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pronunciation. The actor did much the same memorably and hilariously as a persnickety CIA analyst in the Coen brothers’ Burn After Reading. Let’s just say that the performances — including those by Jane Lynch, Patrick Warburton, Noah Emmerich, and Diedrich Bader as Naird’s fellow Joint Chiefs — hold few Space Force goes not-that-boldly where plenty of shows to no surprises. If anything does surhave gone before. By André Hereford prise, it’s the show’s tortured pace and shocking under-use of Lisa Kudrow as HE NEW NETFLIX MILITARY SPOOF SPACE FORCE TAKES SEVERAL Naird’s wife, Maggie, sidelined early on half-hour episodes to lift off into its shaky orbit as workplace-dramedy-meets- in a subplot that unfolds too slowly and Trump-era satire. Co-created by Steve Carell and Emmy-winning producer Greg without much payoff. Daniels, the standard-bearer of sitcoms that take their time to marinate (The Office The description applies as well to the and Parks and Recreation), Space Force (HHHHH) is never bad, but it’s not that funny, show, which tries to be many things at which registers as a major disappointment given its cast of comedic heavy-hitters and once, all well-meaning and well-consida seemingly sure-fire premise. ered, but the rhythm and temperature of Carell stars as General Mark Naird, elevated in episode one to the rank of four-star the comedy (and the commentary) feel general and the command of POTUS’s hastily assembled Space Force, the sixth branch miscalculated. Even the good bits run of the U.S. military. Naird represents only a slight variation on long, while gags and patter tend Click Here to Carell’s comic persona of affably dim and unfailingly decent, to sit there, or worse, sink into although the general does frequently exhibit the characterisWatch the Trailer pockets of dull air. From the tics of good leadership. He’s adaptable, courageous, and he’s a jokes to the camerawork and shrewd reader of people. He just has a hard time getting the quirky lot around him to editing, the series lacks the snap of winfall in line, starting with chief scientist, Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich). ning comedy — that is, until a brisk, brief Tweedy, persnickety Mallory has devoted his career at NASA to advancing man- peak through episodes five and six, both of kind’s exploration and understanding of space, and gets righteously teed off at the which were directed by Oscar-nominated idea of nations turning the cosmos into a war zone. But, as he and Naird are constantly queer filmmaker Dee Rees. Not every compelled to work together — on everything from lunar war games to coordinating viewer will have the critic’s fortitude or an emergency satellite rescue-mission with a “chimpstronaut” named Marcus — they incentive to slog through Space Force’s begrudgingly come to complement one another. They’re an unlikely but likable duo. early hit-or-miss trajectory to reach that At one point, Naird half-jokingly refers to Mallory as his aide-de-camp, leading intended target — so strap in for a low-revto Malkovich repeatedly over-enunciating (under-enunciating?) the proper French ving launch and keep a finger on the eject.
Alright Stuff
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Space Force is available for streaming on Netflix. Visit www.netflix.com. MAY 28, 2020 • METROWEEKLY.COM
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