-mouthed, and despite numerous arguments always ends up standing by Naird. They are handled by social media manager F. Tony Scarapiducci (a jab at Scaramucci, and also goes by the nickname “Fuck Tony”), played by Ben Schwartz in a toned-down version of Jean-Ralphio, and Dr. Chan, played by Jimmy O. Yang as the (mostly) straight man.
Not all is lost in Space Force. Carell and Malkovich (definitely Malkovich) have their moments and there are genuine laughs when the heads of all six military branches convene for their meetings and engage in a contest of machismo and putdowns. (Everyone agrees the Coast Guard is the most useless). Watching Jane Lynch (Navy) and Patrick Warburton (Marines) diss each other is a delight, and it doesn’t seem farfetched to have various chiefs argue over ability and budget, especially considering the actual U.S. military budget is ridiculously bigger than everyone else’s.
Ben Schwartz plays a toned-down version of his Parks and Recreation character.
Everyone is fair game in Space Force, including the Democrats, with not-so-subtle jabs at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi, or even private sector entrepreneurs, such as Elizabeth Holmes, but their appearances are so brief and the storylines so jumbled it doesn’t feel like there’s a specific purpose for them to be part of the bigger story. They are included to provide comedic moments, which is probably why most of them only appear once, but when they’re not funny they become filler scenes that usually culminate in Naird delivering some sort of heartfelt truism that mostly remind us of Michael Scott’s most touching moments.
It’s as if there’s a rush to just cram everything together, and over five hours the show covers the introduction of the Space Force, the selection of its crew, the design of the rocket ship, its conflict with Chinese astronauts on the moon, and also Naird’s rocky relationship with his teenage daughter, Erin (Diana Silvers), and his incarcerated wife, Maggie (Lisa Kudrow), who is serving a 40-year sentence for reasons that are never revealed. (They spend nearly an entire episode discussing their conjugal visit). It feels oddly disjointed; unlike The Office or Community in which any episode could take place on any weekday, Space Force has to follow a linear timeline of events, but at times it’s difficult to make heads or tails of what is actually going on and it never really focuses on one conflict long enough before moving on.
What could’ve been a sharp, biting look at America’s political insecurity through its massive defense budget is reduced to little skits and snippets. Perhaps this is just a symptom of the current environment, in which the decisions of politicians and governments are so baffling that the real thing is often funnier (and scarier) than a fictionalized version. Still, it seems like such a huge opportunity missed because of its half-baked ideas, especially with such a talented cast, and it seems so eager to cover everything that it ends up being a glossy but shallow version of its best self.