Space isn’t funny.
At least that’s the view of one General Mark Naird. He’s America’s latest four-star general. And he’s the man who’s been tapped to head the new U.S. initiative called Space Force.
Let the press naysay. Let the scientists grumble. Let the politicians grouse and the late-night comedians guffaw. As far as this four-star is concerned, the task of getting rockets launching, satellites soaring, and American boots dominating the moon once more is nothing short of a red-white-and-blue duty!
The President of these great United States wants it, and Mark Naird is the military man who’ll salute and get it done.
Sure, he was hoping to be given charge of the Air Force, a far more established wing (so to speak) of the military. And at first, his delegated authority level was barely higher than the guy who runs the Coast Guard.
But it’s been a wild year.
First, his wife went crazy, did some serious (but apparently unmentionable) crime, wound up in prison, and then asked for an “open” relationship before eventually filing for divorce. Then his teen daughter turned wild, dating a few questionable young men and letting her grades slip. And to top it all off, his arch-nemesis, General Grabaston (and yes, that name is a nasty play on words), seized control of Space Force and nearly started an intergalactic incident with China on the moon.
But no matter: This career soldier is a dedicated man with dedicated red blood cells pumping through a dedicated heart. He’ll handle the drama with his wife. He’ll get his daughter back on track to have a successful career. And by golly, he’ll make sure that the Space Force is the top performing military branch of the United States if it’s the last thing he does—which it might be.
No, space certainly isn’t funny.
The idea for this show may have sounded uproariously amusing when Steve Carrell and Greg Daniels, co-creators of the American version of The Office, plucked it from the headlines. And it must have felt particularly launch-worthy when it was fully stocked with a supporting cast that includes star power in the form of John Malkovich, Fred Willard, Lisa Kudrow, Jane Lynch, Patrick Warburton, Ben Schwartz … and more.
Hey, the silliness of the concept alone would likely mean the show could write itself, right?
That must have been the attitude, because it doesn’t appear that much beyond that went into the creation of this Netflix series.
Space Force sometimes feels like it’s trying to be a straight-up satire of the Washington political scene, with winking pokes in Season 1 at a wildly tweeting POTUS and other easy-to-recognize Capitol Hill stand-ins. In other moments, the show appears to want to be yet another workplace comedy centered on a hapless military base made up of clownish idiots.
But none of it really works. There may have been a spark of a humorous idea here: a winking message about governmental waste or a nudge-nudge elbow in the direction of a real-world political class that appears helplessly mired in perpetual chaos. But none of that ever quite gets off the launch pad.
Instead, viewers are left to float in a weightless void of gas gags and sleazy sexual titters, booze and drug giggles, goofy pratfalls, foul-mouthed rants, cannibalistic space chimps and gender guffaws. It’s all supposed to be funny … but it’s not. The fact is, space—at least this space—isn’t funny, and comedy isn’t easy … even for a space base full of comic veterans.
Three months after Gen. Naird disobeyed direct orders to save astronauts stranded on the moon, the Secretary of Defense is investigating to decide if Naird is still fit to run the U.S. Space Force.
We learn that his arch-enemy, Gen. Grabaston, ordered spacemen to sabotage the Chinese base on the moon (while the Chinese were simultaneously ordered to do the same to the Americans). As a result, the two countries’ astronauts were stranded with a limited supply of air while the politicians verbally duked it out. (And Grabaston was more than happy to leave the astronauts to die.)
People discuss whether a couple had sex. A gay man mentions his fiancé. We hear that Naird’s wife started dating a female prison guard. There is a slide show with Naird’s face superimposed on the bodies of muscled, shirtless men. A man has to be slapped to regain his composure after he suffers “withdrawals” from having his phone taken away. A man talks about getting drunk off kombucha. A girl says her friend was “so high” she walked into a glass door. Someone says a woman vomited. People lie under oath. A man trying to help Naird inadvertently insults the man investing Naird.
Grabaston is crass towards Erin, Naird’s daughter, telling her that he’ll make sure her parents get cells next to each other in prison. He then runs a smear campaign against Naird, telling blatant lies about Naird’s competence. Naird’s friends and colleagues debate whether they should lie about his insubordination to save his job. Naird insists they should be honest, and even when Grabaston insults him to his face, he demonstrates grace under pressure, refusing to give in to the goading. (He also advises against gossip, calling it the “devil’s telephone.)
We hear multiple uses of the f-word, as well as “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is also abused several times.
Newly promoted four-star general Mark Naird is welcomed in as one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff only to find out that he’s tasked with leading the newest military branch: Space Force. He and his very reluctant family members are sent off to Colorado where the new base is being created in a secretive walled-off mountain site.
One year later, Space Force is set to launch its first special satellite armed with a net-like weapon that can disable other country’s satellites. But the year hasn’t been easy. Mark’s wife is now in prison. His daughter is running wild with a man 10 years her senior. And the base is in an ongoing state of bedlam.
When the launch date arrives, Mark clashes with lead scientist Dr. Mallory who, with dire warnings, wants to postpone the much-ballyhooed take-off. And then after the satellite successfully launches, a huge Chinese satellite quickly attacks and disables it.
Multiple f-words, misuses of God’s and Jesus’ names, and other sundry profanities litter the script. Maggie, Mark’s wife, tells him to go out and hook up with other women. (Which he refuses to do.) She also recounts a cellmate’s advice to lay back and accept sexual abuse. A floating tail is evidence that a space chimp has eaten its fellow space flight companion. Gags are tossed out involving the kidnapping of civilians, drug use, sexual abuse, breasts, alcohol consumption and gender.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
Netflix takes a classic sitcom, Good Times, and turns it into a vulgar, violent, sexually-charged TV-MA show.
