Space Force

The writers and star of The Office (US) bring the world Space Force, the fictionalized account of the sixth branch of the US armed forces.

Coming May 29.

Oooooh boy. Trump's gonna flip at this.

Trump flips at everything.

Anyway, we need more Slice of Life for speculative fiction, so I am all for this.

It's, uh. It's not exactly speculative....

Oh hey, what do you know. I assumed that ball had been dropped completely. We probably could have just given more money to NASA, but if this is what it takes to get more space stuff, I'll accept it.

Back to this show, production probably started before the branch became official, right?

Almost a full year before. Netflix had the show ordered in January of last year, and the actual branch became official in December.

Edited by caivu on May 9th 2020 at 12:56:46 PM

Won't matter to the kinds of people this show is going to upset. Look at all the kerfuffle that happened when ABC Canada cut out the scene in Home Alone 2 where Trump cameos. They cut it for time but a whole mess of them took it as a deliberate slight.

Full trailer showing off the star studded cast and liberal use of rockets.

The show is out and a lot of outlets are...not happy with it. Everything going on is making it a major case of Too Soon.

Yeah, that's not a very good take.

The response there, summed up, is "we shouldn't be making fun of our own faults, because we're going through a hard time right now" - and even ignoring the fact that said hard time was exacerbated by those faults in the first place, all that is is just a classic brand of deflection. The tired old ignoring of criticism by claiming that it's wrong to criticize in the first place. I haven't seen the show yet, so I don't know how good it is (I have no doubts that it's more gaggy than witty), but I do know that's one of the least credible "critiques" I've seen of a series in a while.

There's never a comfortable time to be criticized. And shows attempting this kind of humor shouldn't be waiting for convenient times to do so. We need things like this even more now than we did before. Humor is our defense against the universe, after all.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 30th 2020 at 12:30:45 PM

I do feel like the show is a case of Indecisive Parody with a predominately Type 2 Eagleland.

The core of the show seems simple. Space Force is a gigantic waste of taxpayers dollars, the Chinese are smarter than the US, everyone else is smarter than the US, and POTUS sucks. Simple enough for a parody, regardless of your political compass.

But then the show genuinely tries to delve into Type 1 Eagleland and actual pathos and wonder. And well...no. It doesn’t work. If the core of your argument is that everyone involved saved Dr. Mallory sucks, then why do you think people will care about what they do? The writers failed to make the characters save Carrel and Malkovich genuine, so any arguments for the story events to be genuine fall flat on their face.

Yes, the joke is ruined if Space Force is actually useful. Steve Carrell's character should be trapped in an enormous boondoggle and no way of getting out.

The show has a joke of him trying to keep Space Force from being shut down.

The joke SHOULD be, "Do I get my old job back if it is?"

Yeah, I could dig that. The character working better if they're basically Sisyphus, trying to get out but not being able to.

I tried it. Yeah, it's not a case of "too soon". Well, it kind of is, but this isn't a case of a show speaking truths that make people uncomfortable. It's just not very good, and most of the jokes fall kind of flat, in part because they're too tame. It's too soon because the reality is so much more insane that there's next to nothing to really laugh at.

The first episode has a joke about the President announcing policy proposals through tweets, and the announcement of the Space Force is marred by him making a typo, saying boobs instead of boots. Like, a joke is supposed to be at least kind of an exaggeration of reality, but that joke is taking reality and making it significantly more sedate.

It could have been good, but it's mostly just kind of lame and awkward and it's trying to very awkwardly split the difference between being a social satire and being a workplace comedy and it can't manage it. The social satire is incredibly limp and worthless while the workplace stuff mostly just has a lot of dud jokes, and I think the two sides are really hurting each other.

Edited by Zendervai on Jun 3rd 2020 at 9:30:23 AM

Here’s a question that admittedly has been in the back of my mind these past few days -

Shows like Space Force were mostly made with the point of making fun of the Trump Administration, and even though Space Force has some reverence for space exploration (far more so than the original trailers implied, which seemed to be pointing out it was pointless), it’s mostly there to make fun of the old POTUS.

Except he’s lost the election, it’s clear he has no real recourse, and we’ll be under a Biden administration by the time any hypothetical Season 2 rolls around. So what does a show like this do now that its primary subject of ridicule isn’t exactly relevant anymore, except as a the subject of a true crime doc or the inevitable satire movie done 20 years from now? Do you just cancel it or try a Retool?

Edited by Beatman1 on Nov 7th 2020 at 1:36:28 PM

I think they'd be best off just canning it. I still don't get what the point of the show was beyond "ha ha Space Force is a funny name," anyway.

I guess it will depend on whether or not Biden is disappointing in his own ways different from Trump. A lot of people are rather cynical about a Biden presidency even if he isn't as bad as Trump.

There’s a difference between a disappointing politician and Trump’s cult of personality. I mean, you could make fun of a Biden administration undoing the various policies of the Trump administration and reverting Space Force’s assets into its various parent organizations (primarily the Air Force and NASA), but I’m not sure how much humor you can really milk from that. The alternative is focusing more on Naird’s family, and they were considered the worst part of Season 1 by a mile.

It’s that or just Retool it as a live action Starcom

I think if Biden shuts down the Space Force, that's actually a decent season's premise.

The ‘space force’ idea had been in the making since 2000 and a Bipartisan group in Congress got it done. The Trump admin just signed things and did nothing themselves, The real credit goes to Donald Rumsfeld.

It ain’t going anywhere, the show though... could still go off on the military mismanagement of money and all that.

Looks like Netflix is forging ahead with a Season 2 despite Trump’s defeat and the concerns of this thread. Where they go is anyone’s guess.

This show is pretty dated now.