Steve Carell commands a Space Force in first look at Greg Daniels' new Netflix comedy
Aux Features TV
With so many projects canceled or indefinitely delayed in the midst of our global pandemic, a spark of warmth accompanies just about anything that actually will arrive to entertain our dry, sun-deprived eyeballs. Well, count Space Force, the new workplace comedy from Steve Carell and The Office’s Greg Daniels, as one of them.
Despite having just been announced in January, the Netflix comedy spawned by President Donald Trump’s desire to drop bombs from even higher in the sky is primed and ready for release next month. With this announcement comes a synopsis and a slew of first-look photos.
First, however, here’s a breakdown of the story
A decorated pilot with dreams of running the Air Force, four-star general Mark R. Naird (Steve Carell) is thrown for a loop when he finds himself tapped to lead the newly formed sixth branch of the US Armed Forces: Space Force. Skeptical but dedicated, Mark uproots his family and moves to a remote base in Colorado where he and a colorful team of scientists and “Spacemen” are tasked by the White House with getting American boots on the moon (again) in a hurry and achieving total space dominance. From co-creators Carell and Greg Daniels (The Office), SPACE FORCE is a new kind of workplace comedy, where the stakes are sky high and the ambitions even higher.
As you’ll see in the below photos, Carell is surrounded by a stacked cast that pairs dramatic heavyweights like John Malkovich and The Americans’ Noah Emmerich with established comic actors like Lisa Kudrow, Ben Schwartz, Don Lake, and Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang.
Space Force premieres on Netflix on May 29.
52 Comments
I loved Avenue 5 (I know it doesn’t get a ton of love, but some genuinely funny bits and I think it’ll improve in season 2). So I’m down for more space comedy!
I skipped Avenue 5 because it felt very much like “The Brink”, which had a few moments but was not good.
I hated The Brink, but Avenue 5 is worth the investment I think.
I loved it too. I felt it started a little too tame, surprisingly so for a joint-American/British comedy. But once it got dark, it got great.
I’ll second the Avenue 5 recommendation. I really enjoyed that show and am hopeful for how it’s going to play out.
Avenue 5 seems like an okay enough concept, but it my head it’s just another fucking poster for a random TV show with Josh Gad (see also: 1600 Penn, The Comedians) in it that I would see way too much on the subway, back when being on the subway was a thing I’d do enough to get annoyed that I kept on running into Josh Gad’s face there.
lol lol fair enough, but he doesn’t look too much like him in the show at least. a lot of the funniest bits are offside comments made by the extras in the show.
I’m always a sucker for sci-fi comedy, so I feel like I’ll check it out sometime around or after I check out the Orville. And as much as I generally barely tolerate Josh Gad’s shtick, I still love crap like Book of Mormon and Frozen so I’m sure my body can handle it. I’m just also super ready for a speculative future where Josh Gad stops getting cast in random shit.
constantly seeing Josh Gad’s face is a frightening existence but not moreso than seeing him act. Leave him as a voice over actor but fuck if he’s not worth shit in Ave 5.
Avenue 5 is a great show with a dumb name. Why they don’t just call is “space cruise?” That would be a fittingly stupid title. I guess Avenue 5 is like a bastardization of 5th Avenue that these dumb future people equate to luxury, IDK. The show is really hilarious & this is the first I’ve even heard people don’t like it. I’m shocked & saddened
I know, I actually put off watching it because people seemed quick to jump on the bandwagon of disliking the show. Then I watched it during isolation and it had so many laugh out loud moments, and it feels timely right now with the current uncertainty of staying home (especially when celebrities are complaining about it staying in solitude in their mansions).
i think i expected a lot more from it considering it’s pedigree. i didn’t think it was necessarily a terrible show but i thought the plotting was a bit aimless and the characters/dialogue didn’t make up for it. since it’s been renewed i hope the second season suits me more, but overall i just felt the show was half-baked, especially from someone as incredible as iannucci.
and i mean, ultimately it boils down to me just not finding it very funny. i wouldn’t be so critical of it if i liked the jokes.
I’m a huge fan of The Thick of It and Veep so I really was excited for Avenue 5 but it mostly didn’t land at all. I don’t know, it was almost trying too hard maybe? Hugh Laurie kills it though and so does Zach Woods obviously. If it weren’t for those two performances we wouldn’t even have finished out the year.
I also loved Avenue 5
What a sausage fest. Where all the ladies at? Don’t get me wrong, I love Tawny Newsome and it looks like Diana Silvers rocks some great teenaged (?) angst, but it appears that all the main characters are men.
“Despite having just been announced in January”January 2019! Jesus, learn how to read.
May 29? Gah, that seems like years from now.
Or might have been yesterday since time has lost all meaning.
did that tim heidecker/john c reilly/fred armisen moon-base comedy series on IFC just never happen? i was really excited for that.
So was I. Sounds like it’s on ice, which is never good for a show. Tim just gets mad at people who ask him on Office Hours these days so I have no idea what’s next for it.
probably dead, shame. if they shot a pilot i’d love for that to leak.
Good news, on the second to most recent Office Hours podcast, Tim said it’s still coming! He said he still can’t talk about it because of production but he said it’s alive and healthy.
/spaceJim looks at spacecamera resignedly
Do Netflix shows usually come with a photo album?
Its a sneak peek of the slideshow that will play when you leave it on pause for too long
A sneak peek? Any more and we’ll have actual footage.
I dunno, but promotional stills for a show or movie are hardly a new thing.
A few promotional stills, sure.
A complete wallpaper gallery, not so much.
Back when I was watching “Friends” every Thursday night (it was must-see TV, after all, as the network kept reminding us), I never would have guessed that Lisa Kudrow would be the one with the most-enduring career. I mean, she was great as Phoebe, but I put her about on the same level as the guy who played Joey, whose name I can’t even remember now. We all figured that Jennifer Aniston was going to be a big star (and she was, but more as a celebrity than as a performer), followed maybe by Monica or Chandler. We were wrong.
the guy who played Joey, whose name I can’t even remember now Matt LeBlanc? the man who recently ended his tenure on a long-running premium cable show and who was, as of last year, performing the highly sought after job of hosting Top Gear while simultaneously starring in and executive producing a network sitcom? that lazy piece of shit?
Calm down. It’s Matt LeBlanc.
The Comeback is utterly perfect. She rules.
eh i mean they’re all pretty successful relative to each other and sort of tag in and out of relevance. wasn’t too long ago that cougar town was a hot show.
Hush your mouth. Kudrow WAS classic Michele to Mira’s Romy. That movie alone awesome and they were ever better than Thelma & Louise.
I don’t know how much this interests me. The concept feels like low-hanging fruit, and in our current sit-[sees Noah Emmerich]Goddammit.
Yeah, it feels a bit like a warmed over The Office coupled with a lazy dig at Trump, but damn, that is a great cast
I just started watching Billions (which is a questionable decision so far) and he pops up in Episode 3. He is just the best.
Billions is one of my guilty pleasures too. It’s one of those shows (like Sons of Anarchy when it started) where the ridiculous plot complications really just exist to give some great actors an opportunity to play the hell out of their crazy-ass parts.
Some of those sets, particularly Mission Control, sure look like they were repurposed from “The Office.” No doubt a major subplot will quickly emerge between a dopey but sweet technician and the cute but narcissistic secretary who is in a dead relationship with a rocket grunt.
When the hell did they film this? Given the time frame, I was half-expecting this to have been rebooted as a show that all takes place inside videoconferencing software.
It was actually announced in January of last year, not this year. I can see why you were confused, though.
They had me at the premise, Carell and Malkovich.
They had me at Greg Daniels.
Awesome cast, this has gotta be a shit ton better than Avenue 5. Keep Josh Gad and Zach Woods the fuck away from Space Force and it will already be 150% better.
I see Veep’s Dan Bakkedahl has a part. God I hope they let him reuse some of his “colorful” Veep dialogue for this part.
Ah. So by “first look” they meant still photos. Cool, cool.
That’s what “first look” virtually always means in pop culture media. If it was a trailer they’d say “trailer.”
This has some real low-tier, Obama-era NBC vibes.
The cast certainly makes it look promising.
Just came to say I initially read it as “Steve Carell demands a space force” which I think would be pretty amusing.
Why would anyone of sane mind want to watch a show about one of Trump’s more demented and unnecessary projects, unless the show ridicules the project and its creator in the process? What’s next, a droll rom-com focusing on the team building Trump’s southern border wall?
“Despite having just been announced in January”In January 2019…